In honor of Halloween this year, I thought I would take a few moments to make another top ten list – this one being of my favorite types of candy.  This has been a topic of conversation I’ve had over the past several months about which candy is best.  Much of this was sparked earlier this year when my office had a March Madness style “candy bracket”, in which co-workers would vote on different matchups of two different candies (for example, Skittles vs. Jolly Ranchers), with the candy receiving the most votes advancing in the bracket, until a champion candy was declared.  However, the correct candy (or at least what I consider to be the correct candy) did not win, so I am here just in time for Halloween to set the record straight on which one is best.

Consideration for my top ten list is based on candy that is traditionally passed out to kids on Halloween.  So, no cookies or other desserts are included here.  The list will also not include apples, raisins (good as they may be), toothbrushes, or rocks tossed in Charlie Brown’s Halloween bag.

In addition, the following candies did not make my top ten:  Airheads, Almond Joy, Baby Ruth, Blow Pops, Butterfinger, Crunch Bars, Gummy Bears, Gummy Worms, Heath Bars, Jolly Ranchers, Laffy Taffy, Milk Duds, Milky Way, Mounds, Mr. Goodbar, Payday, Peanut M&Ms, Runts, Skittles, Sour Patch Kids, Starburst, Tootsie Rolls, Twizzlers, Whoppers, or 100 Grand.

Not that I’ve actually tried all of the above items or that all of them would have been worthy enough to be included anyway, but now that you know what’s not in my top ten, perhaps you can guess what did make my list.  I can tell you that if I had expanded the list to rank all the items I just mentioned, Twizzlers would have finished last on my list.  Also, ranking all the above items would have forced me to re-visit the debate about which is better between Gummy Bears or Gummy Worms, and I would rather leave that one alone.

And now on to our top ten…

10. Kit Kat Bars.  The chocolate wafer bars of Kit Kat are pretty good.  And who can forget that jingle… “Give me a break, give me a break.  Break me off a piece of that…”  (Cue Andy Bernard forgetting the end of the jingle.)

9. Smarties.  Most of my list is based on chocolate; however, I will make an exception for Smarties.  I understand that not everyone likes Smarties, as they have been compared to tablets of chalk by some people.  Not me though.  Granted, I haven’t had Smarties in quite some time, but I used to enjoy the sugary goodness that they provide.  And I’m also partial to the name.  As the saying goes, “You are what you eat.”

8. Nerds.  Another non-chocolate entry on this list.  And for the candy-loving self-proclaimed nerds out there, another one where you can say, “You are what you eat.”  This is also another one I haven’t had in a while, but I remember the tiny pebbles of sugary goodness of Nerds.  They came in several different flavors too.  My favorites were grape and strawberry.

7. Hershey Bars.  Such a simple concept – just plain old regular milk chocolate.  But it does the job in both taste and smell.  It makes you want to move to Hershey, Pennsylvania so that you can smell it all the time.  I also like how their Hershey bars have little sections that you can break off, so that you can have an appropriate amount and not eat the whole thing all at once if it’s too much.

6. Junior Mints.  To borrow a line from an episode of Seinfeld, “Who’s going to turn down a Junior Mint?  It’s chocolate, it’s peppermint, it’s delicious.  It’s very refreshing!”  Kramer’s words to Jerry on that show pretty well sum it up.

5. Twix.  To borrow yet another quote from Seinfeld, this time from George Costanza, “Twix is the only candy with the cookie crunch!”  This used to be an often-quoted line with a co-worker anytime I would get a Twix bar from the vending machine at work.  I do like the cookie crunch.

4. Snickers.  This won the candy bracket in my office.  And while this was the correct result between Snickers or Jolly Ranchers, it shouldn’t have made it past my #1 on this list in the second round.  (And while I am fine with Jolly Ranchers, they are not in my top ten.)  While Snickers are not #1 on my list, I do enjoy Snickers, as it provides a satisfying combination of peanuts and chocolate.  It’s a great energy boost if you’re “not going anywhere for a while,” or if “you’re not you” (as their commercials will have you believe).  Also, I used to get the regular sized Snickers candy bar from vending machines, but over time, I think I’ve come to prefer the smaller sized Snickers as well.

3.  Plain M&Ms.  I don’t necessarily care for the Peanut M&Ms, but I really like the plain ones.  Also, anytime I get a bag of M&Ms, I separate them out by color before eating them.  Currently, the colors include blue, green, yellow, orange, red, and brown (with purple on the way, apparently).  I’m always interested to see how equally distributed the colors are.  Then I either eat them one color at a time, or rotate by color, depending on my mood.

Also, I wish people would stop pronouncing one singular candy as an “Eminem” after the rapper.  Rather, they should say, “M and M,” making sure to pronounce the full word.  Otherwise, people might get confused.

2.  Reese’s Pieces.  Similar to M&Ms, while they don’t have as many colors, they more than make up for that in the fact that they contain peanut butter.  Popularized by the movie ET, and distributed in orange, yellow, and brown, they combine my love for chocolate with my love of peanut butter.  And, just like M&Ms, whenever I get a bag, I separate these by colors as well.

1.  Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups.  Considering how partial I am to both chocolate and peanut butter, Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups definitely get the top spot on this list.  If anyone from my office is reading this, this is the one that should have won the candy bracket.  You just can’t beat chocolate and peanut butter.

You will notice that the Reese’s combination of chocolate and peanut butter took both the #1 and #2 spots on my list.  But they are different enough products that they count separately.  If I wanted to expand on this idea, I could have listed Reese’s peanut butter eggs on here as well, or Russell Stover’s peanut butter cups or eggs (or bunnies for Easter).  But those are essentially the same thing, as they are part of the “peanut butter cup family.”  So, while they don’t get their own separate spots in the top ten, I’ll at least mention them here as variations of my top choice, Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups.

The real question with each of the candies that feature a combination of peanut butter and chocolate is, what is the best peanut butter to chocolate ratio?  Is 50-50 the ideal combination?  Or is it better to have more chocolate or more peanut butter?  What is the actual ratio of peanut butter to chocolate?  Does the size and shape of the candy affect it?  That is the topic of another discussion I have had, but I think I’ll have to save my thoughts there for a later blog post while I do some research and mathematical analysis.  For now, though, I’ll just leave you with this top ten list, so that you all know that Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups belong at the top, and the others in the top ten are good too.

I hope you enjoyed this list.  Do you think I got this list right?  Did I leave anything off?  What would you have put on the top of the list?  Feel free to leave a comment and let me know.  In the meantime, have a Happy Halloween, and don’t eat too much candy!