Every October, candy brands all over the supermarket transform their products in shape and color. Naturally, people may think this is associated with a change in flavor–but is that really true? I tasted various brands of candy and their Halloween-ified versions in order to find out.
Reese’s
In October, Reese’s candy can be found in the shape of ghosts, pumpkins and bats. I tried all three alongside the original to determine if there were any differences among them.
These small individually-packaged Halloween Reese’s come from an assorted bag of the three variants. Despite the packaging showing the candies with faces, the chocolate coating surrounds the peanut butter interior completely. There has actually been a lawsuit filed against Hershey’s for false advertising due to this. (Photo/Alex Ngo)
I didn’t find a noticeable difference among the Halloween Reese’s themselves, but they were noticeably smoother compared to the normal Reese’s, which felt somewhat grittier in contrast. This seems to be because the regular Reese’s has very thin layers of chocolate on its top and bottom, while the Halloween variants seemed to have even coating all-around.
The normal Reese’s peanut butter cup clearly has a thinner chocolate coating on its top and bottom, while the ghost-shaped Reese’s has a uniform coating of chocolate that is as thick as the chocolate coating on the sides of the normal Reese’s. (Photo/Alex Ngo)
The Halloween Reese’s did have a slightly lesser peanut butter flavor and more chocolate flavor, but there was overall not a significant difference in taste–only in texture.
Kit Kat
There are a few Halloween variations of Kit Kat bars, but the one I tried was the Witch’s Brew variant. Other variants include Breaking Bones and Ghost Toast KitKat bars. It has a light-green exterior and white filling instead of brown filling.
The Witch’s Brew Kit Kat distinctly says it is marshmallow-flavored, but not much else. Its color looks very similar to white chocolate, but it’s hard to tell flavor-wise. (Photo/Alex Ngo)
The chocolate coating had slightly less chocolate flavor–I believe this is because it is white chocolate instead of milk chocolate, though this was nowhere on the packaging. Also, the interior has a strong marshmallow flavor, accurate to the packaging. This marshmallow flavor is basically all there is to the bar–the chocolate coating’s flavor was only distinguishable when I tasted it on its own.
Sour Patch Kids
Sour Patch Kids has a Halloween variant called Sour Patch Kids Zombie. This package contains only orange and purple gummies, which are labeled as orange-flavored and raspberry-flavored, respectively. The orange Sour Patch Kids are found commonly in the normal variety of Sour Patch Kids, but the raspberry flavor is found in only a few Sour Patch Kids products.
The two Sour Patch Kids Zombie gummies on the left are noticeably more well-defined in their shape compared to the original Sour Patch Kids gummies on the right. They come in far fewer flavors, though–there’s much more variety to be found in the original gummies. (Photo/Alex Ngo)
I did not taste a difference between the two orange-flavored Sour Patch Kids. The raspberry-flavored Sour Patch Kids gummy did indeed taste similar to raspberry, and it was a different flavor from the red berry-flavored and blue blue-raspberry-flavored Sour Patch Kids gummies. The Halloween variant was also chewier than the original.
Snickers
The Snickers were externally indistinguishable–their only difference was that the nougat of the Halloween version, Snickers Ghoulish Green, was a mint-green color. This might have implied that the nougat had mint flavor, but if it did, the packaging made no mention of it.
The two Snickers bars don’t vary at all in their chocolate coatings. Their only clear difference was the color of their nougat. (Photo/Alex Ngo)
There was no difference between the two Snickers bars in terms of taste. The ingredients lists on each Snickers’ packaging confirmed my conclusions– they were identical to each other, save for artificial coloring used in the Ghoulish Green variant.
Many candy brands do introduce different flavors in October, but if the product doesn’t outright say it, it’s safe to assume that it tastes the same as the original. You can buy these unique candy variants at stores like Walmart, Target and even Dollar Tree.
