M&M, Milky Way, And Hershey's Kisses Get Freaky Flavors For Halloween

Give a candy company any excuse to sell you something new and they will—but mostly, if you haven't noticed, new varieties of old things. (Actual new candy bars come along very rarely.) So it's become something of a holiday/commercial tradition for your old favorites to take on new flavors at certain times of the year. It's no surprise that these limited-editions rarely make their way into regular production, because they're generally more unusual than actually good. And sometimes they're pretty bad.

For this year's crop, you'll see that the consensus around here is that badness holds about two-thirds of the time. The worst offender as far as I was concerned were the White Chocolate Candy Corn M&Ms. Putting the attempt at replicating the flavor aside (we were proved wrong with those Candy Corn Oreos!), these were generally just terrible. Perhaps fans of white chocolate (heretics) would have a better time, but to most of us these fell on the spectrum somewhere between decent and inedible.

Same goes for the Pumpkin Spice Hershey's Kisses, which eliminate the chocolate component as well, in favor of white chocolate with a "pumpkin" center that actually just tasted like nutmeg. And the consistency had little to do with original Hershey's Kisses—there's no bite here at all, just a mush of unpleasant flavor.

Finally, the potentially fake-iest tasting of the lot: Caramel Apple Milky Way, a Target exclusive that only comes in the Mini size. With just a hint of apple flavor, and not too fake-y a flavor at that, these were the clear winner. Thumbs up. Read some office reactions below, and watch the video above.

Office reactions:

Pumpkin Spice Kisses

• "All fancy-flavored white chocolate is a cop-out. Even the glorious Green Tea Kit-Kat is cheating. It's the candy maker asking for a white canvas, because they are afraid of what a brown one will look like. White chocolate is always waxy and plain. You can do better, Hershey."
• "Why is this Kiss half-melted? It's like a sloppy first-date kiss."
• "The waxy orange-brown color is a visual clue for what this will taste like: Unnatural."
• "Flavor and texture are bad. Not worth eating or giving away. Good thing Halloween only comes once a month."
• "There was a dash too much cinnamon. Too often this is the poor man's pumpkin flavoring. We get it! You're afraid to make candy taste like a vegetable. But you can go easy on the spice already."
• "I loved it. I hope everyone hates them so I can have more. I cannot explain why I forgive the obvious flaws of this candy and want it so badly. There is something in my wiring that detects pumpkin flavoring, even horribly artificial varieties, and the rest of my brain shuts down. I am a dirty pumpkin whore, and I am ashamed. But the little pumpkin whore gets his yummy chocolate. Little pumpkin whore wins."
• "These didn't taste too bad initially but the texture is awful; like melting clay except gummier. Also that cloying spice flavor that everyone equates to being 'pumpkin' lingers even after chugging some water."


Caramel Apple Milky Way

• "There's already caramel in a Milky Way, so what kind of bullshit do you think you're pulling on me here? Just say apple."
• "It BARELY has apple sour in it. I mean, I liked it, but the way I would like a Milky way that had an unwrapped Apple Jolly Rancher rolled across it."
• "I can see myself eating an entire bag of these in one sitting in the hopes that the flavoring would grow in my mouth and I would retain a strong sense memory of it. But no, the flavor would likely leave me, and I would be all alone with Wilford Brimley Syndrome."
• "Surprisingly delightful. Like a a candy apple covered in caramel and chocolate and not overly sweet. Wish I had just eaten three of these!"


Candy Corn M&Ms

• "GROSS. These are so sweet I almost spit it out before actually getting all the way through the crunchy shell. It should be noted I only ate one and it was that bad."
• "Two great tastes that taste nauseous together."
• "I like the colors but that's about all."
• "White chocolate centers are sweeter than I expected. Candy corn is basically dyed sugar and corn syrup so this is not far off."
• "I can't get behind this product when there are peanut butter M&Ms in the world."