We have reached the dog days of the offseason. After three years of NHL and PWHL offseason recaps that summarized and forecasted the road ahead, I decided to do something different. I could have written thousands of words about the NHL’s Western Conference, or the future of the four PWHL expansion teams, but this summer, I felt like there was something more important:

Candy.

Now, if you’ve ever seen an episode of the Black Stitch Hockey Cast, you know that our EIC and COO are less than three hundred pounds combined (though we are getting closer since our EIC started his creatine regimen), making them less than experts on the subject. Since I (Christian) have never housed a jar of pickle juice on a livestream before, in the eyes of our readers, I have not established my tastebuds as compromised (sorry, pickle juice lovers, it’s not personal). We’re going with an S to F tier system below. 

The list is a touch limited to look at more major, mainstream bars, but also candy bars I’ve eaten (several against my will) in the last several years to prevent recency bias. Additionally, I’m not evaluating different brands of the same bar, ie Godiva, Dove, Ghiradelli, Lindt, etc. because that defeats the purpose. Hypothetically, a basic bar from the first three would be in A-tier, while Lindt lives in C because of, well, the alleged levels of lead. Anyway, have fun, and don’t take this list as seriously as Bowen Byram’s contract in Chicago.

Twix – S 

This is already controversial, but stay with me. There’s nothing in a Twix bar that ruins or compromises the Twix bar experience. Starting from the core, the cookie and caramel combo is elite, it’s not too sweet, and it provides a great first bite, while not becoming overly chewy, despite the caramel. On the outside, the amount of chocolate is perfect for the way I eat candy bars. The quality of the chocolate isn’t offensive (Mars is okay in my books), but it’s the thickness that sells it. After that satisfying first bite as you snap a bite of Twix into your mouth, the chocolate shell presents you with two options: 1. To start chewing or 2. to dissolve the chocolate on your tongue. Let me tell you, if you regularly do the latter, you understand why the Twix is an S-rated candy.

Kit-Kat – S

If you disagree with me, that’s fine, but that also means you think you’re better than me – Elitist. The Kit-Kat is the simplest of delights, just wafer and a layer of chocolate. It’s such a simple, but perfect concept, that even Hershey’s F-tier American chocolate can’t ruin them. Sure, an American Kit-Kat is massively inferior to an internationally made one (Nestle is the devil, but at least they make good chocolate), but the wafer to chocolate ratio is so perfect that I can’t dock it any letters of love… International Kit-Kats would receive an S+ if the tier system needed it.

Milky Way – A

Milky Ways are great, truly the peak of the nougat filled chocolate bar. It builds on the concept of what makes the Three Musketeers bar great by adding a new flavor and an enhanced mouthfeel. The first bite is great, but is maximized by following Christian’s rules of eating a frosted donut (eat it upside down so the frosting touches your tongue first). The order of chocolate, caramel, then nougat gives a great experience that can’t be properly replicated in a nougat-based candy bar.

Hershey’s Cookies & Cream Bar – A

It’s fitting that the best basic bar that Hershey’s makes is the one that isn’t a chocolate bar. Milk, sugar, oils, and cookie crumbled flakes, that’s it. Without Hershey’s awful chocolate (no, I’m not going to stop saying this), the smooth and rich texture that made them famous is front and center with this bar. I know that these don’t actually taste like cookies and milk, and I can’t quite name what the flavor actually is, but the only time I’ve regretted eating these is when I throw them up after, and even then, they’re not that bad.

Three Musketeers – B

There isn’t a single thing wrong with a Three Musketeers bar. It’s a moderately thick chocolate shell encasing fluffy nougat. It does the job and scratches the itch it needs to, but that’s all it does. I love nougat, man, but I can’t give the Three Musketeers a higher rating since it doesn’t try to be bolder or appeal to anything in my mouth.

Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup – B 

The Reese’s peanut butter cup is an incredible and iconic candy. The concept is truly without flaw, and the ratio of chocolate and peanut butter is perfect (all of the various holiday variants get that blend wrong). If I wrote this article 15 years ago, the PBC would be in the S tier, no doubt, but Hershey, the Marc Bergevin of candy companies, have degraded the quality to a point where the Reese family has criticized the current PBC more than I ever could. Honestly, if you want the S-tier feeling, just go buy a Justin’s dark chocolate peanut butter cup.

M&M’s – B

Before I started this article, I discussed doing an entire deep dive into all of the varieties of M&M’s because they’re not all created equal (Pretzel, Crisp, and Brownie are ELITE), but for the sake of keeping things tidy, we’re just evaluating plain M&M’s. Simply, it’s a great concept. A sweet candy shell around Mars chocolate. From a mouthfeel perspective, they can be a hard candy or a chewing candy, and the flavor balance is great either way. These live in the B tier on the same logic as the Three Musketeers, which is why the variants exist.

Payday – C 

I love Paydays, and these are biased and subjective rankings, but I can’t put these any higher on the list. Without chocolate, a candy bar just isn’t capable of exceeding a C, and chocolate Paydays are D tier candy because the chocolate and peanut mouthfeel dynamic is really difficult to get right. The blend of peanuts and caramel is fantastic though. Excellent concept with excellent execution.

Nestle Crunch Bar – C

The concept of the crunch bar is great. Adding crisp rice to a chocolate bar to make it less dense and enhance the texture makes sense on paper. It just… doesn’t really hit in reality. Come at me for this, but I don’t think there’s a single person on Earth whose favorite candy bar is a Nestle Crunch Bar. It’s not bad, it’s simply the most “I guess I’ll eat it” candy bar ever made. However, to Nestle’s credit, they made the Nestle Crunch Crisp Chocolate Crispy Wafers at the end of the 2000s, which used the Crunch bar chocolate as a wafer shell like a Kit-Kat, which was maybe the greatest candy I ate in my childhood, so yeah, said Nestle an angry email to bring those back to the United States if you’re reading this.

Snickers – D

Okay, I know, I know, I’m going to get hammered in the comments section for this like when I ranked Laila Edwards at 7 in my last PWHL Mock Draft. I bet you did a double take when I gave Three Musketeers a “B” after praising it for being “average,” but knowing when to not take a risk is commendable. People love the Snickers, especially when they aren’t themselves when they’re hungry, but I hate the entire experience. If you follow the “Donut Method” your mouthfeel experience is thick chocolate, peanut, caramel, and then nougat after biting through the snap, not the crunch, of the peanut layer. The Twix established the perfect first bite texture, and the Snickers bar is unpleasant by comparison. The Snickers bar is the Icarus of candy bars, it has every component that makes a candy bar great (except wafer), and honestly gave us an experience that is less than the sum of its parts.

To be slightly incendiary, to hell with the Snickers bar. They hated Jesus because he told them the truth.

Mounds – D 

I understand why people enjoy this. I do not. At no point in my life have I ever thought, “Man, I could go for a thick mouthful of coconut and the worst imitation dark chocolate shell on the planet.” I could get past not enjoying the coconut if the chocolate wasn’t terrible, but it is.

Hershey’s Chocolate Bar – D

Don’t let nostalgia cloud your judgement, much like Barry Melrose’s broadcasting and coaching career, these were decent in their prime (1900-2005), but have become so mediocre after a series of recipe and packaging changes, that it’s not worth the palm oil they replaced the cocoa butter with. Giving these out for free on Halloween feels like tormenting other peoples’ children. However, my wife really likes these, so coupling that with her decision to marry me, reader, we can’t exactly trust her taste in chocolate or men.

Almond Joy – F 

Take everything terrible I just said about Mounds, but add the texture of an almond to the mix. The other members of Black Stitch Hockey that aren’t allergic to tree nuts enjoy these (particularly our EIC, in adherence to what he described as a family tradition), and I love that for them. I’d rather chew a piece of Fruit Stripes Gum for hours while washing it down with Moxie than eat an Almond Joy.