Roundtable: What's the Best Halloween Candy?

Who are the three greatest golfers of all time? According to an interview Gary Player did with the Palm Beach Post this week to celebrate his 90th birthday, they are Jack Nicklaus, Tiger Woods, and … Gary Player. “There is not even a question,” Player said. We wanted to weigh in, but realized: Who needs another golf debate, especially on Halloween? Instead, we decided to have a different kind of GOAT debate. What’s your favorite Halloween candy? We asked each member of the Fried Egg staff to give us their ride-or-die piece.

100 Grand

Do not let the Snickers and Milky Way mafia continue to sell you the lie that nougat is anything more than filler. This is history’s most underrated candy bar because every ingredient counts. The chocolate and caramel are, obviously, one of the great marriages in the history of candy, but they knew they could spice things up in the relationship by adding rice crispies for texture. Saying you love Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups is like saying you like Bruce Springsteen or Taylor Swift. Congrats, you like something that is already popular and critically acclaimed, which makes you aggressively basic. But claiming 100 Grand as your own is like claiming Warren Zevon as your favorite artist. You might be weird, you might end up in jail for being an excitable boy, but at least you stand for something. —Kevin Van Valkenburg

I co-sign KVV’s 100 Grand endorsement. The goo-to-crunch ratio is perfect and should be studied by our leading scientists and philosophers. I also like Warren Zevon. —Garrett Morrison

Snickers

Hi, “Snickers mafia” here, I guess. Sometimes it’s ok to say that something good is good. You don’t have to be a candy hipster. Snickers bars are one of the few things in 2025 that have a high approval rating across all ideologies and palates. I would say my appreciation for Snickers bars started as a young caddie who appreciated a Snickers at the turn. It rose to new heights the first time I looked at a pack of Starburst and thought to myself, “I’m not so sure the human body is designed to process a sleeve of plastic squares.” No disrespect or shame to the non-chocolate crowd. Frankly, I admire your bodies’ resilience.

Snickers are a top-tier draft selection. Not particularly flashy but reliable. It’s like selecting a great offensive tackle in the NFL Draft.  Strong in all forms: at room temperature, frozen, stuffed with ice cream, etc. If that’s aggressively basic, I’m guilty as charged. Whatever, there are much worse mafias to be associated with, especially given my name. —Joseph LaMagna

Reese’s

Say it louder for the people in the back, Joseph. If loving the combination of chocolate and peanut butter makes me “aggressively basic” then I’ll wear that title like a badge of honor as I sit back and enjoy the best candy on the market while listening to The River. If chocolate and peanut butter aren’t enough to sway you, how about the versatility the fine folks at Reese’s bring to the candy game: cups and mini cups, holiday shapes (shoutout the egg), pieces, the Fast Break. I stand for flavor. I stand for Reese’s. —Adam Woodard

Twix

While not my personal No. 1, there is a case to be made that both Left and Right Twix should be considered for the top spot. Where Reese’s can get heavy due to its peanut butter centerpiece, the airy nature of the Twix base leaves one with a sense of levity. Its balance of chocolate, caramel, and shortbread makes it a stunner at every turn. But what really solidifies Twix’s spot in the pantheon of Halloween candies is its versatility. And no, I’m not talking about all the variation bulls*** that comes out, spare me Cookie Dough or Snickerdoodle Twix, I’m talking about how a fun-size Twix still hits home like the full thing. Hell, it may even be the right size. It’s a top-three candy by any measure. —Will Knights

3 Musketeers

The sports specialist of candy. Think a speedster like John Ross or Billy Hamilton. Are they complete players? Absolutely not. But does their one skill wow you at every turn? 100%. The 3 Musketeers doesn’t pretend to be anything it isn’t. If you came for more than nougat, you came to the wrong place. And that’s on you. It’s not always going to be what you need, but when you’re ready for it, a bite of 3M always does the trick. —Will Knights

Skittles

There is a lot of chocolate chatter here but I think everyone could taste the rainbow. Sure, you may hate the element of surprise when you open a package of yellow and orange Skittles, but it doesn’t hurt for you to live a little. Too much is predictable and known with these other candy options and Skittles is a surprise-and-delight moment on Halloween. Kids have it good these days with the Wild Berry pack of red, pink, and purple, but the classic red package of mystery still does it for me. —Abby Liebenthal

Junior Mints

“Who's gonna turn down a Junior Mint? It's chocolate, it's peppermint, it's delicious.” —Cosmo Kramer. I rest my case. —Meg Adkins

Sour Patch Kids

Look at all these hoity-toity, misguided minds picking one variation of chocolate or another. It’s like one of those caricature dorks saying they’d prefer to play just Raynors. The Sour Patch Kid is now on a 30-year run of reliable dominance with its sour-then-sweet multicolored charm. If we want to do golf course analogies, it’s Sand Hills. It arrived in the U.S. in the late 80s, slowly working its way into millennial mouths in the early-to-mid 90s. Those Kids weren’t ubiquitous, hanging out in dark alleyways and the wrong side of the tracks out of view of the mainstream drugstore lineup that had taken us into the candy dark ages. You had to work to get them or find them, and when you did, it was special. It was the jackpot. Then they took off at the turn of the century, ushering in a new age of candy and inspiring a billion other sour and sweet candy knock-offs and mutations over the last two decades. Some of these today are get-rich-quick schemes by YouTubers co-opting your kids’ tastes. What the hell are Joyrides, anyway? They’re not SPKs, I know that. The Sour Patch Kid has been on a bootstrapped trip to the top anyone could applaud, sticking to its identity even as it became dominant and grew older. —Brendan Porath

As a sour candy enthusiast, I stand with Brendan…partially. The watermelon SPK is far superior to the OG, but I’ll settle for whatever I can get my hands on. Sour. Sweet. Gone. —Matt Rouches

Nerds Gummy Clusters

Every now and then, a young athlete will break on the scene and immediately insert themselves into the top tier of the game. Think Paul Skenes, Caitlin Clark, Victor Wembanyama, or maybe even Michael Brennan. Released in late 2020, the Nerds Gummy Cluster has been on a generational run for the last five years. Celebrity endorsements, record sales, a Super Bowl commercial parodying “Flashdance,” you name it.

I’ll be the first to admit that Nerds need a vehicle for consumption – they’re too hard to eat from the box. They’re tiny, they can spill everywhere, and you’re just shoveling handfuls with reckless abandon. The fine folks at Willy Wonka decided to upgrade on the already-elite Nerds Rope with the Gummy Cluster, combining the necessary backbone with an easy-to-eat shape. No offense to the Nerds Rope, but who’s carrying around a foot of candy in their back pocket?

Some could say that these Clusters should be illegal – too overpowered, too tasty, too portable. Wonka saw these chirps and raised the bar: Nerds Juicy Gummy Clusters are now on shelves. What’s better than a tangy and crunchy outside with a sweet and gummy inside? Combine it with a Gusher for an extra hit of sugar explosion. That’s what the true greats do – they evolve. Candy Wemby just got back from training with the Shaolin monks. It’s over for the league. —PJ Clark