Sometimes Foodie: It's Frick'n Bats!

Reese's Bats Cereal - Gift

Another, normal, year-round product with a spOoky makeover. Now I got this as a gift, so part of me feels obligated to gush over it, and yes, it has great seasonal box art, but I'm going to take this opportunity to voice a (potentially) hot take instead.

Reese's Puffs. Are Garbage. Thank you for coming to my TED talk.
Before avid Reese's-fans roast me, let me explain.
I'm one of you! I love Reese's Cups, and mourn the loss of the really awesome Reese's Oreo collab. I may not be a peanut butter addict, BUT I do love peanut butter breakfast cereal, and when it comes to great peanut butter flavor, this ain't it.

When it was first introduced in the 90's, the concept blew my mind, "It's Reese's, for breakfast!?" Commercials were all over Nickelodeon, but, let's all be honest, cereal tasted better back then. Was it because everything was sugary and unhealthy? Maybe. Were our tastebuds just young and inexperienced? Possibly. Has general nostalgia for a time where we didn't have bills to pay, where the highlight of the weekend was not getting to catch up on laundry, but to sit down and watch One Saturday Morning with Pepper-Ann and a bowl of cereal-somehow tainting my perception of what this actually tasted like back then? Ouch, that one hit a little too close to the-aging-millennial, but no. I don't think that's it. At least, not -entirely- it.
Right now, in the year of our Lord, 2022, I, a newly 35-year-old lady, am sad to report, this tastes like wet cardboard.

This cereal is meant to taste like Reese's cups, chocolate and peanut butter, a combination as American as apple pie and a lack of universal healthcare. I remember it tasting great as a kid, like Cocoa Puffs and Peanut Butter Crunch had a dusty-sugary-cereal-baby. But, that is no longer the case. Fresh out the box, this tastes sad. Especially sad in milk where any semblance of flavor is washed away.

There's a faint whisper of powdered peanut butter, like that stuff you can buy in the fallout shelter area of the wholesale club, with a memory of cocoa. It has a delightful crunch, and a corn-y base, but does it taste like chocolate? No. Peanut butter? No. Is it even good? Not really.

Actual Reese's are great, I bought the HUGE bag of bats, pumpkins, and ghosts that came out this year. Sure, the chocolate quality isn't the same as it was 20 years ago, and they're all practically the same unidentifiable blob-shape inside their themed wrappers, but I love the chocolate-to-peanut-butter ratio they have, and they still taste delicious. I love them, you love them, but I don't love this cereal. I wanted to, but the flavor just isn't there.
Compared to the real deal, an actual Reese's Bat, this cereal is a ghost of it's former self. (Although I do get a kick out of their blobby bat shapes that are somehow more bat-like than their Reese's counterpart.)

If you want a halfway decent peanut butter breakfast cereal, Peanut Butter Crunch still delivers. I went out and got myself a box to compare and it's night and day. I'm sure it tasted even better as a kid, but the corny spheres still pack a slightly salty peanut butter punch, even in milk. And there's the more healthy Peanut Butter Panda Puffs I used to buy in the early 2000's, if they're still around, which would also blow this cereal out of the water. Or, more aptly, milk.
In my opinion, if you want a truly great chocolate peanut butter breakfast cereal, you'll need to mix it yourself. Adding a top tier chocolate cereal to PB Captain Crunch is lightyears better than this pre-mixed box. Heck, even drizzling Hershey's syrup on top of a bowl of Captain Crunch would be more flavorful than this and cheaper too.
In short, this is a cute box. I love that Reese's goes all out with artist collabs and seasonal branding, but it's the actual cereal inside that needs a makeover. If you love it, that's great for you, I won't "yuck your yum," but I think we can all safely agree, it tasted better before.
Today, instead of a Halloween Ramble, I actually have my ever growing YouTube Halloween Playlist.

Feel free to listen along! Spoiler alert, it's a lot of songs from Movies and Pop Culture. (Alvin and the Chipmunks meet The Wolfman is an underrated masterpiece!)