Best and worst candy is listed

Double Bubble Gum is the favorite Halloween candy in Oklahoma.

That subjective conclusion comes from a national survey from CandyStore.com.

Snickers came in second and Skittles was third in Oklahoma.

In Texas and Kansas, Reese’s Cups were tops. Arkansas went for Skittles. Colorado chose Twix. Louisiana picked Lemonheads. Milky Way was the choice for Missouri.

And for some inexplicable reason, New Mexico selected candy corn.

Besides surveying the most popular Halloween Candy in each state, CandyStore.com compiled lists of the Top 10 Best Halloween Candies and the Bottom 10 Worst Halloween Candies.

CandyStore.com surveyed 30,000 of their customers and then checked their results with 12 other candy lists (including Fox News, Bon Appetit, Business Insider and others).

“These are the worst Halloween candies, updated for 2019,” according to their website. “Emphasis on worst is important because people, frankly, get pretty heated about this.”

Worst Halloween Candies

10. Bit-O-Honey

Honey is great. Chewy candies can be great. But there’s just something unappealing about this chewy mess. Bit-O-Honey was ranked No. 11 last year and moved into the number ten spot this year, replacing Mary Janes. Perhaps this confirms that some flavors just don’t mix well with chewy candies. Mary Janes are still in limbo, by the way.

9. Good & Plenty

Since Good & Plenty are pretty much licorice, we see the reason why people don’t like them. I never minded getting a box here and a box there on a Halloween excursion. But they were never my favorites — which meant I ate them first, which is kid logic for ya.

8. Licorice

Note that this does not include Twizzlers, and if you read the lists you’ll see they allude to, if not outright say, black licorice. Around the office the reaction was pretty much the same. Australian licorice, if you can get your hands on it, is great. The style we see at Halloween? Not so much.

7. Smarties

Your kids will get plenty of these on Halloween. It’s inevitable. At first they’re not so bad. But the human tongue can take only so many vaguely sweet, chalky hard candy.

6. Tootsie Rolls

Your kids will also get a lot of these. They’re the easy way out for people who don’t want to spend money handing out candy to kids. You can throw a handful into each kid’s bag and it won’t set you back much. But kids tend not to like them. Note that this is a combination of regular Tootsie Rolls and flavored Tootsie Rolls (which are flat out disgusting).

5. Necco Wafers

They’re like Smarties, but bigger, not as sweet, and more chalky. So yeah. These took the top spot on one list, and I’m surprised they weren’t on every list. When I started this project, I was sure that they’d be the hands down worst candy. But then again, they have been off the market for a while since the Great Necco Wafer Panic.

4. Wax Coke Bottles

The novelty of these is great. The first time you get one. When you’re five years old. Then the realization sets in: you’re biting through wax to get not even a mouthful of sugar water. By age eight you toss them in the trash without even bothering.

3. Peanut Butter Kisses

Jumping all the way to No. 3 from the No. 5 spot, these are neither Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, nor Hershey’s Kisses. I’ve seen them referred to as Mary Janes, which makes enough sense. You know these because they have a plain orange or black wrapper. My advice is to leave them in that wrapper and move onto the next candy.

2. Circus Peanuts

I’d completely forgotten about these! Or, more accurately, I’d blocked them out. There is no way to describe the vileness that is Circus Peanuts. How could there possibly be a worse Halloween Candy?

They weren’t rated as the  No. 1 worst on everyone’s list because they, too, blocked these inedible monstrosities from their memories.

1. Candy Corn

Candy corn slid up into the No. 1 spot this year. Knocking circus peanuts off the throne. Which is really saying something. Man. Hang in there, candy corn.

I’m actually shocked. Look, if you don’t like candy corn, you can just give it to me. Yes, it’s just sugar. Isn’t that the point? Candy corn is nothing special. There are absolutely better candies out there. But if you can’t enjoy stuffing handfuls of candy corn into your mouth, well, I don’t even know what to tell you. But clearly, I’m well in the minority.

The 10 Best Halloween Candies

10. Hershey Bar

We’re again combining candies here, because there just isn’t that much difference between the original Hershey Bar and the Cookies ‘n’ Cream version. Or maybe there is for your palate. In any case, Hershey bars barely missed the worst list, yet got a few mentions on the best. Which, since it was based on sales, is pretty good reason to include Hershey Bar on the best list, in our eyes.

9. Skittles

If you’re not eating the entire fun size bag in one mouthful, you’re doing it wrong. None of us here ever minded getting Skittles in our Halloween bags. They’re tasty enough. But they’re nothing special, and if you eat too many your mouth starts to feel all lumpy.

8. Sour Patch Kids

We’re shocked these didn’t rank higher, given their chewiness and sweetness. But after high marks on the Business Insider and one other list,, Sour Patch Kids made zero additional appearances. It’s probably because they’re not that common treats.

7. Butterfinger

The classic Butterfinger appeared on a number of lists, usually in the second half of the top 10. We’re not going to argue. It’s a personal favorite of mine, but it’s easy to see why it would turn off some candy fans. Still, you’re not going to complain when one gets dropped in your bag, are you?

6. Nerds

The Nerds boxes you get on Halloween are typically tiny. As with Skittles, they’re pointless unless you down the whole thing in one mouthful. But maybe there’s something to that.

5. M&Ms

One list had pretzel M&Ms, which is oddly specific. They weren’t around when I trick-or-treated (it was plain and peanut back then), so I don’t even know that people hand out the fun-sized bags of them. In any case, M&Ms are great..

4. Kit Kat

On the surface the Kit Kat is pretty plain. It’s just chocolate and wafer. Yet it works so, so well. And it works very well on Halloween, since you’re getting essential half of a full-sized bar. That’s way more than you can say for most of the fun-sized versions of our favorite Halloween candies.

3. Twix

If I’m getting a full-sized candy bar on Halloween, make it a Twix, please. There’s just something about them that makes them irresistible. On Halloween you can count on three versions: the full-sized version, the one-stick half-sized version, and the fun-sized version. We hope you and your kids don’t get the fun-sized version, given the alternatives.

2. Snickers

There is no surprise here. I always preferred Milky Way, but people prefer more heartiness in a candy bar, apparently. Again, it would be so easy for people to go out of their ways and get full-sized versions. They’re not that big. But the fun-sized version is so small, so sad.

1. Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups

This was the blowout of the century. Of the seven lists we ranked, Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups ranked No. 1 on six of them, and ranked No. 3 on the other. And that list had six candies that didn’t appear on any of the other six lists, so yeah, this was just a candy massacre. Do we have to extol the virtues of the Peanut Butter Cup? My siblings and I used to separate them out and hide them, lest they get stolen. Many a tear was shed when someone picked a poor hiding spot.

For more information, go to www.candystore.com.