North Texas Daily

A quick trip to Walgreens, Kroger or Albertsons has become dangerous for dessert lovers everywhere … Girl Scout Cookie season is upon us.

I personally had only tried three (Thin Mints, Samoas and Tagalongs) of the eight cookies in my market prior to my Girl Scout haul — where I looked like a crazy person lugging around a grocery bag bursting with cookie boxes — and it had been years since I’d tasted them. But how do they stack up to the rest of the flavors?

Thankfully, you don’t have to spend $42 to find out. Here’s my ranking of each Girl Scout Cookie flavor, from best to worst.

1. Samoas

I don’t care how much hype surrounds Thin Mints — Samoas are the OG Girl Scout Cookie. This cookie is easily the most flavor-packed and gooey, as all of the other cookies are quite dry. These cookies are coated in caramel, toasted coconut shavings and a chocolate drizzle. This is the only flavor that I could (and would) seriously eat the entire box in one sitting.

2. Thin Mints

While Thin Mints are the most popular Girl Scout Cookie flavor, I rank them second to Samoas for one reason — the power of the flavor. As a mint fanatic, I believe these cookies could stand to be mintier, as they’re basically just dry chocolate cookies with mint extract. I’d like them a lot more if they were more — pardon my word choice — moist, with some sort of mint crème filling like Junior Mints. Still, they’re addicting to eat and I can see how this less intense mint flavor would appeal to the portion of the population who believes, for whatever baffling reason, that mint tastes like toothpaste.

3. Tagalongs

The only dessert combo I love more than chocolate and mint is chocolate and peanut butter, so you would think these would be at the top of my list. These cookies are essentially chocolate-covered cookie patties filled with a very underwhelming layer of peanut butter, and while they’re good, they can’t compare to the chocolate peanut butter cup cookie from Insomnia Cookies. If you don’t like the intensely filling flavor of a lot of peanut butter, then this cookie is for you.

4. Do-Si-Dos

This is their other peanut butter flavored cookie and it closely resembles a Nutter Butter. A smear of peanut butter is sandwiched between two oatmeal cookies, and while these contain a little more peanut butter than tagalongs, they are slightly more bland and dry.

5. Trefoils

This is the most basic Girl Scout Cookie — they’re just plain shortbread. They’ve got a nice flavor, though, and they aren’t quite as brittle and crumbly as some of the other flavors. If you’re a fan of a simple, classic tasting cookie, this one’s for you.

6. Girl Scout S’mores

This is another sandwich cookie, made of two graham cracker cookies and filled with a chocolate and marshmellow spread. These cookies are not bad, per se, but something about them just tastes … off. I can see how these would appeal to younger kids, as they’re probably the cutest looking cookie and likely taste great to them. But for older crowds, these cookies just taste too artificial to serve as a proper alternative to s’mores.

7. Lemon-Ups

Lemon desserts are another favorite of mine (honestly, all dessert is a favorite of mine) but these cookies are tragic. They’re basically round shortbread cookies with some sort of weird coating on the bottom that provides the lemon flavor. This coating is extremely offputting, as the lackluster flavor itself combined with the plastic-like texture of the coating makes the cookie taste soapy to me.

8. Toffee-Tastic (Gluten-free)

I’m not at all opposed to gluten-free desserts if they are done right, and this one was done oh so wrong. This is easily the most dry, bland and crumbly cookie out there with a minescule amount of toffee in it. I actually wanted to toss the cookie after my first bite, which is a major red flag coming from someone as dessert-oriented as I am. For all you gluten-free people out there, I’m sorry, but the Girl Scouts have failed you. These cookies taste like sand.

Overall, I must admit I was underwhelmed by most of these cookies. If I’m going to destroy my body with dessert, it better be worth it, and while most of these cookies were at least good, they weren’t phenomenal (though these aren’t as unhealthy as, say, a brownie.) I’ll definitely still binge on some Thin Mints, though, and Samoas are in the running for my favorite cookie of all time, so a quick stop at the Girl Scout booth for a $5 box is still worth it, especially for a good cause.

Featured Image: Girl Scout cookies can be purchased at most grocery stores in Denton and at the Golden Triangle Mall. Photo by Zachary Cottam