1. Kit Kats 

Perfect fun-size proportions, lots of coating flavors to choose from (anything from the classic milk chocolate to white peach) and the wafers are always delicious. Fun fact: the filling between wafers in Kit Kat’s are made up of ground-up Kit Kats, so you can rest easy knowing nothing to goes to waste here. 

2. Reese’s Cups and Snickers 

These are tied for second because it’s hard to put one over the other. Reese’s offer peanut butter in a cup form with some chocolate; so simple yet effective. Snickers, on the other hand, give us chocolate, full peanuts, nougat and caramel. I feel like the level of how much you like these candies depends on whether you like crunchy or smooth peanut butter.  

3. Sour Patch Kids 

I have yet to meet a person who doesn’t like some kind of Sour Patch, and the amount of flavors to choose from has only gone up. You can go wrong with the original lime, lemon, peach and cherry, but Sour Patch has expanded to blue raspberry, watermelon, passion fruit, pineapple and punch. If there is a fruity flavor you like, Sour Patch Kids are sure to have it somewhere. For Halloween there are Sour Patch Zombies that have Rattling Raspberry and Ominous Orange flavors, but I think we need a little more variety than two flavors.  

4. Lollipops 

This heavily depends on the type of lollipop you get – Tootsie Pops, Blow Pops, Dum Dums, Jolly Rancher pops – the list is seemingly endless. As an adult, I find my lollipop consumption has gone way down, especially since I stopped going to a pediatrician and getting them after my shots, so I know if I got a lollipop, especially a Tootsie Pop or Blow Pop, I would be thrilled. Lollipops are classics but due to the variety, they never get too boring.  

5. M&M’s 

M&M’s belong in the middle because of the variety. Mini, classic and peanut M&M’s are all great, but what the M&M’s people get the most on Halloween are the “fun-sized” bags, which are little bags containing a small handful of M&M’s – and for some reason, the M&M’s in these specific bags taste like plastic and chemicals. I have never met a person willing to eat the “fun-sized” M&M’s, but so many of the other flavors are go-tos.  

 6. Starburst 

Another classic. Sometimes you would get singles in your trick-or-treat bad, other times they came in packs of two. Regardless, the yellow and pink flavors are on top and never disappointed. They are lower on the list, however, because of all the times Starburst gets stuck in my teeth.  

 7. Tootsie Rolls 

Tootsie Rolls come in the classic chocolate flavor as well as Tootsie Fruit Chews which include cherry, lemon, orange, vanilla and lime. While I can appreciate the effort here, the fruit flavors are nothing compared to classic Starburst flavors. The chocolate, however, is delicious, gooey and doesn’t rely on anything else to get its flavor across. Too bad the fruit rolls bring it down.  

8. Warheads 

Is there anything better than sucking on an extremely sour candy with your friends and seeing who can hold out the longest? I don’t think so. Some people, however, can’t take the sourness, so they’re not for everyone, plus the sourness wears off quick leaving you with regular hard candy, which I could get for free at the nail salon’s drying table.  

9. Hershey’s  

Hershey’s mini chocolate bars are low on the list because they are boring and underwhelming. If I wanted a candy bar I’d go out and get a big chocolate bar at the checkout line in a grocery store. Hershey’s and s’mores go great together, but by themselves, they leave much to be desired. Not only that, but there are so many other kinds of chocolate that are infinitely better (Dove, Lindt and Ferrero to name a few I’d rather see in my trick-or-treat pillowcase).  

10. Candy Corn 

I am a sucker for seasonal treats (Easter eggs, candy canes, pumpkin anything) but this is such a low effort candy I’m not sure how much thought went into it. Not sure what “corn” has to do with Halloween (seems more Thanksgiving to me), the colors are all wrong (Halloween is black and orange, not yellow and white) and it’s just sugar with nothing exciting behind it (no peanuts, chocolate, peanut butter, juiciness or surprise inside). Not sure if I’m supposed to crunch it, suck on it or eat it with another, more exciting flavor.