16 Popular Chocolate Bars, Ranked Worst To Best

It seems inevitable that the most popular chocolate bars on the market remix many of the same ingredients into treats wearing different wrappers. They're all competing for a common interest, after all, and if chocolate with caramel works for one brand, it'll surely work for another, right? Not always; the quality of chocolate used, the concentration of caramel to nougat to mix-ins, and even the shape and design of the bar give every one of the affordable candy aisle classics its own unique profile. And that's not to mention what peanuts, mint fluff, and coconut can add to the equation.

I'm not one to pass up a chance to eat chocolate, so I didn't. I jumped in with both feet (and whole set of taste buds) and gathered up the most popular candy bars on store shelves to find out their finer qualities. Then, I stacked them top-to-bottom based on what I think are the worst and best bars in the business, based on flavor, chocolate consistency, and balance of additional ingredients. I relived some of my earlier experiences with many of the bars along the way as well and found out that several I loved as a kid don't hold up anymore, while others make for surprising rediscoveries.

If you haven't had a plain Hershey's Milk Chocolate bar in a while, you might be surprised at what this classic candy factory is churning out these days. There's no foil on the wrapper like the good-old days; that kind of bougie styling is reserved for the mini bars and Kisses now. But even with a hearty dose of nostalgia to ride one, Hershey's Milk Chocolate has a whole host of competitors to contend with these days. This basic bar is easily bested by every other option I tried.

Hershey's chocolate has never been at the top of my list, and tasting it now, I understand why: The chocolate itself tastes cheesy somehow. It's trying too hard to present a milky flavor and it ends up tipping over backwards. The company has been known to tinker with its formulations from time to time. Maybe it's time for that again, keeping high-quality chocolate on the to-do list for one of the most trusted food brands in the U.S..

The promise of peanuts embedded in chocolate holds so much promise in both texture and taste. Mr. Goodbar had always cornered the market on this format, eschewing fancier nougats and fillings in favor of a straightforward Hershey bar loaded up with goobers. I have fond memories of choosing this format over plain candy bars. The fact that it had a blindingly yellow wrapper to dazzle my uninformed eyes was part of the attraction. I was kind of a sucker as a kid.

Those days are gone, and it turns out Mr. Goodbar is pretty awful. The chocolate has a funky flavor that the peanuts can't mask. I'm not sure how far offtrack a confectioner has to go to get chocolate that repels candy fiends, but Mr. Goodbar seems to have figured it out. The fact that it's a Hershey product means it may be subject to the same recipe jiggering as the Hershey's Milk Chocolate bar. I'd rather make my own slow-cooker chocolate peanut clusters at home and leave the pre-made version on the rack.

Having chocolate and caramel layered over nougat makes Milky Way feel like a specialty pick from a box of high-end chocolates. The buttery goodness goes on much longer than just one or two bites, a green flag that leads caramel lovers in this bar's direction. But the adage "too much of a good thing" applies in this instance; it's rich upon rich, which maybe didn't fare badly on my younger taste buds. Now, though? It's a sugary disappointment.

The ironic issue is that Milky Way is way too sweet, piling caramel and nougat together under chocolate, all of similar consistencies. The resulting taste is sugar upon sugar, with no distinction among the flavors once you take a big enough bite. I ended up with a mouthful of mush that made my teeth ache. A little of this gooey confection goes a long way, and a whole bar is absolute overload.

Bite-sized York Peppermint Patties are always fun, especially when they come straight out of the freezer. There's no other bar-sized candy treat that makes mint the main attraction, making it an easy lure for mint aficionados like me. The vintage ads that equate the sensation of eating one to an adventure in a frost-covered wonderland stick in my mind as peak product promotion, even if others thought the flavor was similar to eating chocolate-covered toothpaste.

There's a big difference between the mini-patties and the full-size York. The whole disc has a weird texture that's not quite right, a troublingly fluffy center the consistency of marshmallow nougat rather than the creamy consistency I love in the smaller versions. Mint flavoring in this quantity seems to take on a chemical taste too, overpowering the dark chocolate that's meant to temper the experience. Maybe the toothpaste-tasters were right after all. I hate to harsh on mint-chocolate anything, but in this case, it's justified.

Snapping into a Butterfinger was always a primo moment in my childhood, especially when it was my parents springing for the candy bars rather than me depleting my modest weekly allowance for the privilege. There was something special about the otherworldly orange crisp robed in milk chocolate, with those rounded-off ends no other candy bar had. It was the best Halloween candy bar by far; Nestle adopting Bart Simpson as a Butterfinger spokeskid may have added a little glow to the concept too.

Butterfinger has lost its bite; whatever made the flaky peanut butter center so fantastic in the past seems to have been rung out of the modern version. It all just stuck together in my teeth without the fun crunchiness and peanut butter goodness I remember. Thinking about it now, there's a chance that I've romanticized the candy bar eating of my youth, to a point where no adult Butterfinger moment can live up to the enhanced memory. It's hard not to feel a little misled by Bart, but that's the way the candy bar crumbles.

Ah, the sassy snap of the chocolate shell and welcoming fluffiness of the peanut butter filling of a Reese's Cup — the classic kind, not the new-fangled ones with all the nibs and bits added in. Peeling back the corrugated wrapper and breaking the cups in half was like unwrapping a Christmas present, but I didn't have to have to make anyone's "Nice" list in order to score one. It was sublime.

Well, that's not the case anymore. Reese's peanut butter cups are disappointingly plain. A peanut butter filling in regular candy bar format is underwhelming — it just feels soft and sweet, without the bolder peanut butter flavor of the holiday shapes. And that snap? It's mushier than I remember. These cups may be a favorite candy among consumers, but this candy lover has tasted better. Would I refuse one if it was offered to me? Well, no. I'm not a monster. But I'm also not going to skip the better candy bars just to be let down by Reese's — not again.

Perhaps the best balance of fillings to chocolate ever committed to a candy bar format, Snickers has always been at the top of my candy shopping list. The layers offer your teeth interesting things to bite into at every turn; just when you sink past the soft chocolate, you hit even softer caramel that makes the whole endeavor feel a bit messy — but wait, the peanuts have arrived to add crunch and shore it all up.

With so many dimensions under the wrapper, Snickers has a lot to live up, and it does a pretty good job for a beloved classic. But tasting it now, I find the nougat to be a little woody, and the caramel is loose and slippery. Who knew you could find so many ways to complain about chocolate until you put your mind to it? I sure didn't. The eye-opening discovery about the Snickers I've always favored is that I've made a huge mistake; better bars were right under my nose. Lesson learned.

I'm not one to decline a candy bar, but even as a kid I knew there was too much sweetness lurking under the wrapper of a 3 Musketeers bar. The nougat had a weird fluffiness that's kind of chewy but sort of foamy too — a texture that always felt more industrial than culinary to me. I hadn't tried one in decades for that reason, so I was intrigued at what this grown-up candy taster would think of it.

Surprisingly, the flavor is much mellower than I remember, with more of a malted milk flavor in the fluffy nougat center. The airy texture prevents the mush factor from ruining the experience, an aspect the nougat-filled Milky Way would do well to emulate. But it's still a lot of sweetness for one bar. I can see why the bite-sized trick-or-treat versions are so popular; having the chocolate fully wrap around the entire morsel makes for a better bite.

Who's going to refuse chocolate-covered wafer cookies in a Kit-Kat, even if it's one of the less deluxe combinations in the chocolate bar catalog? This was movie candy par excellence, as well as an after-school snack that lifted spirits and got me through homework sessions quicker so I could hit the television sooner. The crispy texture with thin layers of fluff in between is endorsement enough to get candy die-hards excited at the prospect, not to mention the ultra-linear architecture and supreme snapability the bar offers.

Among all the others on the list, Kit-Kat is a fine middle choice that brings balance in all layers. It's just sweet enough to please without being extra, and it comes in four breakable segments that let you choose your level of indulgence. If there's anything holding it back, it's that it plays things too safe, which is why all the Kit-Kat variants around the world with peppy flavors and tooth-tickling additional textures would make better picks. Still, it's dependably enjoyable, if not mind-blowing.

I've always skipped past Chunky bars, thinking a single block of chocolate wasn't as good as the longer bars sitting right next to it. The idea of having nuts and fruit in a candy bar was a little off-putting, too; this was the candy my grandparents were more likely to dig. I had fancier chocolate bars to unwrap. Maybe because I'm closer to the grandparent age bracket now, I suddenly find much to love in a Chunky bar. Go figure.

This is the perfect candy bar for people who like Goobers and Raisinets (and I love both). The chocolate is passable, though the bar itself is pretty tiny, but that's a boon for anyone looking for just the right amount of sweet added to their day. I'm not saying I'm ready to shove past the more deluxe bars for one of these old-timey treats. I'm just saying that I get why they've been around for almost 100 years. They deserve more love from parent company Ferrero and producer Nestle than being glossed over by their websites.

Almond Joy was the tropical-style candy bar that was perfect for those times when you "feel like a nut," according to the '70s jingle (via YouTube). For my tastes, it's still a sweet escape; the idea of three wildly different tastes and textures is candy-making alchemy. A bed of al dente fluff holding a single almond, all coated in milk chocolate? Amazing. It's like each section in the two-mini-bar layout is an island of delight waiting to be devoured. Yes, I've thought about this one a lot over the years.

Revisiting Almond Joy was a pleasure. The mix of chocolate, chewy coconut, and crunchy almonds has always been a winner in my book, and still is. All three are served harmonically, though coconut may be an acquired taste for many candy bar lovers. I know several candy fans who steer clear of this one because of the gritty texture, which I think adds an interesting layer. There may be better bars in the round-up, but this is still a solid selection.

Twix brought the caramel-chocolate-shortbread concept of a millionaire shortbread cookie bar into the world of commercial candy bars, giving fans two separate sticks to munch on instead of a single bar. The shareability doesn't mean you have to offer anyone else the second stick; in fact, you should probably gobble it down before your friends and fellow candy worshipers realize you have it.

Twix has never let me down in the past, and this time was no different. There's something supreme about the mix of cookie crunch, caramel gooiness, and chocolate smoothness that makes every bite an equal delight. I recall Twix becoming my high school go-to when lunch hour meant avoiding real food by any means necessary, even when it got me into trouble with the nutrition police at home. I'm just as likely to make a Twix my whole meal today. It's fun to be a grown-up.

A thin plank of English-style toffee wearing a rippling sheath of milk chocolate ... the description sounds pretty enticing, right? It's the format Heath has been offering as part of the Hershey collection in 1996, and it's still on point all these years later. This is the sort of bar you stash in the freezer until frozen solid, then smack against the counter to break into manageable bite-sized pieces. That's how I used to handle this filling-puller, anyway.

Today's Heath bar is nothing short of outstanding. The crunch of the toffee against the silkiness of the thin chocolate coating provides a perfect balance of flavor and consistency. The toffee is buttery without being cloying, and the chocolate is sweet without being irritating. I don't keep a ready supply in the freezer anymore, but after this taste test, I may give it another go.

It may seem like a plain-Jane pick given the more luxurious models in the chocolate bar showroom, but an old-fashioned Nestle Crunch sets a standard that makes the other basic bars feel like jalopies. This premium plank has the goods to get your sweet tooth satisfied, and it always has. It's a shake-up of a Rice Krispie treat dipped in chocolate, minus the marshmallow, of course, but with the same intriguing crunchy-smooth mouthfeel that proves you don't need a ton of chocolate in a candy bar to achieve great things.

And speaking of basic chocolate: Nestle chocolate bests Hershey's, and it's not even close. The milkiness is dialed in, in a way that the other factory would do well to take note of. This well-measured richness is best served in a Nestle Crunch bar. The chocolate-to-rice crunchies ratio is sublime, ensuring a proper mix of textures in every bite. The snappable bars are more generously apportioned than Hershey too, providing a more satisfying single-serving scenario.

If there's an innovation to be marveled at in the chocolate bar world, Kinder Bueno is the confection to turn your attention to. Somehow, the idea of a lighter touch creating a better bar in all aspects has been kept front-of-mind here, which also puts it front-of-taste buds. I've had them once or twice before, but I don't think I realized just how much finesse has been applied.

Having applied much better focus, I can confidently say Kinder Bueno is a tasty revelation. The segmented wafer crunch mixed with a light hazelnut cream and European-style chocolate work wonderfully together. This is almost as close to a boutique-level candy as you can get in a grocery or convenience store. And don't be fooled by the "Kinder" name; this top-tier chocolate bar is for adults as much as kids.

Cadbury Caramello is the finest of the popular chocolate bars around, bar none. Yes, that's a pun, but it's one this creation fully earns. What doesn't the segmented bar have? There's creamy, buttery caramel that doesn't require chewing; there's silky, milky chocolate that tastes like it adheres to English standards, and a snap-off block design that allows perfect bite-sized portions for sharing ... or not. Keep it all for yourself if you want. Nobody who's ever tried one would blame you for bogarting the whole thing.

Having the more standard brands in mind when I was shopping for my samples, I almost overlooked Caramello entirely. I'm glad the bright yellow sale sticker on the box drew my attention and reminded me that it should be part of the round-up. Cadbury has created the monarch of the impulse aisle and the conqueror of the candy section. All hail Caramello, the best chocolate bar on the block!

Nearly all of the bars I chose were selections I've been familiar with for years but haven't necessarily tasted for a while. I wanted to see how they would taste when retrying them after so long. Having prior experience gave me a frame of reference for any alterations that may have happened since my last time trying them. And of course, a changing palate will always throw a few curveballs.

I kept the sampling clean, trying a single bite of each bar and cleansing my palate with a drink of water in between samples. I gauged the taste and texture of the chocolate, as well as the quality of any fillings and the interplay between the two. To rank them, I relied on the overall enjoyment factor of the bar's elements and specific aspects like consistency and authenticity in the chocolates used. Luckily, they were all different enough from one another to allow a distinct worst-to-best configuration.