Author Archives: dan g.

04

Sep. ’21

Review: Dunkin’ Cinnamon Cereal & Milk Latte

Dunkin' Cereal & Milk Latte - Cinnamon Review

Anybody else see this?

No?

Well, while we were all out funkin’ and drunken slam dunkin’, Dunkin’ Donuts was slunkin’. Smooth as cold brew, they slunk two whole Cereal & Milk Lattes onto their menu without any fervor or fanfare. Even I wouldn’t’ve heard about ’em if not for Stewart M. tweeting at me.

Turns out the reason these drinks are so hard to find out about, is because they’re hard to find in general. These lattes are test market items only available in Detroit, MI; Wheeling, WV; Pittsburgh, PA; Oklahoma City, OK; as well as Houston, Dallas, & San Antonio, Texas. So while I apologize to all who won’t be able to try Dunkin’s Cereal & Milk Lattes without great geographic difficulty, hot diggity darn: for like the first time in test market history, I’m near one of them! I can’t help but notice that West Virginia is also on the list, leading me to believe Dunkin’ was deliberately targeting cereal’s two foremost meditative cereal podcasters.

Long story short, I bought the Cinnamon Cereal & Milk Latte. Even though the Marshmallow one is more visually appealing, I feel like marshmallow flavoring in addition to the “sweet cold foam” would just be redundant. But how was it? Well, that’s more of a medium story…medium. Continue reading →

Posted by . Categories: Reviews. Tags: , , . Leave a comment

27

Aug. ’21

News: Pebbles Bites

New Fruity and Cocoa Pebbles Bites

Call it a gravel pit, a rockslide, or an earthfall, but there’ve been so many new Pebbles products this year to celebrate the cereal line’s 50th anniversary. Candy bars, bunnies, Crisps and cake mix are only the tip of this kaleidoscopically colorful iceberg.

Well, now we can add coated bites of pure decadence to the list, too, as Frankford—the appropriately Dr. Frankenstein-ish confectioners behind many of these other Pebbles sweets—are also dropping both Cocoa and Fruity Pebbles Bites.

These little grape-sized rounds of real cereal are coated with milk chocolate and creamy candied white goo, respectively. The Bites debut this month and are exclusive to Five Below stores—who previously have had a lock on the Pop-Tarts pool float market.

Despite looking a bit too small to justify the laborious waste of individually unwrapping each one, I bet these Bites will probably taste pretty good—and even if they don’t, you could totally use a slingshot to wreak prehistoric havoc all across the neighborhood.

Posted by . Categories: News. Tags: . Leave a comment

25

Aug. ’21

Spooned & Spotted: Apple Pie Toast Crunch Cereal

New Apple Pie Toast Crunch Cereal

Welp, so much for a slow news week.

Having bemoaned just yesterday how no show-stopping new cereals in some time, the breakfast gods must’ve heard my cries. Appearing entirely without warning, fanfare, nor heralding angels, Apple Pie Toast Crunch is apparently hitting shelves.

This stuff was found at Albertson’s by Chris’s Cereal Crusade, and its wintery branding seems to suggest Apple Pie Toast Crunch is either a companion or replacement for long-time seasonal specialty Sugar Cookie Toast Crunch—here’s hoping it’s the former, so I can mix the two.

Toast Crunch devotees will no-doubt notice how similar Apple Pie Toast Crunch sounds to now-discontinued Apple Cinnamon Toast Crunch, the key difference being the older of the two used French Toast Crunch’s bread-shaped pieces instead of these crazy squares. To be honest, I dearly miss the dense ‘n’ crunchy era of adorably sliced Toast Crunches—especially the sugar-dusted ones—but it’s hard to get mad about something that sounds as good as, well, Apple Pie Toast Crunch.

I’ll certainly be on the lookout for this stuff as it hopefully pops up in more stores soon. If you’ve tried it, let me know your thoughts in the comments below!

Posted by . Categories: Specials. Tags: , , . 4 Comments

24

Aug. ’21

News: Three Cereal Tidbits!

All Marshmallow Lucky Charms 2021

It’s been a dry few weeks for dry cereal news—an odd occasion, since breakfast happenings are usually bustling enough to have me posting a couple times a week without fail. Cereal news is metaphorically true to its namesake, after all: it gets you hungry for a new bowl before you’ve even finished the one you just poured. In comparison, this has been the overnight oats of slow news months.

Nevertheless, there have been a couple news bites worth bringing up: the first of which is the rainbow-spanning return of Lucky Charms “Just Magical Marshmallows.” After years of making All Marshmallow LC boxes extremely rare artifacts you could only win from contests (though I acquired one anyway), General Mills has since stripped the stuff of its mythic stature. Last year, they introduced small pouches of marbits, and now they’re back—even though I never noticed they were gone. Truth be told, I see no practical reason to buy these, given how the oat bits are actually the cereal’s best part, unless you want to melt a big glob of them for the world’s most unicorn puke-tastic s’more.

Oh well, at least the neat new packaging makes it feel like you’re collecting Infinity Stones. Continue reading →

Posted by . Categories: News. Tags: , , , . Leave a comment

15

Aug. ’21

Review: Cinnamon Toast Crunch Popcorn

Cinnamon Toast Crunch Popcorn Review Bag

In the near future, non-cereal cereal-flavored foodstuffs will outlive cereals themselves. Our children’s children’s children will ask us, “wait, Cinnamon Toast Crunch wasn’t always a popcorn brand? Fruity Pebbles wasn’t always aquarium gravel? And Count Chocula used to make more than just edible abacuses?” And we will sit them on our laps and tell them tales of a time when you could pour crunchy little things in a bowl and eat them with milk—back before the Froot Loops-scented ICBMs fell and changed everything.

Yes, cereal–snack tie-ins are a never-ending trend, and Cinnamon Toast Crunch Popcorn—currently still a Sam’s Club exclusive—is only the latest incarnation of innovation and temptation. But is it worthy of the Toast Crunch title? Well let me tell ya… Continue reading →

Posted by . Categories: Reviews. Tags: , , . Leave a comment

08

Aug. ’21

Review: Monster Mash Cereal

New Monster Mash Cereal Review – Box

For fifty years now, the General Mills Monster Cereals have been harbingers of Halloweentime. When they start popping up on shelves around late-August, a vortex of orange and black seems to seems to swirl outwardly around them. July 4th fireworks become Pop Rocks, watermelons become pumpkins, campfire roasters become big plastic devil pitchforks, and you can feel a palpable chill in the air—probably from Target turning up the AC because, y’know, it’s August, but still.

One might even call the Monsters the Five Horsemen of the Halloween Season, though I’m not sure how I’d assign them apocalyptic analogues. Chocula is definitely Conquest, since he’s the ringleader. Towering powerhouse Franken Berry feels built for War, while Boo Berry is Death because ohhh, you know how ghosts are. I guess we can say Frute Brute is Famine, since he’s the biggest cult favorite fans have hungered for, while Yummy Mummy represents Pestilence in the form of some ancient Egyptian plague unleashed when someone drank sarcophagus juice like it was Ghoul-Aid.

Anyway, now that we’ve picked a group Halloween costume for this crunchy quintet, let’s talk about their 50th anniversary mega-cereal: Monster Mash. Hotly anticipated for months now—I swear, people get more excited about Monster Cereals than 1,031 new Toast Crunches—Monster Mash Cereal, debuting on store shelves everywhere this month, brings all five Monsters together in one box, for the first time. But on a scale of “eerie sight” to “graveyard smash,” just how good is it? Well allow me to grab my finest aged sarcophagus milk and find out. Continue reading →

Posted by . Categories: Reviews. Tags: , , . 13 Comments

03

Aug. ’21

News (Mexico): Kellogg’s Krispy Kreme Cereal

New Mexico Exclusive Kellogg's Krispy Kreme Cereal

(UPDATE: Read my full Krispy Kreme Cereal review!)

It’s taken them a long time, but doughnut companies across the world are finally starting to realize something: huh, cereal rings look a lot like doughnuts, don’t they?

Of course, there’s been no shortage of doughnut-themed cereals. From ’80s ancients Dinky Donuts and Powdered Donutz cereals to contemporary classics like Pink Donut Cereal, Hostess Donettes Cereal, and Cap’n Crunch’s Sprinkled Donut Crunch, the dozen-or-so doughnut cereals released to date constitute a well-rounded munch-able microgenre. But with the exception of old-school Dunkin’ Donuts Cereal from ’88, big-name dough-masons never really seized the opportunity to miniaturize their iconic confections.

That is, until recently, when Dunkin’ returned with new (caffeinated!) cereals, Tim Hortons brought Timbits Cereal to Canada, and now Krispy Kreme is completing this veritable NAFTA of doughnut cereals with a Mexico-exclusive cereal based on their iconic Original Glazed rings.

Few fates are crueler cruller than being 2,000 miles from Kellogg’s Krispy Kreme Cereal, but hopefully Kellogg’s brings this glazed goodness stateside soon. For anyone reading this from Mexico, I wish I had more info to share with you about this cereal, but I could only find it on Sam’s Club of Mexico’s website. If you’ve managed to get your powdered sugar-dusted hands on a box of Krispy Kreme Cereal, let me know how it tastes in the comments below.

Posted by . Categories: News. Tags: , , . 2 Comments

29

Jul. ’21

News: Two New OffLimits Cereal Flavors!

New OffLimits Cereal Flavors

If you’ve read more than a handful of articles on this blog, you’ve probably got a decent handle on what I like—because I gush about my interests and love repeating myself. Gingerbread, PB&J, Waffle Crisp: pretty much the holy trinity of stuff I can’t shut up about.

But I also love indie cereals. Simply put, I’ve been in this game long enough to get a little tired of talking about the same big four corporate cereal monoliths. That’s why I love to see startups like Magic Spoon, Three Wishes, and OffLimits seize the means of spoon-in-milk subduction. OffLimits is a countercultural cereal brand that vocally supports independent art and diversity, and for their brand’s first anniversary, they’re dropping two new flavors. Joining their first two flavors—vanilla & pandan Zombie + chocolate & coffee Dash—are strawberry Spark and cinnamon Flex.

New OffLimits Cereal Glitter

OffLimits is even offering a special birthday bonanza pack, if you want to try all four. Sure, they’re a bit more expensive than your run-of-the-General-Mill fare, but for an organic/vegan/gluten-free indie creation that comes with digital tickets redeemable for real prizes, it’s more like buying an edible piece of culture than a mindless munchie. And hey, if you buy their birthday pack, you’ll even get some cereal glitter, ideal for rolling around in before foam parties at the club, or for ethically chucking in assertive strangers’ eyes.

If you can’t tell—I’m really into OffLimits’ aesthetic. Maybe if all goes well, by their second anniversary they’ll do Gingerbread and PB&J flavors. Maybe they could call them, oh, I don’t know, Snap & Smuck?

Posted by . Categories: News. Tags: . Leave a comment