01

Jul. ’17

Review: Mocha Crunch Cereal

General Mills Mocha Crunch Cereal Review - Box

I’m a coffee snob. There, I said it, since you were going to find out anyway.

Yeah, I’m the guy who lets creamer expire, who recoils upon hearing the word “Frappuccino” like it was a different F-word, and who orders small black coffees at McDonald’s while in quiet camaraderie at all the old guys who used their senior coffee discount to do the same. Perhaps it speaks to the bitterness of my heart, but I like my coffee potent and sugarless, with names that are hard to pronounce and pretentious flavor notes like elderberry or toasted marshmallow that don’t actually exist and were probably drawn out of a hat by a mischievous barista.

So while I can’t remember the last mocha I’ve drank, hearing about General Mills’s new Mocha Crunch Cereal still left me giddy (although that might’ve been residual caffeine). The online-only Coffee Cereal has the beaned and bitter cereal market cornered, so I was ready to welcome a sugary chocolate coffee cereal into my life with open arms that are holding hot coffee mugs so you probably shouldn’t hug me. Sorry, Mocha Crunch.

Now the cereal’s here, and a single whiff of the bag’s medium-roasted cappuccino scent has me convinced good things are brewing. No need to wait for it to cool: let’s dive in.  Continue reading →

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30

Jun. ’17

News: New Quaker Product Oat-stravaganza

New Quaker Oatmeal with Antioxidants – Blueberry Cranberry and Green Apple Fig

Oh come on, Quaker: give that poor ol’ Oats guy a rest. We all know that he has to hand-toast every single Quaker oat before it’s ready for consumption. It takes him hours just to meticulously craft a single oatmeal packet, and now you’re throwing a smorgasbord of new products onto his to-do list! His work–life balance is going out the window, all for the sake of our balanced breakfast.

Oh well, he’s a man who loves his craft, so let’s respect it by rounding up all the new Quaker products hitting shelves now. Above we have an extension of the brand’s iconic instant oatmeal pantheon: two antioxidant-rich varieties. I don’t know much about antioxidants—my childish self would assume you throw the packets in a room ful of your enemies to slowly drain them of oxygen, supervillain-style—but I know that the two flavors here are pretty unique. Blueberry Cranberry is bold for brazenly removing strawberry from the expected berry rotation, while Green Apple Fig is the first fig flavored anything I’ve heard of since the Fig Newton.

(I really hope this oatmeal contains crushed-up Fig Newtons.) Continue reading →

Posted by . Categories: News. Tags: , . 1 Comment

28

Jun. ’17

Review: Burger King Lucky Charms Shake

Burger King Lucky Charms Shake Review Cereal

Which Lucky Charms marshmallow is your favorite? Is it the mashed-up blue chunk? The pureéd orange bit? Ooh, or is it the pulverized pink smithereen? I love that one.

Well no matter which iconic Lucky Charms marbit you fancy, you’ll totally be able to recognize it in Burger King’s brand new Lucky Charms Shake. This cereal milkshake is an iridescent cylinder of rainbow-specked vanilla soft serve that’s blended with real Lucky Charms shrapnel and a secretive marshmallowy cereal syrup so rich with Lucky Charms flavor that whichever cow the ice cream came from is now shouting “It’s moo-gically delicious!” via an unseen telepathic stimulus.

Or at least, that’s my poetic interpretation of how Burger King describes its Lucky Charms Shake. It’ll take a serious taste test to see if the shake lives up to its namesake cereal’s legacy, and as someone who sucks at just about everything, I feel qualified to suck this breakfast–dessert hybrid down in the name of journalism. Continue reading →

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26

Jun. ’17

Review: Cascadian Farm Organic Vanilla Chia Crunch Cereal

Cascadian Farm Organic Vanilla Chia Crunch Cereal Review Box

Apparently Cascadian Farm is a real farm, but I refuse to learn anything about it. Instead, I want to preserve my fantastical mental image of Cascadian Farm as a quaint rural community where busier General Mills cereals like Cinnamon Toast Crunch and Golden Grahams go to escape the city’s sugar-addled hustle and bustle, settle down, and become tamer versions of themselves, with no-nonsense names like Cinnamon Crunch and Graham Crunch.

Yes, the Cascadian Farm of my imagination is pretty much a breakfast parody of Harvest Moon, and I’d like to keep it that way.

Now the newest citizen in Cascadian Farm’s Wholesome Good-Time Barnyard Bayou (my mental name, not theirs) isn’t a direct derivation of another General Mills product. But it does remind me of Kashi’s recent Plant Power Vanilla Pepita Clusters, which is why I took note and lovingly planted Vanilla Chia Crunch into my grocery store cart like a transplanted chia plant. I just wrote the word plant in that sentence more times than I have cumulatively since 2008.

Kashi’s take on vanilla ‘n’ seeds tasted like cupcake-frosted popcorn. Let’s see if the Animal Crossing of cereal brands can be just as memorable. Continue reading →

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23

Jun. ’17

Review: Oreo O’s Cereal (2017)

Post American Oreo O's Cereal – 2017, from Walmart - Box

Oreo O’s are back in America. This is true.

So naturally, this review is going to be unnecessarily long and rambling—but spoiler alert: not in a good way. Before we get to that, though, I figure a crash course in Oreo O’s 1O1 is appropriate. I’ve already exhaustively covered the cereal’s history in last year’s review of imported Oreo O’s, so head there for all the textbook-worthy details, but here’s an IMDB-worthy synopsis:

In 1997, Oreo O’s blessed us with its authentic Oreo cookie flavor in creme-sprinkled chocolate cereal ring form. Then in 2007, when the world needed it most, Oreo O’s (which had marshmallows by this point) vanished…everywhere but South Korea, where you could buy it until 2014 and then again in 2016. It’s finally back in America, 10 years after hibernating, and you probably heard about it 10 times from BuzzFeed in the past 2 hours alone.

And while I can’t prove that I am the world’s biggest Oreo O’s fan, that hasn’t stopped me from calling Guinness about it. So since this is my favorite cereal, and since I’ve spent enough on the South Korean stuff to rent an Aruban timeshare, you’d think I’d be beyond geeked to see Oreo O’s back in their home turf. But I’m not geeked. Nor am I freaked, piqued, or as the kids probably no longer say, “on-fleeked.”

Why not? Because like a Scooby-Doo villain, these Oreo O’s are not what they seem. Continue reading →

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21

Jun. ’17

Review: Honey Maid S’mores Cereal

Post Honey Maid S'mores Cereal Review Box

Okay, I love all things s’more, and I support the junk food craze of s’morifying just about everything. But if society’s going to continue its wonderful quest to inject graham-chocolate-marshmallow flavor into every cake, cookie, and cake-stuffed cookie crumble Frappuccino, we have to amke one thing clear: are we supposed to capitalize the “M” or not?

For so long, I treated the term “S’More” as an inflexible proper noun. Like any number of deities, to misprint its name as “s’more” was blasphemy worthy of campfires and brimstone. But now we do it all the time, as evidenced by Post’s new Honey Maid S’mores Cereal. Are we just supposed to accept this normalization of “s’more?” Is an artificially flavored s’more not subject to the same capitalized deification of the one true, fire-toasted S’More? Should I just stuff my mouth with this cereal so you don’t have to hear me babble about s’more theology?

I know at least one of those answers is a yes. Continue reading →

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19

Jun. ’17

Spooned & Spotted: Burger King Lucky Charms Shake

Burger King Lucky Charms Shake

In the war of cereals, The Burger King turns a blind eye.

The Burger King does not take sides.

The Burger King’s only sworn loyalty is to deliciousness.

See, after the meaty monarch released a delightful Froot Loops Shake just 2 months ago, I would have expected him to launch a whole line of Kellogg’s milkshakes and desserts, from fried Apple Jacks Pies to Frosted Mini-Whoppers. But no, the flame-grilled sovereign who blessed us with Mac & Cheetos has now welcomed General Mills into his fold of creamy, soft-serve folds.

The Lucky Charms Shake, spotted, bravely taste tested, and kindly submitted by reader John R., combines the King’s standard creamy ice cream and whipped cream topping with marshmallowy cereal syrup and a dusting of Lucky Charms. I don’t know what “marshmallowy cereal syrup” is, but I can only assume it was pumped straight from the Fountain of Youth.

I’ll toast my first Lucky Charms Shake to you, Ponce de León.

Despite how good this Shake sounds, John’s initial review is far from charmed. I know I’ll have to try it for myself to be sure, but I’ll be sure to have a box of Lucky Charms on hand in case I need emergency marshmallow reinforcements.

https://twitter.com/cerealouslynet/status/875138985655492614

Good thing this happened 😏.

Thanks again to John R. for the photos. If you have some cool cereal news of your own to share, send it over to our Submissions page. I’ll have plenty of time to answer it while waiting in my Burger King parking lot tent.

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

16

Jun. ’17

Review: Canadian Maple Cheerios Cereal

General Mills Special Edition Canadian Maple Cheerios Cereal Review Box

“Put maple in everything. Do it.”

Picture me saying that in my best Sheev Palpatine voice, because I really am serious about syrup. Maple is tied with gingerbread and second only to PB&J on my list of favorite sweet flavors, so while the news about General Mills’s new Maple Cheerios, released in Canada to celebrate the country’s 150th birthday, excited me, the syrup-sucking greedy child in me wanted more.

Maple Cookie Crisp. Waffles & Syrup Oreo O’s. Pancake-flavored Waffle Crisp—I don’t care how redundant that sounds, just prop my mouth open with a french toast stick and keep piling it in.

But I’m getting ahead of myself—and sweating what I believe to be a mix of perspiration and whipped butter just thinking about it. I should enjoy Maple Cheerios while I can, because you know what they say: you only turn 150 once! Continue reading →

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