Author Archives: dan g.

News (UK): Sainsbury’s Mince Pie Wheats Cereal

…and the U.S. won’t even get a Fruit Cake Cereal.

Well, uh, maybe that’s for the best.

Regardless, I’m rankled as a wrinkled raisin over the fact that I’ll likely never get to try Sainsbury’s new U.K.-exclusive Mince Pie Wheats Cereal. I mean, shredded wheat pockets filled with spiced raisins, cinnamon & nutmeg? Frosted Mini-Wheats could never. And yes, for those like me who were unaware, the “mincemeat” in mince pies is in fact, not meat, but a sweet treat that’s fun to eat. Or so I’d imagine—I haven’t tried a real mince pie, either. But according to early overseas reviews, Mince Pie Wheats do their namesake justice:

“It’s good to be honest, I taste the raisin, cinnamon and nutmeg, and it does have that familiar mince pie flavour, but then the bitterness hits. Maybe they’ve tried to recreate those notes you get with boozy mince pies? The next morning I have the cereal for breakfast. When you add milk it diminishes the bitterness – you can still taste it, but not offensively, and once I get over the fact I’m eating mince pie cereal, I realise I’m very much enjoying these wheaties. Before I know it, the bowl is empty and I’m happily full. See you tomorrow, mince pie wheats. Love, your newest convert xox.” —Huffington Post U.K.

Have you tried Mince Pie Wheats? Sound off in the comments below if you think it’d be worth the effort for me to track it down.

Posted by dan g.. Categories: News. Tags: cinnamon, holiday, international, raisins. 4 Comments

Oct. ’20

News: Cinnamon Toast Crunch Cinnamilk

The year is 20TC: I listen to the satisfying crunch as I click with my dusty Cinnamouse to publish a new Cinneriously.net blog post about Cinnamon Toast Crunch’s latest cinnamon sugar lifestyle cinnfusion: Cinnalink, a brain chip that immediately (and constantly) triggers the neural enjoyment of eating Cinnamon Toast Crunch, all without lifting a spoon! It’s the taste you no longer need to see—though you can recreate the experience with the brand’s accompanying Cinnavision Goggles.

Yes, with over 1,000 different uses for the Cinnamon Toast Crunch essence they’ve extracted from each crazy square’s mortal soul, General Mills is just a few Cinnamon Toast Seraphims away from opening up a holy portal to the Cinnaverse’s sweet, sweet paradise. And we’re all invited over for eternal breakfast!

But that’s in the future. Right now, Cinnamon Toast Crunch has only begun its quest to literally milk the cereal’s cult status dry with peripheral products that, though ostensibly only flavored with cinnamon and sugar, still carry name brand markup. It’s especially fitting that this latest piece of Toast Crunch news, Nestle’s Cinnamilk, came out the same day I finally acquired CTC Cinnadust:

I DIDN'T EXPECT IT TO BE THIS BIG pic.twitter.com/BJX3uhmiL2

— Cerealously 🥛🥣 (@cerealouslynet) October 29, 2020

I consider this poetic because, as Nestle also makes Nesquik, I could now either a) simply drink Cinnamilk, b) mix Cinnadust and regular milk, Nesquik style, or c) mix Cinnadust and Cinnamilk to clip out of reality and into the Cinnaverse—years before General Mills’ plan to do the same. That said, there’s also the traditionalist’s option d), to eat Cinnamon Toast Crunch cereal and drink the milk left behind, but who would want to do something so antiquated? It’s 2020, Grandpa: we ingest cereal in other forms of matter now. Now hook me up to my CinnamO₂n tank.

Now that I’ve spent this entire blog post wasting your time by Cinnamon Toast Chuckling at my own jokes, I’ll leave you with the one fact you probably came here for:

14oz bottles of Cinnamilk will hit mass retailers in January.

Posted by dan g.. Categories: News. Tags: cinnamon, non cereal, toast crunch. 1 Comment

Oct. ’20

News: Sesame Street 123 Berry Cereal

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A post shared by Cereal Life (@cereallife) on Oct 25, 2020 at 6:31am PDT

No, no: this is all wrong! How can a Sesame Street cereal with a name like “123 Berry” be fronted by any Muppet other than Count von Count? What did you do with him, General Mills? Did you sign a vampiric exclusivity deal with Count Chocula, pushing the purple felted numerologist out of the picture with the mythological punishment of counting to infinity?

Or, since this 123 Berry cereal box is just a sales sample and not final, is the Count still in hair & makeup?

Whatever the reason, von Count’s absence isn’t the only troubling thing about Sesame Street 123 Berry cereal, first shared by consistent General Mills leaker Cereal Life. Namely, the very fact that this is another berry-flavored cereal out of the endless fruit pi of similar licensed releases doesn’t leave me with much hope that the taste will be exciting. Granted, it is billed as a wholegrain, rather than a corn cereal, but since previous Sesame Street cereals ended up as forgotten relics of Alpha-Bits past, 123 Berry will have to do a lot to escape the sins of its ancestors.

So good luck, Elmo & Co.: the world’s fledgling mathematicians are counting on you.

Posted by dan g.. Categories: News. Tags: general mills, news. 2 Comments

Oct. ’20

Review: Quaker Golden Maple Oatmeal Squares

This review is a long time coming. In fact, it’s been brewing in my brain since before this blog was even a glimmer in my temporal lobe.

First things first: I’m a lifelong maple cereal mark, born and bred. I mean, my blood is practically golden syrup’d cereal milk—which is why I bring a satchel of leeches to Denny’s. It might not’ve been the very first cereal to spark a journalistic interest in the stuff (that title, incidentally, goes to Cinnamon Honey Bunches of Oats), but Waffle Crisp nevertheless is one of the foundational cereals whose never-fading nostalgic spirit drives Cerealously to this day. Seriously: eau de Waffle Crisp is a fragrance so potently sentimental, physicists are considering it as theoretical time machine fuel.

And though Waffle Crisp is gone—at least for now, I weep to myself—granularly analyzing other maple cereals still gets me through the day. From modern classics and bold pairings to the genre’s lower lights, I’ve used just about every relevant adjective in the book to describe the breakfast aisle’s ever-shifting forest of maple tastes both authentic and sweetly synthetic. But ever since I first saw it on the side of my Brown Sugar Oatmeal Squares, one mythic maple cereal has eluded me.

Until now. See, I was always convinced that Golden Maple Oatmeal Squares was an antiquated, discontinued variety that Quaker forgot to take off the boxes of the line’s other three flavors. I searched and searched for years, even bookmarking Quaker’s product locator to no avail. But after Justin and I discussed the stuff’s scarcity during Episode Thirty-One of The Empty Bowl, a number of listeners confirmed that the stuff is still sold in stores—albeit only in very specific regional areas. One listener, Brooke from Wisconsin, was kind enough to send us both boxes to try.

So with my decade-old mission drawing to a close, one question remains: are Golden Maple Oatmeal Squares worth the long-fermented hype? Continue reading →

Posted by dan g.. Categories: Reviews. Tags: maple, quaker. 6 Comments

Oct. ’20

Review: Elf Cereal

Ahh, okay. The extended Elven cereal mythos is starting to make sense.

So seventeen years after the events depicted in the 2003 Will Ferrell holiday family comedy Elf, an unfleshed-out character tribe known as the South Pole Elves resurfaced in reality, when known Chaotic Neutral trickster archetype “Elf on the Shelf” escaped from an Antarctic prison, as described in my recent post on the Shelved Elf’s upcoming second cereal.

We can then assume that, since Buddy the Elf & the North Pole’s noble proletariat are the Nice List antithesis of Elf on the Shelf’s menacing malice, General Mills’ new Elf Cereal must be on a divine Clausian crusade to restore wholesome holiday energy to the breakfast table. I mean, why else would an Elf Cereal take nearly two decades to happen? And no, we don’t count the false prophet.

Personally, though I think Elf is a well-written Christmas movie, I’ve seen it enough times that my fanaticism for its fa-la-la follies tapered off after the first decade or so of annual airings. Nevertheless, I’ll be reviewing Elf Cereal, all maple-puffed and pine-mallowed, with the unbiased palate of a…

Line?

Yeah, from Elf, or at least Buddy’s Musical Christmas.

Uh.

The unbiased palate of a narwhal. Let’s move on. Continue reading →

Posted by dan g.. Categories: Reviews. Tags: general mills, holiday, maple, movie cereals. 3 Comments

Oct. ’20

News: Elf on the Shelf Vanilla Candy Cane Cookie Cereal

Shhh!! Do not move. Do not say a word. Quietly read the words I’m about to present you: he’s in the room with you, right now. But he can’t see you if you remain still and silent, like Christmas Eve’s unstirred mouse.

The Elf on the Shelf feeds on fear. An animistic Yuletide talisman capable of movement speeds greater than SCP-173 when not in view, this guy was clearly deemed too dangerous for Santa’s workshop and sent to a maximum-security Antarctic prison, where he easily slipped past inattentive penguin guards to asexually multiply across shelves worldwide.

Okay fine, a lot of people love the Elf on the Shelf. I think he’s creepy. And that’s why he finds me delicious.

I’ll admit, when Kellogg’s first released Elf on the Shelf Sugar Cookie Cereal last year, I didn’t expect it to return for 2020—let alone with offspring. For while Elf on the Shelf Sugar Cookie Cereal is just alright, it’s no Sugar Cookie Toast Crunch and never will be.

However it’s sequel flavor sounds a bit more permafrost-breaking. As the first mint cereal without chocolate, Elf on the Shelf Vanilla Candy Cane Cookie Cereal brings back those familiar crunchy stars but swap out the boring white pill marbits for cute peppermint swirl ones. Given 2020’s tepid track record with vanilla cereals, I’m hesitant to say whether EotS VCCCC will actually be good, but I’m giving it points for originality regardless.

Expect to see both Elf on the Shelf cereals on, well, store shelves starting this month.

Posted by dan g.. Categories: News. Tags: holiday, kellogg's, mint, news, vanilla. 2 Comments

Oct. ’20

Spooned & Spotted: Frankford Fruity Pebbles White Chocolate Bunny

Speak of the deviled, egged or otherwise, and they shall appear.

Just days ago, I shared news of Frankford’s freshly debuted Fruity Pebbles Candy Bar, remarking how Easter 2020’s Froot Loops White Chocolate Bunny should’ve been a Trix Rabbit. Perhaps hearing my pleas and choosing to further spurn them, Frankford already has a Fruity Pebbles White Chocolate Bunny all hopped-up and ready to go for 2021.

Yes, as I begin to make plans to consider buying materials for my Halloween costume—Thanksgiving & Christmas mere glimmers in the inevitably grueling midwest winter ahead—cereal-loving confectioners are already going hare-brained over next spring. And though the chaotic nature of 2020 makes it hard to picture how next year will look or feel—let alone taste—at least we have one Fruitily Pebbled thing to look forward to.

Well, two.

Posted by dan g.. Categories: Specials. Tags: candy, easter, non cereal, pebbles, post. 1 Comment