2019: cereal’s sophomore year of college.

I say that because, though the 1.5 century-old stuff made some great friends and memories this year, cereal also pulled some dumb shenanigans—as if it were trying to get hazed into a fraternity of goofy flavoring that it was really never cut out for.

Yes, decades from now, when cereal is telling its grandkids (named canned oatmeal & freeze-dried apocalypse biscuits) about these hectic post-halcyon days, we have to imagine it’ll grimace at the times it wore a meat dress and got sticky for no good reason.

In fact, just looking at the first three reviews I wrote this year pretty much gives you the full breadth of 2019’s cereal unorthodoxy. Pop-Tarts Cereal heralded the return of many other cult favorites. Sour Patch Kids Cereal puckered us up for freak incidents of cereal sensory overload. And Hostess’ inaugural pair of crunchable snack cakes showed us that Post means business.

But did any of those make my year-end cut of the tastiest, most creative and charming products of the past 365 days? Let’s count down like it’s Donkey…uh…Clown?

5. Peanut Butter Chex

Solid. That’s an honest and sincere compliment for 2019’s fifth best, because some of the cereals appearing below it are apt to be a little more controversial. But Peanut Butter Chex? Never heard a bad word about it from friends, family, readers or defunct wrestling gossip hotlines.

It helps that peanut butter and cereal is pretty tough to do wrong, but adding the hearty base of Corn Chex plus a very earnestly salted ‘n’ roasted peanut butter flavor makes this a cream or a crunch come true for any PB fan. And don’t even get me started on the Muddy Buddy potential with this stuff, let alone the tactile enhancement Peanut Butter Chex can add to a peanut butter sandwich.

Now all we need is a Chex Quest spinoff set on a planet with peanut butter oceans and nefarious Reese’s Cup UFOs.

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4. Hershey’s Cookies ‘n’ Creme Fillows

Aaaaaand here’s that controversy I ordered for you. What? You wanted the chill and palatable special? Ugh, you can get that anywhere! Why not add a little enraging heat to your diet?

For some reason, probably the majority of people I talk to about Fillows have a pointed disdain for it. I get it: it’s one of the least cereal-y cereals that hit shelves this year, as it is incredibly potent in its sweetness, while also being dense enough to take up the same amount of standard cereal stomach real estate in half the serving size.

But I think it’s good. After eating so many hollowly flavored, pathetically uninspired loop cereals that taste more like a chintzily executed, off-brand Bob Ross paint-your-flavor-by-numbers produced by some penny-pinching Boss named Rob, it feels good to bite into an Oreo O’s evOking cereal biscuit that’s exploding with buttercream and fractured fudge. Oh, and the Cinnamon Roll one is pretty good too.

Fillows is a cereal concept that will benefit from mild formula tweaks, should the franchise survive to see another limited edition variety. So until then, please redirect your vitriol towards, I don’t know, Birthday Cake Froot Loops, so I have a chance to enjoy PB&J Fillows some day.

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3. Millville Peanut Butter & Jelly Puffs

Speaking of which, PB Chex was only out-buttered by one nutty cereal this year, and it’s Millville’s latest out-of-nowhere exclusive.

Hot off the trail-to-Grandmother’s-house paved by Snickerdoodle Kookies, Millville Peanut Butter & Jelly Puffs filled the personally critical PB&J cereal niche that’s long been left empty—since my very first ‘best cereal of the year,’ in fact. And despite being an “Aldi store brand” (you can actually find Millville products at other outlet grocers), Peanut Butter & Jelly Puffs nails it.

Between oily PB puffs and pleasantly jellied strawberry ones, this is a natural combo of two good cereal flavors that’s a wholesome experience with or without milk. Furthermore, here Millville proves that cereal innovation doesn’t have to be sour or savory—just a dash of salty and a whole lot of brown-bagged cafeteria nostalgia.

I choose to believe that somewhere, deep down beneath Post Foods HQ—and I’m talking way down beneath the Malt-O-Meal dungeon—lies a pristine laboratory where the greatest minds and silicon cereal valley whiz kids work tirelessly in this Post-owned Millville Metropolis. These top box-toppers may produce a limited crop, but when do, they crack the code for a release that’s worthy of the foodstuff’s ’80s heritage.

2. Hostess Donettes / Twinkies Cereals

Have you picked up your jaw from the floor?

And did you do it under 5 seconds, while still being sure to like, blow the crud off it too?

I know many expected me to rank Hostess Powdered Donettes Cereal as my #1—after all, for the first 80-90% of the year, it was a clear winner in my brain. Low-key loaded with hedonistically sweet powdered sugar and a remarkably plush and pillowy base doughiness, it was a hard name to beat. Heck, even Hostess Honey Bun Cereal—which was pretty much a honey Waffle Crisp—felt a whole astral plane below this dusty & delectable demiurge.

But then Hostess Twinkies Cereal came out, and suddenly there was a crisis brewing on infinite breakfast tables. Twinkies Cereal has everything I love about Donettes…with a little more custardy and golden sponge-caked goodness?

While Donettes has had a long time to make my heart glaze over, I can’t make a confident judgement about the Twinkies yet. If you consider the comparative volume of Donettes I’ve eaten to Twinkies, it’d be like trying to find a mealworm in a Siberian football field. So in the end I feel they must be treated as a duo: the commendable consumable equivalent of my own golden and ivory cats.

https://www.instagram.com/p/B5OVJ4oJt4Y/

Shameless plug because c’moooooon, look at ’em.

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1. Oats ‘N Honey Cheerios Oat Crunch

BAM! Cheerios outta nowhere!

It feels poetic that, after the fourth cereal I ate in 2019 owned my soul, it would take one of the year’s latest bloomers (and the treacherous competition of its own co-cake) to dethrone it.

But boy, I can’t think of anything I don’t enjoy about Honey ‘N Oats Cheerios Oat Crunch. We already knew from Cinnamon Oat Crunch that this Cheerios offshoot had found a simply beautiful formulation, it was just a matter of where they’d go with it next. Sure, Honey is just about the most obvious choice, but obvious doesn’t have to mean overdone. No, the makers of Honey Nut Cheerios are no-doubt masters of enchanted honey alchemy, and this feels like an opus.

Unless you hate honey or are a contractually bound Honey Bunches of Oats stan, this is a cereal worth your time. Because 2019 may have gone by fast, but I’ll never forget my journey on a spoony schooner into the land of milk and honey.

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2019 may be over when you read this, so happy new year—I hope I haven’t already thrown up by whatever time you’re finishing this sentence.

Huge thanks to continued support from all of you long-time readers and friends, newcomers from The Empty Bowl, and everyone else who lurks, grazes, or simply comes by to leave a caustic comment towards the makers of Rice Krispies Treats Cereal. I’ll admit there were times earlier in the year I considered putting blogging on hold to catch up on life, but the humbling feedback I’ve received lately makes this effort all the more worth it.

Cheers to 2020: don’t forget to spike your Grape-Nuts with champagne.

Okay, now I’ve probably thrown up.