Does anyone actually love candy canes? I mean, don’t get me wrong, they’re irreplaceable symbols of the season, and they’re often tasty—especially the fruity ones. But is the humble candy cane anyone’s honest-to-goodness’-sake favorite wintertide treat? Growing up, I never sought candy canes out and really just got them from parades or school events. As a rough and tumble lad in East Michigan farm country, I was far too clumsy to keep said candy canes in my pocket without somehow shattering the brittle shepherd’s crooks into a million pieces. At that point, I’d rather have Pop Rocks.

Like I said, I prefer fruity to mint, so new Froot Loops Candy Canes start off on a more sympathetic foot compared to the cereal aisle’s first proper peppermint cereal. Both these candy canes and that new Elf on the Shelf cereal are hitting stores now. While I’ve yet to track down that wily sprite, I’m more than ready to see whether Toucan Sam’s sugared canes suck in the good or bad sense of the word.

Oh, dear. I wanted so badly to like Froot Loops Candy Canes. I looked forward to employing my signature “firestarter” method of candy cane consumption, which is basically eating it like a pencil sharpener would, but spun really fast. Also like a pencil sharpener, this tends to sharpen the candy cane’s end into the kind of point mischievous middle schoolers love to wield for Christmastime classroom distractions. Speaking of which, for whatever miserable reason, Froot Loops Candy Canes don’t really sharpen. This already invalidates their military utility, if not their entire existence, but it’s not the only reason Froot Loops Candy Canes disappoint me.

More than anything, Froot Loops Candy Canes lack stamina. When you eat a regular candy cane, you’re gonna taste peppermint in every single suck—for lack of a better term. But despite the technicolor gloss that makes FLCC look so nifty, the flavor’s about a millimeter deep. Yes, this flavor tastes exactly, if not uncannily, like Froot Loops. It’s just too bad this taste instantaneously evaporates from your palate, leaving behind the stale sugariness of the cane beneath. This could be forgiven if the core cane’s one-note sweetness was actually good, but sadly it’s more “candy cigarette” than “Fun Dip Lick-a-Stick.”

I taste-tested a few Froot Loops Candy Canes over the course of a few days, each time thinking I had a hankering for candied fruitiness. And each time, I couldn’t make it over halfway through my FLCC before getting bored by the thinly varnished sticky sugar rods. Even the most ardent Froot Loops fans will be hard-pressed to find anything more than collector’s value to enjoy about Froot Loops Candy Canes. Tasting like Froot Loops La Croix spiked with three packets of Sweet’N Low, these candy canes make better Christmas tree ornaments than edible treats.

Heck, you might even be able to burn them like incense.

The Bowl: Froot Loops Candy Canes

The Breakdown: Neither sharp nor satisfying, these candy canes feel cheaply made. Beneath their faintly Froot’d film, FLCC are just over-sweetened impostors.

The Bottom Line: 3 hours of ASMR pencil sharpener noises out of 10