Cash registers cha-ching, are you listening?

In the checkout lane, my bought milk is glistening.

A fruity sweet sight, I’ll be eating tonight:

Chalkin’ in a Winter Blast ‘mallow land!

Good luck topping that instant classic, Michael Bublé! That’s right, my fellow cereal-loving, holiday-hyping friends, today’s seasonally appropriate review will be of Froot Loops with Winter Blast Marshmallows, a new offering from Kellogg’s for 2015 that takes the Froot Loops we all know and love (to chug down with milk!) and pairs them with little white and blue winter chalk nuggets…I mean marshmallows!

But what do these “Winter Blast” marshmallows have that differentiates them from regular Froot Loops with Marshmallows, or even with this past October’s Halloween Froot Loops with Skeleton Marshmallows? I know you’re shaking with anticipation, so please just watch the entirety of this video, and then I’ll tell you!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ch02NDiG7M8

Nothing, that’s what! I’m sure half of you metaphorical Buddy the Elves out there still held onto some far-flung hope that these marshmallows would taste like eggnog or sugar cookies. But the rest of us realistic Scrooges knew that we would just get Scrooged over by another batch of recolored, plain sugar marshmallows.

In fact, I still don’t even understand why half these marshmallows are blue. White snowballs, sure, but are the rest supposed to represent the frozen tears of the poor children who just wanted snickerdoodle marshmallows? But enough pessimism: let’s roll with what we’ve got.

There really isn’t much to say about the taste that I didn’t say in my previous review. The Froot Loop pieces here are as good as ever, with that instantly recognizable tropical hodge podge flavor that deliciously amalgamates and distills every artificial fruit flavor imaginable into a single, candied sugar bite.

It’s hard to describe in precise terms, but I feel like I could replicate the flavor if I just threw some cherries, oranges, lemons, and strawberries into a 5 pound bag of granulated sugar, smashed it with a sledgehammer a few times, and then processed it into rings with one of those Play-Doh shape-making machines.

But since the loops are already the perfect balance of hyper fruity and hyper sugary, the marshmallows just seem like an excessively sweet addition. They dilute the fruit flavor with their cloying, royal icing buzz. While it isn’t a bad sensation, it’s like ordering a steak dinner and having the waiter top off your sirloin with a fried chicken leg.

Milk makes it a little better, as the merry marriage of marshmallow and milk leads to a creamy, frosting like combo, but their vanilla punch is more distracting than delighting.

I decided that if I was going turn this cereal into a unique holiday experience, I would have to take matters into my own hands. And let me tell ya: it wasn’t going to be pretty. Because what flavor screams “WINTER!” to me? Wintergreen. And what did I happen to pick up from my local grocery store earlier in the week?

Limited Edition TruMoo Vanilla Mint Milk, baby.

Throwing all caution to the wind and resisting the urge to laugh like a madman, I doused my Loops and marbits in this minty, radioactive green Nickelodeon Slime that literally and figuratively oozes Christmas spirit. I haven’t read too deep into it, but I’m pretty sure there are laws against this. But hey, there are worse things to be incarcerated for than “drowning fruity cereal in the liquefied essence of Slimer all in the name of winter fun.”

There aren’t many things, mind you, but there are.

What I’m left with looks like a unicorn sneezed into a bowl, but I haven’t gone this far to stop now. I took a spoonful and was pleasantly surprised. It tastes like someone spilled a fruit and yogurt parfait into a melted Shamrock Shake! It’s a flavor combination thatnot even Wonka could have dreamt of, and it’s not one that I’ll ever try again. But gosh darn it: I had holiday fun!

And that’s more than I can say about plain old Froot Loops with Winter Blast Marshmallows. They’re a bit boring and not fruity enough, but at least those little marshmallow snowballs allowed my imagination to snowball into something memorable.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a quart of green milk and a box of Cocoa Puffs that I want to turn into Thin Mints Cereal.

The Bowl: Froot Loops with Winter Blast Marshmallows

The Breakdown: Overly sweet marshmallows try to steal the thunder from the good ol’ tropical Loops. If you’re feeling crazy, though, this is the perfect time to experiment.

The Bottom Line: 5 incoming life sentences for cereal crimes against humanity out of 10