The Diverse World of Snickers: Snickers Milk Chocolate, Snickers Dark, and Snickers Almond

Sharability: 3 Convenience: 5 Denture Danger: 6 Novelty: 8 Overall: 9 The original Snickers bar is peanut butter nougat topped with caramel and roasted peanuts all dipped in milk chocolate. The Snickers bar not only satisfies your taste buds, but it fills you up a bit too. I like to bring a Snickers bar with me when I go skiing because it fits in my pocket, tastes good frozen, and gives me the energy and filler that I need to keep my skiing in check. Every year in the U.S., sales of the Snickers bar reach $2 billion making it the best selling chocolate bar of all time. It was the Mars Company’s second product in 1930 and it was named after the Mars family’s favorite horse. The bar is made by Masterfoods USA, which is a division of Mars. Until 1990, the Snickers bar was sold under the name “Marathon” in the UK and in Ireland, but just like Mars standardized the Twix name, they decided that it was more beneficial to make an internationally consistent name for marketing reasons. And it worked. After the name was changed, it moved in rankings from 9th most popular to the 3rd most popular bar. However, Britain is not happy about the name change and there is currently an online petition website—bringbackmarathon.org—that is trying to bring the Marathon name back. It says “…in Britain we are proud to be different to everyone else… [The Marathon Bar is] part of British History, it’s part of our culture…. Too many things get chopped and changed by the advertising men…” and it goes on to try and convince readers to sign a petition to bring back the original name despite the rise in sales that the new name brings. Snickers bars have evolved since the 1930s. Snickers Almond is also a satisfyingly delicious bar with a unique unexpected strong almond crunch and flavor. It is surprising to me how much the taste is altered by swapping the peanuts out with almonds. It creates for Snickers diversity that really works (as opposed to the Twix and Twix PB). The Snickers Dark adds a bitter twist and at first bite makes me think it would taste good with coffee. Again, it is another successful adaptation to the world of Snickers diversity. I personally like the smooth sweet taste of milk chocolate better than the bitter dark chocolate and would prefer a Snickers almond or Snickers original but you semisweet chocolate lovers won’t regret it if you “chow-in-the-dark.” In the heart of Halloween, Snickers is one of those classics with which you just can’t go wrong. But this year instead of going with the original snickers like everybody else, diversify and pick up Snickers dark or Snickers almond. Your trick-or-treaters will be thankful and intrigued by the variety.