Review: Butterbeer Season Snacks

The Harry Potter franchise celebrates its signature drink, Butterbeer, by releasing a series of Butterbeer-themed products, including snacks, in an annual promotion called "Butterbeer Season" that runs through May 31st. This year's batch of treats includes Goldfish Butterbeer Flavored Grahams, Hershey's Harry Potter Butterbeer Kisses, Harry Potter Butterbeer Fudge Stripes Cookies, and Skinny Pop Butterbeer Flavored Kettle Popcorn.

I received a set of all four products courtesy of Warner Bros.

Besides being a fictional drink in the Harry Potter universe, Butterbeer is an actual butterscotch-flavored draft drink (with a sweet cream top) available at Harry Potter-themed sections of Universal Studios theme parks (I tried it a while back at Universal Studios Hollywood) and at Harry Potter shops in NYC and Chicago. It's also sold by the bottle (minus the cream top).

Goldfish Butterbeer Flavored Grahams offer graham crackers in three shapes: the signature goldfish of the brand, a Butterbeer barrel, and an owl. A 6.1-oz package carries a suggested price of $3.69. These tasted like butterscotch graham crackers with a hint of salt. The texture was slightly harder than your typical graham cracker and was a little crumbly. I found these very easy to snack on.

Hershey's Harry Potter Butterbeer Kisses feature a gold creme shell with Butterbeer-flavored creme inside. A 9-oz bag costs $4.79 (may vary). The foil of the Kisses includes a Butterbeer pattern and a ribbon that says, "Cheers" instead of the typical "Kisses."

Given that the candies are entirely creme, the Butterbeer Kisses had the richest and truest butterbeer flavor of the lot, along with a smooth and creamy texture.

Harry Potter Butterbeer Fudge Stripes Cookies consist of a Butterbeer-flavored cookie dipped and striped with Butterbeer-flavored fudge. They sent me the Minis version, which seemed like they had a more fudge-heavy fudge-to-cookie ratio.

These remind me of Mother's Circus Animals. They have that same combination of mildly crumbly cookie and smooth creamy coating. Except these have a mild butterscotch-and-cream flavor to them. It works out pretty nicely.

Skinny Pop Butterbeer Flavored Kettle Popcorn is kettle popcorn with a "butterscotch flavor and a hint of brown butter and caramel flavors." It basically has the crunch and lightly caramelized quality of kettle-cooked popcorn with a very mild touch of butterscotch flavor (I didn't pick up any brown butter or caramel notes). What it lacked was the richness of butterscotch, which makes sense as a "better-for-you" (or "no-butter-for-you") product.