By Barry Blunt of kushsmoke.com
One of the HIGHlights of a quality smoke session the wave that hits you about 10 minutes after: a severe case of the munchies. But let’s be real. While Harold and Kumar’s adventure to White Castle made for a timeless stoner classic, the premise is inherently flawed. Stoners don’t want to move more than 10 feet to get their grub on. There’s pretty much two options: work with what’s in the kitchen or dial 9 digits for some delivery.
Thus, it’s part of the stoner code to always keep your cabinets stacked with snacktivities. While just about anything fried, chocolate, or bad for you tastes good when you’re lit, not all munchies were created equal. Over the years, many treasured snacks from my youth have completely disappeared from my life, never to be seen again. For whatever reason, these serendipitous items are no longer produced or longer easily found at a standard Supermarket. What follows is a eulogy for these lost munchies.
1) White Chocolate Covered Oreos
Every time Christmas Hanukkah season rolled around, I could look forward and count on one thing aside from a couple new video games: the most delicious Oreos of all time. Double Stuff Oreos? Pshh. Child please. Double Stufs didn’t and never will have shit on the White Chocolate covered Oreos. If you’re a chocolate lover fiend—they used to call me chocolate face in elementary school for a reason—then the White Chocolate covered Oreos were a wet dream. The silky smooth white chocolate casing enveloped the crunchy chocolate cookie and turns the ordinary into a snack fit for the stoner lords. The bonus: when dipped these in milk, the white chocolate melted a little bit. The double whammy: dipped in Hot Chocolate…
How Rare Are They? Unfortunately, even when they were manufactured, W.C.’s (World Class/White Chocolate) were merely a seasonal snack. I have literally seen the W.C. Oreos in like two Supermarkets in my life. And the last time was in a New Jersey Kings in like ’99. While Nabisco (foolishly) no longer manufactures this bi-racial gem of a treat, you can find a more refined version in chocolatier shops like Ghiradella or Godiva…But that’s really just not the same.
2) Dunkaroos
Dunkaroos were the shit. Introduced in 1988, Dunkaroos were similar to the “crackers and cheese” cups that used to come with every kids’ lunch, only instead of crackers, it was cookies, and the cheese was swapped out for cream. The dopest part about Dunkaroos was that they appealed to both the chocolate lover and the vanilla fiend. But eventually, Dunkaroos began to vanish off of store shelves, save for some obscure discount stores throughout the Midwest.
How Rare Are They? Thanks to the internet, this is one of the things on this list that you’ll still be able to find. General Mills still makes Dunkaroos and sells them by the case on Amazon.
3) Pepsi Blue
This boldly colored cola could be the weirdest entry on the list. Pepsi Blue dropped in those couple years during the early 2000s when neon food was considered “acceptable.” To be fair, this is the same time that products like purple ketchup and blue french fries were around, so a brightly colored soda was certainly not out of the ordinary. What’s so strange about a blue Pepsi, then? It was supposed to be a “Berry Cola,” but wound up tasting more like cotton candy or just straight up liquid sugar than anything else.
How Rare Is it? Completely discontinued. In fact, the food coloring used, Blue No. 1, is actually outlawed in a number of countries according to Wikipedia, so don’t expect the blindingly blue soda you know and love to ever hit shelves again. If you want it, you can still get some of the old expired stuff — but at a price. Sodafinder’s got 12 packs, but at 599.95 a 12-pack, I think I’ll stick to Mountain Dew and Jones’ if I want my mouth to have a neon glow.
4) 3D Doritos
With how 3D imagery has become, I’m surprised we haven’t seen the infamous 3D Doritos make a comeback. Doritos alone are one of the greatest stoner snacks, but these things were gold. Crunchy, cool, and super convenient if you’re talking about the mini version in the to-go cups, 3D Doritos were little poofy pyramids of corn dusted in cheese or ranch flavor. They were an awesome combo of a tortilla chip and a cheese puff, and save for the whole “the points scrape the top of your mouth” part, I miss these like crazy. They also spawned some of the doper and more inappropriate snack commercials of all time.
5. Crispy M&Ms.
Crispy M&Ms were fat little M&Ms with puffed crispy rice in the middle. These were the ones where the Orange M&M first showed up and they were amazing, with just enough air in the rice to make them super crunchy.
How Rare Are They? Unfortunately, the Crisps were discontinued in the US, and replaced years later with the nowhere-near-as-good Pretzel M&Ms, which shares the blue bag and the Orange M&M in common but nothing else. If you want to get your hands on these, some gregarious Germans, where the candy is still sold, are selling the sweets on Amazon right now.
6) Ecto Cooler.
Ecto Cooler is a classic. Back in the day, the guys who make Hi-C signed a deal to use Slimer from Ghostbusters as a flavor, and the result was a saccharine, neon green, orange-flavored liquid that was sold as juice. Those of you that recognize the name probably remember the fights for this at the lunch table, the commercials on every channel, and the strange sugar-induced headache you got after more than three of them.
How Rare Is It? Ecto Cooler’s story is a long and confusing one. Slimer was on the box until 1997, and even though he was pulled the name stayed until 2001, when the name of the juice changed to “Screamin’ Orange Tangergreen.” In 2006, the juice had a short stint as “Crazy Citrus Cooler” before finally disappearing forever in 2007, with no results to buy the ghost nectar online. If you’d like, some Ghostbusters geeks over in Chi-town posted a video of how to make the stuff at home, and it comes out tasting exactly as I remember.
7) Surge
Surge is a quintessential artifact of the 90s. Originally brought to market to compete with Mountain Dew, Surge beat Mountain Dew at its game and then some. Surge had a mystical, radioactive taste and glow that Mountain Dew couldn’t beat. Surge disappeared sometime in 2002 and hasn’t been seen since.
How Rare Is It? Surge was re-formulated and re-introduced as Vault, an “energy soda” marketed by Coke to be a mid-way between a soda and an energy drink. Thanks to the extra caffeine and added artificial flavors, Vault was nowhere near as good and was pulled from stores in December 2011. The good news? Surge was based off of a nearly-identical soda in Norway called Urge, which is still available on shelves. Urge isn’t the same green as Surge, nor will it have that distinct corn syrupy taste thanks to its artificial sugars, but it represents a delicious, if not expensive, option for those that want it.
8) Rice Krispie Treats Cereal
When did it become acceptable to take sugary marshmallow bars, break them up, cover them in milk and call it “breakfast”? I’m not sure, but I know that the result is delicious.
How Rare Is it? It’s very hard to find, but unlike most of the stuff on this list, Rice Krispie Treats Cereal is still produced by Kellogg’s and is available by the case on Amazon. Allegedly, it’s also sold in stores, but I personally haven’t stumbled across the stuff in years.
9) Reese’s Crunchy Cookie Cups
How do you get much better than Reese’s? You take a Reese’s and shove a cookie in it. The texture combination on these was amazing, and it didn’t hurt that the chocolate cookie inside was delicious as well.
How Rare Is It? Very, very rare. This lush variety was discontinued way back in 2000 and there’s no chance of a comeback. On the plus side, there are some similar candies out there, like Peanut Butter Twix, but nothing else has that grainy, salty peanut butter.
10) Mountain Dew Pitch Black.
We had to have a Mountain Dew flavor on here somewhere. After all, Mountain Dew has only gone through somewhere around 4,000 flavors, and it’s a legendary drink for stoners throughout the world. Pitch Black has a special place in my heart. The deep, dark purple substance had a citrusy, grape flavor unlike any other soda I’ve tried, and is plagued by limited edition status that keeps it an elusive reminder of why limited edition products are made solely to piss off consumers.
How Rare Is It? Pitch Black has been on shelves three times. The first back in 2004 for Halloween was the original formula and it was great. Second go-round was called “Pitch Black II” and was marketed as a more sour version of the original. It was nowhere near as good. By popular demand, Pitch Black came back as recently as May 2011, only to disappear after 8 weeks. Hopefully, it’ll come around again, this time as a permanent fixture on store shelves.
If you think I forgot something, comment and tell us what snack you’d like to be enjoying a bowl with right now that you can’t find in a typical grocery store nowadays.
Article originally appeared in Kushsmoke and was republished with special permission
