Peeps have gone the way of Oreo — with novelty flavors and colors that are very hit or miss. MUST CREDIT: Photo by Stacy Zarin Goldberg for The Washington Post; food styling by Lisa Cherkasky for The Washington Post.
Peeps have gone the way of Oreo — with novelty flavors and colors that are very hit or miss. MUST CREDIT: Photo by Stacy Zarin Goldberg for The Washington Post; food styling by Lisa Cherkasky for The Washington Post. Credit: The Washington Post photographs— Stacy Zarin Goldberg

People eat Peeps, I guess? Along with gingerbread, they’ve achieved a legendary status: More craft supply than food product, “eating them” is pretty low on the list of things people do with Peeps.

Higher on that list are activities such as “making elaborate political dioramas” and “putting them in the microwave” and “putting them in the microwave holding toothpicks so they look like they’re jousting” and “scraping the corporeal remains of Peeps from the microwave walls.”

So when Peeps announced that it had introduced several new flavors, it was more akin to Crayola releasing a limited-edition set of crayons. New flavors are actually just new colors, and these new colors are going to take your crafting to the next level.

But Peeps are (surprise!) an actual food, and the influx of new flavors is a sign that the brand has adopted the Oreo method of sales generation: Take a classic brand and turn it into dozens of novelty flavors to hold customers’ interest, even if some of those flavors are kind of gross. (They’ve also introduced other Peeps-flavored products, including cereal, coffee creamer and jelly beans.)

That brings us to this year’s offerings:

Peeps Cotton Candy (available nationally) The prettiest Peeps! They’re light pink with blue flecks, like an eye-rolly gender-reveal cake. Cotton candy is an appropriate flavor for Peeps, because cotton candy is basically just the flavor of caramelized sugar. Peeps are also, in their essence, just sugar-flavored. So, here we have sugar-flavored sugar flavored like sugar. Cool.

Peeps Pancakes & Syrup (available nationally) They taste like maple syrup, which is good. But how depressing is it to eat a taupe-colored Peep?

Peeps Root Beer Float Marshmallow Chicks (only at Kroger) A very unfortunate brown color. If you turn them sideways, they look exactly like the poop emoji.

Peeps Delights Vanilla Crème Flavored Marshmallow Chicks (only at Target) Ooh look at you, with your fancy fudge-dipped marshmallow chickens.

This “Delights” line of Peeps is definitely for eating, not crafting, even though they are so premium that they are perfectly molded, unlike their less-fancy brethren that sometimes come out of the machine as monsters with three eyes. This flavor has a white chocolate base that adds a little bit of texture, but not much flavor.

Peeps Delights Orange Sherbet Flavored Marshmallow Chicks Dipped in Crème-Flavored Fudge (available nationally) This is an attempt at a Creamsicle flavor. Do you like artificial orange flavor? No? Pass.

Peeps Filled Delights Chocolate Caramel Swirl Flavored Marshmallow Chicks (only at Target) I take it all back: Peeps are for eating – specifically, these. They have a chocolate base and gooey caramel center (do not think about the gooey center for too long, or you will realize the caramel is Peep guts spilling out of their tiny bodies). They’re basically rocky road ice cream in Peep form, without the nuts. These are Peeps for grown-ups! They are too dignified for your Peep diorama.