Deep Dive Episode 27 ( Girl Scout Cookies ) March Cookie Madness

Imagine a company that generates $800 million a year in sales. It has around 700,000 salespersons and it moves about 2 million units. And that is in just three short months. And then the company, it shuts down for the next nine months. That's right. They don't sell a single unit for the rest of the year. And they still clear$800 million a year. And that's in less than one financial quarter. In today's podcast, we're going to talk about Girl Scout cookies. 

#GirlScoutCookies #March #Madness #Cookies #Iowa #Hawkeyes 

You can communicate with us at deepdivepod2025@gmail.com or be part of the Deep Dive Community in our Facebook Group Deep Dive Podcast https://www.facebook.com/share/g/1JGiMUC7bq/

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:01

It was a good episode. I mean, except for the cookies.

SPEAKER_02 0:04

Right. Alright, boys, here we are. Back at it. Right back at it. Right back in the saddle. We are pulling a double header. Yeah, we are. So we just got done with a great interview with Nat about Bar Crawl. And here we are for our second interview of the day. And we just got done watching the Iowa Hawkey's.

SPEAKER_01 0:30

I was gonna say, is Brad sweet and I'm 16? Oh yeah. Little hype. We are. It's March Madness in full effect in Iowa. Iowa just took down the Florida Gators. Hell yeah. And the boys took down a Shadow Prairie Fire to celebrate it.

SPEAKER_02 0:46

Thank you a lot.

SPEAKER_03 0:47

Yeah. All right.

SPEAKER_02 0:49

Well, let's go ahead and get started with this. So picture a company that generates$800 million a year in sales. It has around 700,000 salespersons and it moves about 2 million units. And that is in just three short months. And then the company, it shuts down for the next nine months. That's right. They don't sell a single unit for the rest of the year. And they still clear$800 million a year. And that's in less than one financial quarter. In today's podcast, we're going to talk about Girl Scout cookies. Boys, those numbers are kind of crazy, aren't they?

SPEAKER_01 1:29

I thought we were talking about the Dunlap boy shoveling snow. Yeah, I would. Right.

SPEAKER_02 1:33

I just can't wrap my head around those numbers. Sponger. Unpaid salespeople. Right.

SPEAKER_01 1:41

That's the best. That's the best labor for labor like child labor. Right. Jeez.

SPEAKER_02 1:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:48

But yeah, what a concept, huh?

SPEAKER_02 1:50

Yeah. So that funds a lot of campouts. It funds a lot of the uh the Girl Scout activities. But those numbers are crazy. So the the Girl Scout cookies first started selling in 1917, and it started with a um Girl Scout troop in Muscogee, uh, Oklahoma. And when they originally started, the uh moms and the daughters were the ones responsible for making the cookies, and they sold them door-to-door. It was just a simple uh sugar cookie recipe. But then by 1930, the program expanded. They were produced commercially to kind of to meet the needs. Ironically enough, in 1930, Lou Henry Hoover was the first lady in the White House, and she was also the honorary president of Girl Scouts USA, and she was the one that promoted Girl Scout sales, which kind of legitimized Girl Scout cookie sales in the United States. I don't I guess so. I don't know if girls were going door to door saying they were Girl Scouts, but but the fact that uh Lou Henry Hoover supported Also there may have been pirate organizations that were trying to cash in on this.

SPEAKER_04 3:01

I guess yeah. So the the fact that uh I always check when a Girl Scout comes to the door. I always I always check her ID. Right.

SPEAKER_01 3:09

I think what's most impressive about those business stats you just put out there is the Girl Scouts made the somewhat risky decision to go head to head in the door-to-door high caloric snack fundraising sales against the world's finest chocolate.

SPEAKER_02 3:23

Oh yeah, the world's finest.

SPEAKER_01 3:24

And with this mere recipe, they won. They continue to win head-to-head. Over the finest chocolate in the world.

SPEAKER_02 3:32

In the world. All right. So what we're gonna do tonight, in the spirit of the basketball tournament, men's and women's basketball tournament, we are going to pit uh five Girl Scout cookies against each other, and then we have included an additional three. Some sleepers. Right, some sleepers just off the shelves to see if the Girl Scout cookies can hold up against you know what you can buy in the store. So cookie madness. All right, so the first thing we're going to do is we're gonna put regular Girl Scout Thin Mints versus regular or Girl Scout Explore Moors. So, John, if you wouldn't mind going up and getting that. So, a little bit of interesting data here. The thin mint is the best-selling cookie. Okay, it's the number one best-selling cookie. So it's the thin mint versus the explore moors.

SPEAKER_04 4:26

The first problem we have here is John is getting them room temperature off the counter behind us. Yeah. And there are those, my wife would be one, who think that the thin mint must be consumed right out of the freezer.

SPEAKER_02 4:40

Yeah. No, I I don't disagree with that.

SPEAKER_01 4:42

Thin mint is superior frozen. There's no doubt about that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 4:46

I actually thought about the other three cookies that we introduced as being uh cold thin mints versus room temp thin mint.

SPEAKER_01 4:54

Okay, I don't really know what the presentation we want here, boys, but well, yeah, I don't think it has to be uh all right.

SPEAKER_02 5:01

So the Thin Mint, the number one bestseller, and it sells roughly between 25 to 36 percent of the total sales every year. So almost a quarter of all sales are these Thin Mints.

SPEAKER_01 5:14

Do you have the data on X what are these Explorer Smoors? Is the Explorer More a new Yeah? I mean it's new, but how new?

SPEAKER_04 5:21

It's new to me.

SPEAKER_02 5:22

The Explorer Moors are a Rocky Road ice cream inspired cookies filled with flavors of chocolate, marshmallow, and toasted almond cream. So that's the Explorer More. And then the Thin Mint is we know is just a chocolate uh flavored thin mint. So let's go ahead and have one of these. Okay. Thank you. Explore more. So we're gonna kind of pit these against each other. Okay. I'm gonna get a glass of milk here. Okay.

SPEAKER_04 5:52

What do you have going on there, Brad? Well, we talked about this earlier on the other, maybe on a break from the other show, but we were talking about the old high V brand kind of super hard crunchy cookie with a little interior thing. And this is giving me the cookie itself is giving me that vibe. It's not quite as hard. Yeah. Um, I've never had this before. I've never had the explore more.

SPEAKER_02 6:17

Um so if you're listening, the what we have is we have a two-cookie sandwiched with the um kind of like an Oreo. It's not an Oreo filling, it's no. It's like almond paste. There's almond in there.

SPEAKER_04 6:31

A little marshmallow flavor. It's not as um frosting like I would say. Its viscosity is lower than like the hive product I was talking about before.

SPEAKER_02 6:42

So now we're gonna go for the number one seed, the thin mint, the the Girl Scout branded Thin Mint. Yeah. I never really noticed that the Thinmints have like little perforated tops on them. I've never I've never examined them. They've all went from like immediately to the package to my pie hole, but they have like does yours have perforated tops? They do.

SPEAKER_01 7:03

I think that's actually kind of new school as well. I think the thin mints from our childhood did not have that. Yeah, it's also a good chance to comment on the box and packaging. The Girl Scout cookie has got the box has gotten a lot smaller. Was it not a three-row presentation? Now it's only two rows, right?

SPEAKER_02 7:20

What do they call that? Shrinkflation?

SPEAKER_01 7:22

Yeah, I mean, but they've added to the price, so yeah.

SPEAKER_02 7:25

All right. So I've got five boxes and it cost me 30 bucks. So I don't know what the they've got to be making. I don't know how much it would cost to make my guesses, it's probably less than a buck, too. Yeah. A little bit of money goes to whoever bakes it.

SPEAKER_01 7:41

Well, I know who bakes it, but well, I've got my very strong opinion, but I guess I'll before I taint it, I'll let Brad go first.

SPEAKER_04 7:50

Not a big thin guy.

SPEAKER_01 7:52

Wow. Okay.

SPEAKER_04 7:53

I'll be honest about it. Sorry. Okay. And if that's if that's offensive to people, that's fine. Uh not my thing.

SPEAKER_01 8:00

Okay. So which of these two cookies do you have moving to the next round?

SPEAKER_04 8:05

I guess I'd go with the uh Explore Moors. John? There you go. I mean, I'm sorry, I don't I hope I didn't deflate anyone's balloon, but never been a Thin Mint guy. Don't pay attention to them because I don't really prefer them. If that's just I'll stop there.

SPEAKER_01 8:20

That's fine. John, do you have an opinion? Just taking a minute to process what I've just heard. Right. Uh my take on what we just did here. This was a one versus sixteen. Right. Sixteen didn't even show up. No offense to the Girl Scouts. I just don't even think that's a good cookie. That's terrible. Did you get any marshmallow, almond-y, rocky road out of that? You want to try it again, red? Terrible extra. Do you want to take one more calories? I don't particularly care for these, but you would even acknowledge it over a thin mint. It's just loot. Do you like other mint presentations? Shamrock shakes, everything.

SPEAKER_04 8:54

The thin mint has very little going for it. Did you shoot Bald Eagle dead today? Visually, it's visually unappealing. It's not exciting to eat. Um, I've never been impressed with the thin mint, and I'm sorry.

SPEAKER_02 9:08

That's all right. And so when you have that, you're like, yeah, this is more satisfying than a thin mint. Yeah. Yeah. Yep.

SPEAKER_00 9:15

Okay, Ray. Are you settling the tie or what are we doing here? Yeah, you right. We got three, so you have to settle the tie.

SPEAKER_02 9:21

Yeah. Um, yeah, I'm gonna go with a thin mint. Yeah. Yeah, I'm sorry. It's it's good, and I it's I I have too much legacy pleasure. You know, I I'm with John. I'm I'm not a big fan of that uh the cookie.

SPEAKER_01 9:33

I liked what they did the description of that cookie. Yeah. If he had it executed with some marshmallow and almond flavor in there, I would have been all about it.

SPEAKER_04 9:40

I want to be clear, neither of them are my cup of tea. Okay. So we had to go head to head. You felt like you just watched it. The thin mint does almost nothing for me. Okay. Right. And that's just where I stand on it.

SPEAKER_01 9:52

Well, there are no wrong answers, but there are extremely wrong answers, and you just offered one. All right.

SPEAKER_02 9:56

Well, Brad, I'm gonna be excited to see what you say with this because we're going to do the craven thin mint versus the lemon ups. But listen, we just had people down here that said the craven version of the thin mint is better than the Girl Scout Thin Mint.

SPEAKER_04 10:16

So now I'm trying sawdust and uh trying to team you thin mint. I'm trying peanut shells, and then I'm gonna try I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 10:27

You in general like citrus anyway, right? You're kind of a citrus person?

SPEAKER_04 10:32

No.

SPEAKER_02 10:32

Really?

SPEAKER_04 10:33

No. I mean, I like citrusy things, but that's not like when it comes to cookies and stuff like that. No. I'm more chocolate. Yeah. I mean, we'll get into it, but like there are other combos that give me much more satisfaction than what we're dealing with here.

SPEAKER_02 10:46

So let me tell you what we're looking here for those that have not had a uh a lemon up before. So we're we're looking at a kind of a good size lemon citrus cookie, and the top of it is Do they all say something different?

SPEAKER_04 11:03

Or do they all Mine says I am a leader? Mine says I'm an innovator.

SPEAKER_02 11:07

Mine says I'm a risk taker. There we go. It's almost like fortune tellers, aren't they? Yeah, I like that. What's happening?

SPEAKER_01 11:15

It's a gamified cookie, I like that.

SPEAKER_02 11:17

Right. So the back side of this, it has a light schmear of a citrus frosting. I yeah. I can get behind that. Right. And I will say at one time these were bigger. I mean, these were like as big as my palm when I was.

SPEAKER_04 11:30

So is this an official Girl Scout cookie? It is. See, we don't we never get these at my.

SPEAKER_01 11:35

When the Girl Scout lemon first came out, it was like a vanilla, like an Oreo, right? With vanilla and then a lemon cream in the middle, right? So we've kind of grown to this. Hmm. Alright.

SPEAKER_04 11:46

It could be more lemony. Yeah. I don't know. So now we're in the part of the tournament here where is this, those two went head to head, and then we're gonna go this lemon versus some other kind of lemon? Is that what's happening?

SPEAKER_01 11:58

No, I think we're going this lemon versus another minted cookie.

SPEAKER_02 12:01

Yeah, this is the this is the high V version. High V version of the mint This feels like a play-in game.

SPEAKER_04 12:08

Okay. So this is the TMU version of the So this is very much going for, they're going for the original. Who knows though?

SPEAKER_02 12:16

Maybe the Girl Scout cookies copied this. Maybe the Girl Scouts, like, oh, they got perforated tops. We're gonna have perforated tops.

unknown 12:22

Man.

SPEAKER_02 12:25

Yeah. You don't like this? I think it's better. You think that's better than original thin mint? I do. I think the cookie is like uh it's uh it's a lighter cookie, wouldn't you say?

SPEAKER_01 12:37

I don't think that's gonna freeze as well.

SPEAKER_02 12:38

That might be a good point. That might be a good point, and I think it's a little bit mintier too. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:44

I like the original better. All right. Um I need to know more background story because I also just want to dock points for corporate America ripping the Girl Scout cookies cookie. But I guarantee you the Thinman was did not copy this, it's the other way around. Right. Um, but you see the other, I don't know if you bought any or we're gonna have any, but they've also introduced other imitation Girl Scout, like the coconut chocolate, I think. Craven has four cookies, the high vehicles.

SPEAKER_02 13:11

Girl Scout knockoffs, right? They have four Girl Scout knockoffs, and Brad, you said nutter butters was one of yours childhood memory of butter butter, yeah. And there's a Girl Scout cookie that's kind of a nut or butter-esque. So yeah, there's other okay. I didn't get the full cadre of uh I I just got the the deal, the the five for you. So, all right, Brad, do you the lemon or the cream? I'd give the I'd give the edge to the lemon.

SPEAKER_01 13:39

I'm gonna give the edge to the lemon too. Oh, alright. Yeah. But I'm yeah, I'm a little worried about the Girl Scouts this year because we've tried two relatively new offerings and neither one of those are stellar cookies.

SPEAKER_02 13:51

All right. So lemon advances. Okay. Alright, so Fin Mints, the number one all-time seller, Samoa's Caramel Delights, consistently number two. They sell around 19 to 20 percent. So just the first two, uh, Thin Mints and Samoas or Caramel Delights, they sell over half of all of them. Yeah. So then it's the tag-alongs, which are the uh peanut butter patties. John, this time we're gonna do tag-alongs versus Samoas. Uh the Dosy Dous, which are the peanut butter sandwiches, those are your um nutter butters. And then uh the trifles or the shortbreads, those are the the fifth. So if we were gonna have a Mount Rushmore of uh Girl Scout cookies, it'd be thin mint, Samoas, tag alongs, and then it's kind of uh a battle between Dosy Dougs and Trifoles and Okay.

SPEAKER_04 14:42

You're putting the um Samoas, Samoas or Samosas? Samoas, yeah. So the Samoas against the Samoa. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Those are the what do you want for getting more near the wheelhouse here, Brad? These two are one heavy hitters. These are my guys go deep. They're my one and two. You're putting my one and two, you're putting, you know, Duke up against uh I don't know, Florida.

SPEAKER_02 15:06

Iowa this year. So so there's two bakeries that that make these Girl Scout cookies. Um one is called ABC Bakery, and one's called Little Brownie Bakers. They make the same cookies, but they are named something different. The boxes might even say something uh different. So Samoas are, I think, in uh Little Brown Bakers are Samoas, and on ABC Bakers are called Carmroll Delights. Tagalongs are called peanut butter patties, dosidos or peanut butter sandwiches. Thin mints are the only cookie that both uh call thin mint. Same cookie. So the Samoa or Caramel Delights are a um chocolate and caramel cookie, and it it has a toasted coconut finish on it. Yeah. So the first thing that hits your tongue is the chocolate on the bottom, but the it finishes off with kind of a coconut, a toasted coconut flavor.

SPEAKER_00 16:10

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 16:12

That's not bad. That's not bad at all. No, no man.

SPEAKER_00 16:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 16:16

Yeah, I mean, that's this is gonna be tough. I could see why this is this might not have been good on my part, but Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 16:23

Maybe it's a little bit of the the savory element. So the thin mint is just cooking and chocolate. It's got it doesn't have much in the in the realm of complexity in mind.

SPEAKER_01 16:34

With a fresh snap of mint.

SPEAKER_04 16:36

Yeah. I think the the texture and the multiple ingredients going on here. You've got chocolate, you've got crunch. There's almost a little bit of a salt to it. Certainly with a I and I maybe that's just it. I like the combination of crunch, salt, and sweet together. Yeah. More than just a like I'm just not a mint. I'm just not big on mint. So like both of these are what I go for, and they're gone. We'll get however many, we'll get three boxes of the thin mints, the Samoas, and the Tagalog. And and and these are all gone. And Stephanie's still got the thin mints, and then they go in the freezer and then they're there for months. But these are gone immediately. Yeah. Because I can sit here and eat. Yeah, I like this.

SPEAKER_02 17:19

Brad, this is gonna be tough for you. Are you gonna be able to come to a decision or are you gonna have to flip a coin here? Samoas. Samoas giant. Samoas for me.

SPEAKER_01 17:28

I'm going with the Samoas as well. Brad, you pretty much touched on all the things about the Samoa. It's got just incredible mouthfeel. It's got crunch of cookie, there's gooey of caramel. Yeah. There's a savory element, and then sweet, and then it has the dark chocolate that is the right chocolate to cut through all of that. Oh, visually, it's it's interesting to look at.

SPEAKER_04 17:47

Yeah, it's interesting. Yes. It's not just a disc, the lifeless, friggin' flaccid nothing. Right. Exactly. This has something to look at. It's got it got it has a great mouthfill. It's got a crunch. It's got a nice finish.

SPEAKER_01 18:00

No, not to diminish. The peppermint patty, or as we're calling it here, tagwong is a fantastic cookie. It's the right flavor combination. A chocolate peanut butter is always just a classic combination. I think these, and I've always felt this way, could benefit from just a little bit larger dollop of peanut butter. Just a little light on the peanut butter for my liking. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 18:20

Well, John, I think you're gonna like our next round. But uh the only one other thing I would say is if you look on the back of a box of Samoans, it says not made with actual Samoans. Oh, right. So they're yeah, so they're Samoan free. Right. Yeah not made with, not made by, not nothing. Right. You just eat it well. Just eat them Samoans. Yeah. Alright, so our last is well, this is actually, you know what? It's good, this is a buzzsaw. It's the TMU peanut butter, basically the tag-a-wong knockoff, the craven peanut butter sandwich versus Oreo. All right, okay. Now, I have talked about the Oreo in the past, how in one of my psychology classes in undergrad we they were talking about doing uh brain mapping, and one of the earliest uh things they did uh because they were researching like where cannabinoids and yeah cocaine and stuff hit the brain. What happens to the right their base unit or their base reading was the Oreo cookie, what it does, and it was hitting the very same pleasure center as cocaine. So the Oreo cookie lights up the brain like cocaine does. So all right, so we are going to end the end of round one with basically the equivalent of Girl Scout Tagawong. So this is a peanut butter. Yeah, that is the Oreo I wanted. Okay. The reason I got that is because I am uh sucker for for the uh mint Oreo. So we're gonna have mint Oreo, not just regular.

SPEAKER_04 20:00

See, I feel like this is like one thing we should have said when you ran out to get these is I I whipped. We talked about this on the holiday episode. Yeah. The shamrock. I feel like you've brought a little shamrock shake to the table. Yeah. Which I think would pair nicely with some of these.

SPEAKER_02 20:16

Yeah. They actually make an Oreo Shamrock shake this year.

SPEAKER_01 20:19

Um I have Shamrock Shake story. Oh, yeah. I had to fly home on St. Patrick's Day. Yeah, yeah. And I've had a shamrock shake I probably damn near every year since like 1977 when it came out. I mean, you always get at least one shamrock shake. I love it. And I hadn't had one prior to leaving for work and whatnot, but I thought, all right, I'm St. Patrick's Day coming in. Don't often eat at the airport, but I'm just gonna grab a filet of fish meal with a shamrock shake on my layover. Yeah. In the airport. The Denver airport. I know. I hate listen, hate because correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the shamrock shake sometimes is like gone on the 18th. Like they are they're gone.

SPEAKER_04 20:58

You guys are more plugged in on this. I didn't even know they were still doing them.

SPEAKER_01 21:01

So I ordered and they said nothing to me until I slid down the counter and they're like, we don't have shamrock shakes. Oh wow. So I got a Coke, which did not make me happy. No. First thing I did when I got home, yeah, grabbed up cream to mint and made my own shamrock shake. So I had to do homeschool. Right. Okay. I could get better than that. It was fine. It was decent. Grasshopper, I guess, more than shamrock shake. So uh one star Yelp review from the McDonald's at the Denver airport. If you were thinking about giving anything better, the fries were good and salty.

SPEAKER_04 21:31

I thought you I thought you had to do the shamrock shake in a drive-thru configuration. That was a good one.

SPEAKER_01 21:36

Well, I mean that's like super ideal for sure, right? Emergency times, you know that.

SPEAKER_04 21:42

Yeah. You do what you can within.

SPEAKER_01 21:45

So are you gonna take these mint?

SPEAKER_04 21:47

I mean, I guess so. I'm not I'm not enthused.

SPEAKER_02 21:51

John, is that enough peanut butter for you? It definitely has more peanut butter, that's for sure. All right. Yeah, there's definitely more peanut butter on those craven versions of that.

SPEAKER_04 21:59

If you notice the chart. Chocolate on the this is the imitation one, right? This is the original Girl Scout convey. It's a very noticeable difference in the coating. I I prefer the Girl Scout natural brown to this kind of I don't know, it's almost got a little dustiness to it or a little there's something like it's made to last on a shelf for a really long time.

SPEAKER_02 22:22

Mr. Craven wants you to to buy more of these. He really doesn't care if a pony gets fed at a Girl Scout camp. He doesn't care. His cost margins are the next package you buy. He doesn't care about flowers, the horse. The Girl Scout crushes that, but I know we're not going against Oreo versus the uh Craven peanut butter patty. Okay. Fudgy peanut butter patty.

SPEAKER_04 22:46

So these are both like a store brand, like we're going store brand versus store brand.

SPEAKER_02 22:50

Right. Now I will say there are certain times of the year where Oreo does make a double stuffed mint.

SPEAKER_04 22:57

Oh mint.

SPEAKER_02 22:58

Right. They make a double stuff all the time, but a double stuffed mint is my very favorite.

SPEAKER_01 23:04

Do the other seasonal Oreos, the yellow and pink ones around Easter, those aren't flavored, are they? Those are just colored filling.

SPEAKER_02 23:12

So, um, yeah, so the colored filling, but they'll do like a pepperminty one at Christmas. Right. And they'll do a like a birthday cake one that kind of has a different flavor and it has like little crunchy elements inside the frosting. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:27

You remember when they ran the contest to like pick a flavor? This is I don't know how many five, six, seven years ago. They did a contest. And you could submit. I submitted a flavor that did not win, but they actually tweeted my flavor that I suggested as an example of just creative ideas. I got nothing for that. Uh just a tweet, but I might go cheese? Avocado cream. Oh, avocado cream.

SPEAKER_04 23:51

Okay. I can see how that might be.

SPEAKER_01 23:52

I mean, avocado ice cream is a thing in South America. It's very vanilla. Trump.

SPEAKER_02 23:58

Avocado cream. Like pistachio. Yeah. Get behind that? Yeah. I'd try it. Yeah. I'd definitely try it. So, you know, I will say this for me, and Brad is not a big dairy drinker, not a big milk cookie.

SPEAKER_01 24:12

He's not getting anything. He likes your cookies, dairy. I'm struggling. We're hungry cowboy.

SPEAKER_02 24:18

Struggling. But the Oreo cookie without milk is a different cookie.

SPEAKER_01 24:23

Yeah, it is. It's like the non-frozen thin mint.

SPEAKER_02 24:25

Right. Yeah. Yeah. So do we have a verdict here?

SPEAKER_04 24:28

Well, I'm going for the mint Oreo in that round. I think because I've got a little bit of I don't even know if it's the right word as a version, but I'm not a big mint person, so I'm going to go for the low-grade peanut butter version. Right, the knockoff peanut butter patty cookies. I mean, it is it is less good than the Girl Scout version, but it's better than this artificial mint toothpaste job. Right. Well, unfortunately, Brad. You're gonna you're gonna go.

SPEAKER_02 24:53

I'm gonna say Oreo because I'm such a sucker for mint Oreos.

SPEAKER_01 24:58

Should we uh cleanse the palate here with little McGill cutties? Yeah, we can.

SPEAKER_04 25:03

Something. No. How about some bourbon? Just some regular bourbon.

SPEAKER_02 25:07

Yeah, if you guys want to take a break and uh palate cleanse here.

SPEAKER_04 25:10

And what do we got?

SPEAKER_02 25:10

We got so we have mint Oreo versus lemon. We have Samoa versus thin mint. Yeah. I don't know if we need to do a tasting again, but we I'm not against having a little bourbon just to make things right.

SPEAKER_04 25:22

Just a splash to cleanse the palate.

SPEAKER_02 25:24

Yeah. So um why John is taking care of that. Like I said, uh there are two bakeries that that bake these cookies, the ABC Bakery, the little brownie bakery. Uh the names are slightly different, except for the the thin mints. And it is kind of interesting because even in the state of Iowa, so if you're in eastern Iowa, I would see this Iowa City, Cedar Rapids, Davenport, you are eating little brownie bakers. But if you are west of here, you are eating the uh ABC. So yeah, we get Samoas and Des Moines gets caramel delights. We get tagalongs and Des Moines gets peppermint patties. We get Dosy Douze and they get peanut butter sandwich cookie.

SPEAKER_04 26:13

I think one of the things that might have thrown this whole thing off is at the end of the Iowa Victory, we had that fireball. Yeah. Your your preferred version of Fireball. Yeah. And that maybe threw something. Wow. Nice pour, John.

SPEAKER_02 26:29

An Iowa Victory pour. Brad's familiar with this pour. It's a two-finger. John, what are we having here? What is this? This is blantons. Blantons. Oh wow. Jeez. Yeah, I'm done with milk. I'm done with eating. I'm just gonna focus on the blantons here. Okay. I'm on board with this.

SPEAKER_01 26:49

Alright, do we need to get more supplies out?

SPEAKER_02 26:51

I don't know. Do you guys want to just pit them against each other? Do you think if you if you're Iowa? Yeah. In heaven there is no bourbon. Right?

SPEAKER_03 26:59

Right.

SPEAKER_02 27:00

Cheers. Hawk victory. Well, you're definitely welcome. We have enough supply. But what we're left here was with the Samoan, which is the uh caramel and chocolate and uh toasted coconut versus the thin mint.

SPEAKER_01 27:14

Now, this is off script, but I think I'm just gonna try a little snag of this out pairs with bourbon. I mean I know the coconut would advertise it that way.

SPEAKER_02 27:22

Look on the back of that. Does it does it say what uh what whiskey on the back of the Girl Scout package that they would pair with that?

SPEAKER_04 27:30

Yeah. It says thin mints go really well with a sparkling watermelon seltzer.

SPEAKER_02 27:37

Oh that's not what I had.

SPEAKER_04 27:41

That's not what I anticipated. And then it says that a Samoan goes really well with plantains. So if you like Kirkland flavored pineapple fizzy water, you probably really like a thin mint. Right. You know, as they but they give the they they both give the same mouthfeel. They have that kind of artificial sweetener to it. Yeah, but nothing else.

SPEAKER_01 28:05

As a kid, I was forced no I was in Boy Scouts, so I was forced to go around the neighborhood selling popcorn. Yeah. We should have been selling whiskey, chasing the Girl Scouts around and chasing their Samoas with selling little bottles of bourbon. Right. Airplane shooting. Right. We did it all wrong. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 28:22

I don't know if I ever told you. Did I ever tell you the story about we sold Christmas wreaths? Did I tell you my Christmas wreath story? So we sold Christmas wreaths, obviously before Christmas, and we started selling them like six weeks out. And this is back in the eighties when we still got measurable snows. So I was knocked on this door, and this lady every year, she had a double front door, so she would get two Christmas wreaths for her front door, then she'd get one for her side door, which was also a busy street. And so I knocked on the door, and she goes, I was wondering if you were gonna come around, step in, you know. And so, first of all, it smelled amazing in her house. It was like six o'clock. She had had something great for dinner. And she'd invite you in. Uh, she invited me in. It was warm. I was freezing, it was snowy. I mean, the snow was up to my knees by this time.

SPEAKER_01 29:13

I like tourists. Well, hello, young Ryan. This was back before these things made Twitter.

SPEAKER_02 29:21

Right. Yeah. So she um asked me how much they were, and I told her, and she goes, Okay, I'm I've got to go write you a check. And so the way her house was set up, you could see from the front room through the dining room, back to the kitchen. So she's gonna go to the house.

SPEAKER_04 29:34

She'd go back to the boudoir where her checkbook is. Right.

SPEAKER_02 29:38

Past the heart shape tub. Past the caged bingo tiger. She poured herself and you a glass of brandy and said, I'm just gonna write you a checkbook, younger. Right. She um so I look over and she has one of these old Crosley radios beside her doors that came in, and there was a bowl full of peanuts. And I had not eaten. Yeah. And the house smelled really good, and I instantly got hungry. She went into the kitchen and took a left. So I went and got a handful of peanuts and I popped them in my mouth. And I ate them, and I could hear her back in the kitchen and kind of looked around the corner and she wasn't coming. So I popped another handful of peanuts in my mouth and ate those. And maybe 60 seconds went by and she still wasn't coming. So I reached in and got another handful of peanuts out of the bowl, and I popped them in my mouth. And as soon as I did, she came around the corner and caught me putting those peanuts in my mouth. Yeah. And I could feel my face get red and my ears get red, and she goes, I am so glad you are eating those. Since my David passed away, all I can do is suck the chocolate off of them.

SPEAKER_04 30:55

Oh I was afraid you're gonna say that. Yeah. They weren't salty. No. No. And they were kind of soggy.

SPEAKER_02 31:04

Right. Yeah. Oh man. Alright. Alright, so do we have a uh consensus on the Samoan versus the Thin Mint? I do. I do now. Now that I've got the Plantons. Yeah. For me, Samoans are going to move on to the next round.

SPEAKER_01 31:23

Obviously. Yeah. Well, not obviously. This is like the end of Rocky II, where Apollo and Rocky are just trading blows and who's going to get up. But I do agree the Samoa gets off the mat at the nine count and wins the heavyweight battle. But I'm Thin Mint was frozen. We might have a longer debate.

SPEAKER_02 31:44

For me, if you wouldn't have brought out the Blantons, it wasn't. Oh yeah. Yeah. I mean, that pairs that actually does pair pretty good with it. Yeah, it's tasty. Okay, on the other side of the bracket, we have lemon ups versus the mint Oreo. So this is where uh are we going to have an interloper knock off one of the Girl Scout cookies?

SPEAKER_01 32:03

Yeah, to me, this is like Dowling Catholic playing Ames High School. Like you want to cheer for the public school and all the things, but they're the little cyclones. And much like the cyclones, that lemon cookie sucks.

SPEAKER_05 32:17

Right.

SPEAKER_01 32:18

So I'm with you. I'm so heavily recruited athletes out of the mint Oreo box win the day.

SPEAKER_02 32:26

Right. For me. All right. So now we've got mint Oreo object. Do you got anything, Brad?

SPEAKER_01 32:30

You got any commentary on this? I Are you going to try and solve it? The lemon might pair with the bourbon too.

SPEAKER_04 32:35

I can't even, I can't even vote.

SPEAKER_01 32:37

I mean, if that was a respectable lemon cookie. Right? You can't enjoy that lemon cookie. No.

SPEAKER_04 32:43

I I didn't. The thin mint, no.

SPEAKER_02 32:46

This is such an exercise in futility for you, isn't it? Yeah. I can't even. I can't even.

SPEAKER_01 32:52

Where's the fig Newton for Brad? Right. The undisputed champion of the cookie world.

SPEAKER_04 32:58

Bring me a fig. Come on. Come on.

SPEAKER_02 33:02

What were some of the some of the things that Brad had in his like uh I can't remember that episode. Oh, all right. We thought the things he had for his sleepovers.

SPEAKER_01 33:11

Fig Newton, munchos, monchos. Yeah. All the beeless candies.

SPEAKER_04 33:16

Yeah. When we were uh going back to our prior episode when we were at the um Indian restaurant, I did realize that the um what's the name of the thing that they start the meal off with? The um they're a very thin they're a muncho texture.

SPEAKER_01 33:31

They were that came up at the dinner.

SPEAKER_04 33:33

They're like a flattened out. Muncho, lighter in color. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 33:39

It was a great we just so what is it called? Is it like a cracker? What is it? Oh, what's it called Papa?

SPEAKER_04 33:43

Is that what they call it? You can put like chutney on it. You can put like little mint, but they're they're crisps that are like dinner plate-sized. Yeah. And then you crack you crack them down, but they're very much like the texture of and consistency of. They're very um air-filled, right? They're light and crunchy and salty.

SPEAKER_01 34:01

Set the stage for this. This was a business dinner, probably 14 people at the table, some international uh business counterparts, and a Civco crowd, and at a really nice high-end Indian restaurant. Right. Yeah. They bring this out. Brad. These are like munchos.

SPEAKER_02 34:18

Which when you're over anybody when you're over in England, it might be a really good great compliment, but if you're from Iowa, you're like, Nacho cheese and duppies. Yeah, yeah. Anyway.

SPEAKER_01 34:33

Yeah, I digress.

SPEAKER_02 34:35

All right, so here we are. The final game, the Samoan. Samoas. Brad. Samoas. Minor technicality here. Let's keep this. Since I'm not going to say it anymore, I will say it correctly. Uh, versus the mint Oreo. Now, we have, I think, two very worthy cookies in the final. Okay. Brad, ideally, I mean, if you're looking at the list here, who would have been your final two?

SPEAKER_04 35:02

I would have put the Samoa versus the uh tagalong.

SPEAKER_02 35:05

Samoa versus Tagalong. So they were they just happen to be on the same side as well. Right up. They were on the they were on the wrong side of the bracket together. Yeah, you know.

SPEAKER_04 35:14

Yeah. Like two great teams that just, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 35:16

It's tough when when mint Oreo is in the mix, where to put the Samoa. But you're right. It it was, I don't know. Definitely if we would have put the Samoa versus the lemon, it would have been a uh oh. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 35:29

John, what would you have had in your final two if you could have Samoa thin mint. That would be those are two cookies that the Girl Scouts could sell year-round. Yeah. And I they will if we scrapped the Girl Scout cookie concept and pitted a tournament of all your favorite cookies, uh, Chips Ahoy, yeah, you name it, nut or butters you throw it in there. Um these are two competitors in the bracket.

SPEAKER_02 35:50

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 35:50

And in this, what we've got on this table today, to me, those are the top two.

SPEAKER_02 35:54

All right. How do we want to do this? Do we uh do you have strong feelings?

SPEAKER_04 35:58

I think yeah, we just name the Samoa.

SPEAKER_01 36:00

I think the Samoa emerged from our bracket.

SPEAKER_04 36:02

Right. The one thing I'll say is I I guess there are people who are not necessarily coconut oriented, which I understand. And I'm not a big, big coconut person, but I think there's just the right amount and the toasted element. It doesn't make it too, Almond Joy's got nuts, mounds don't like it. It doesn't make it so mountsy. Yeah. Um because that can be a lot. And I I think the attitude towards coconut in desserts might be similar. There are people who are okay okay with it and enjoy it. I think it's somewhat comparable to and I don't know where you guys stand on this, but pineapple on a pizza. Right. Like like many people would say that's blasphemous. That's you know, it's kind of like making a bass, bass and Guinness half, you know, black and tan. I'm okay with it. Um how do you feel about coconut on your pizza? Never had it, but I don't think I'd give it a try. I don't think I'd be for it.

SPEAKER_02 36:59

This coming from a guy who was all right with corn on pizza in England. Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_04 37:03

Oh yeah, tuna fish. Tuna fish. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 37:08

I think you gotta try things. The pizza crust is just a delivery vehicle. What's on top of it could be a potluck of whatever. Exactly. Well, Samoa, congratulations. Yeah, you are our champion this year.

SPEAKER_04 37:19

I think uh I think you guys came into this thinking that the thin mint was gonna be the clear victor.

SPEAKER_01 37:25

Was I too I knew that those two would probably emerge as my favorites, but they're neck and neck for me. I and again, a frozen thin mint is definitely the better presentation. It's like a frozen Snickers. You know, if you put a a bracket of candy bars, the Snickers would hold its own. Absolutely. But if the frozen Snickers is going against its brethren, it's even better. Agreed, agreed.

SPEAKER_02 37:47

And I I'll say this too. If I come out of a Girl Scout cookie season not having a Samoa, I'm not terribly crushed, but if I don't have a Thin Mint, there's a little bit of regret. Yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_04 37:59

Well that's it says a lot. I can take it or leave it for sure. Mainly leave it. Shocking.

SPEAKER_01 38:05

Just shocking.

SPEAKER_04 38:06

Yeah. And that's how it is.

SPEAKER_01 38:08

I do you have any stats on the top selling? It's got right. Thin mint's probably under the top selling here. So is that part of am I jumping ahead to something you no no? You got it.

SPEAKER_02 38:16

Um you you were helping out um when I read that data. So the thin mint is the number one best seller. It's between 25 and 36% of all total sales. The Samoa, number two, is 19 to 22 percent. So just those two alone consistently account for over half of the sales.

SPEAKER_04 38:36

Yeah. And I think from a profit margin perspective, like what it what it takes to make a thin mint versus what it takes to make a Samoa, yeah. It's gotta be the cheaper thing to make. Oh, yeah. There's not there's not not a lot to it. Whereas there's multiple ingredients, there's a visual component.

SPEAKER_01 38:51

So do you have the whole list of the available cookies in the breakdown? Is like there's they still do a short bread offering?

SPEAKER_02 38:56

Um, I don't have all of them, but the tag-alongs, those that that are the peanut butter patties, those are number three. Okay. Um, and those account for about 13 to 16 percent. The dosy doughs, which are the peanut butter sandwiches. Um, so that is a cookie, a peanut butter schmear, and then another cookie. Those are about eight to eleven percent. And then the shortbread cookies were just the trifles or trifles are um six to nine percent. That's just the shortbread. And those are fine too, which is basically what the lemon is, I think, except the lemon has a little um lemon baked into the shortbread, and then it has that that lemon smear on the frosting.

SPEAKER_01 39:36

So did the Girl Scouts do a ginger snap at one time? Do you remember that?

SPEAKER_02 39:40

They did. Okay, that's what I thought gone. Um, after our uh speed round, I will tell you some of the things that uh yeah, some of the things that are no longer with us. We'll do a uh what is the immemorium at the end, yes, for sure. Okay, long lost Girl Scout cookies. All right, it's time for the speed round. In tonight's speed round, I'm gonna give you five cookies and their descriptions. You're going to have to try to figure out which of the three Girl Scout cookies are real.

SPEAKER_01 40:08

I had a feeling you're gonna do this too.

SPEAKER_02 40:10

And this continued, and which two I made up. Okay. So three of these are real or were real, and two I just made up. Okay. So the first one is the lemon cream cookie. Yeah. So the lemon cream cookie was a lemon-filled lemon cream-filled cookie with lemon zest icing on the outside of the cookie and lemon cream filling on the inside of the cookie. It was favorite because it had a bright and tangy citrus flavor. The lemon cream-filled cookie. The next offering is the Golden Yangles. This cracker textured triangle treat had a robust cheesy flavor and was trying to find an audience of savory-seeking scouts. The Golden Yangle. The Campfire Pop Crunchies. This outdoorsy cookie was inspired by S'mores, and they tried to capitalize on the Pop Rock Craze that featured a graham cracker cookie with marshmallow flavored icing, and had adhered chocolate crunches similar to pop rocks that would release a shocking chocolate fizz in your mouth. Campfire Pop Crunchies. Moonlight Mint Meltways. These cool, smoothie, creamy center, like a York peppermint patty atop a chocolate graham cookie base and was finished with dark chocolate icing. These cookies were wildly popular, but were cost prohibitive, and they were too close to the mint cookie. Cost a lot, went back to the Cheapos. And last, the Cinnaspins, this golden pinwheeled swirl cinnamon sugar cookie, was baked on a soft, almost melt-in-your-mouth texture, and somehow managed to be both light and indulgent at the same time. So that's the cinnamon spins. Alright, so Brad, we'll start off with you. The lemon cream cookies, was that real? It was a cream filled between two cookies with a lemon frosting.

SPEAKER_04 42:18

They started with that, cost prohibitive, went to something else, and I that's real.

SPEAKER_02 42:23

John? Yeah, 100% real. Those were real. Those were real and dealt away with. They were actually um a European or international Girl Scout cookie. Okay. Alright, the next is the Golden Yangles, which was a cracker textured triangle that had a robust cheesy flavor.

SPEAKER_04 42:41

They're fake, but I'd buy those.

SPEAKER_02 42:43

John? Yeah, I go fake about that too. These were real. Are you kidding? No, there was actually two offerings that weren't cookies. They were kind of crackers or chips where they were trying to get savory into the mix. I before it. The Campfire Pop Crunchies, these were the outdoor-inspired um s'mores that had chocolate cracker, they had a marshmallow, and then they had a chocolate pop rock fizz on the top, like campfire pops.

SPEAKER_01 43:15

Yeah, you made that up, but I I kind of like the idea. Um if it's real, it's international, but I'm still going that you made that up.

SPEAKER_02 43:22

Yeah, I did make that up. The moonlight mint melt aways, these were basically York peppermint patties on top of a chocolate graham cookie, and um, they were wildly popular, but they were cost prohibitive.

SPEAKER_04 43:34

I think that probably could be true, and I wish they would have kept on. That'd be better on it.

SPEAKER_01 43:38

Yeah, I went true as well on that. Before you answer it, where do you sit on the York peppermint patty, Brad?

SPEAKER_04 43:43

Not a big fan. Okay, maybe freeze them in a pinch.

SPEAKER_01 43:47

Oh, you just don't need like a crisp bite in the winter or in the middle of the summer, you just need to feel like you're taken back to the top of the ski lift. No.

SPEAKER_02 43:54

That's my go to. That's the that's what I have as my uh go to when I need a little something. That's what.

SPEAKER_01 44:00

I'll tell you those little peppermint York peppermint patties that sometimes you'll see at a restaurant, you know, on the checkouts, and you freeze those. They're just bite-sized freeze.

SPEAKER_04 44:09

So what I think is that direction, but superior is the Andes mints. Do you know the Andes mints? Oh yeah, those are good too. I prefer those much more than uh I think it's the proportioning of the uh mint vibe.

SPEAKER_02 44:23

Yeah. Yeah. I'm a York person, but um I made that up. I made the moonlight mint melt away so it didn't sound bad. All right, last but not least, the cinnaspins, a golden pinwheel swirl of cinnamon and sugar cookie baked into a melt-in-your-mouth texture, both light and indulgent. The cinnaspins. I think real. I kind of thought real too. Those were real. These are the things that are no longer with us.

SPEAKER_03 44:51

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 44:52

The things that are no longer with us are the chocolatey mint cookies. They were a crisp chocolate wafer that were mint flavored. Um they tasted somewhat close to the thin mint, but they were on top of a wafer and a cookie instead of a cookie. Uh the classic sandwich cookie, which were vanilla or chocolate with cream filled, so they basically battled Oreo, and Oreo was better than what the product they had out. The caramel crunch cookie, which was a short bread shortbread cookie with caramel coating and drizzle. Um, they were buttery and salty. Yeah. Um, and the Canadian audiences uh had those.

SPEAKER_04 45:29

That's kind of like a Twixit. Kinda?

SPEAKER_02 45:31

Yeah. Yeah. Uh the chocolate biscuit pack that has biscuit in it, so of course they're UK and Australia, although they did use milk chocolate from the United States. And yeah. And so worldwide, the mint, uh, the thin mint dominates worldwide as well. So all right, boys. We good? Well, I think we determined to win out of this bracket. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 45:57

It was a good episode. I mean, except for the cookies. Right.

SPEAKER_02 46:01

It was all good except for the cookie part. All right, everybody. Hey, thanks for joining us this week. Thanks for liking and sharing. Thanks for subscribing. Thank you for telling us about your friends. I know that we've picked up several parents um along the way, so thank you for that. Uh, we will talk to you next time. Boy boy.