13 Reese’s Flavors: Ranked and Reviewed
This article contains affiliate links. We may receive compensation if you make a purchase using one of these links at no additional cost to you. See our Disclaimers and Terms of Use for more information.
Peanut butter and chocolate is an addictive candy combo. We tasted 13 Reese’s treats, from the 1928 original to 2025’s strawberry jelly twist, to find out which ones deserve a spot in your shopping cart.
Reese’s isn’t just a candy brand. It’s the #1 best-selling candy brand in the United States, with annual revenue topping $3 billion. It’s also a candy with a century of history under its belt.
The Reese’s story started in Hershey, Pennsylvania when H.B. Reese, a former dairy farmer and shipping foreman for Milton Hershey, launched his own candy company in 1923. Five years later, Reese created his iconic peanut butter cup, which he originally sold for one cent each. The Hershey Company bought the H.B. Reese Candy Company in 1963. It wasn’t long before Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups were Hershey’s top seller.
Today, Reese’s treats are sold as cups, bars, sticks, candy-coated pretzels and seasonal shapes like bats, eggs, hearts, pumpkins and trees. The Reese’s candy line has plant-based and zero-sugar candies for those with special dietary requirements. And, if that’s not enough, the Reese’s name is on cereal, cake mix, ice cream and Oreo cookies, too.
🔓 Key Takeaways
- Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups debuted in 1928 and sold for one cent each.
- Reese’s Pieces launched in 1978 and got a big sales boost after they appeared in the 1982 movie E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial.
- Recent Big Cup flavors include Caramel, Chocolate Lava, Marshmallow and Strawberry PB&J.
- Some Reese’s treats are classics. Others are new kids on the block. We’ve reviewed the most iconic flavors so you know which ones to eat first.
Our Picks for the Best Reese’s Flavors
Our rankings start with Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups since they’re the original and the brand’s best seller. The rest follow in order of popularity, based on availability, shelf presence and fan buzz. Hershey doesn’t publish sales figures for individual Reese’s products. We include our objective review and a fun fact for all 13 treats.
1. Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups
Year Introduced: 1928
Ridged milk chocolate cups filled with sweet and salty peanut butter, Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups are the candy that launched the global brand. It’s a flavor combo that works. As the 1970s commercial playfully asserted, chocolate and peanut butter are “two great tastes that taste great together.”
H.B. Reese first sold his self-named peanut butter cups in assortment boxes before selling them as standalone treats in the 1930s. Today, a standard orange pack has two peanut butter cups. Hershey sells other sizes including Minis, Miniatures, Big Cups and King Size packs with four cups.
Our Take: We grew up eating Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, and the OG flavor is still our favorite. The ratio of chocolate to peanut butter is just right. To us, the combination of sweet milk chocolate and slightly gritty peanut butter is a winner.
Fun Fact
H.B. Reese’s original peanut butter cups cost one cent each.
2. Reese’s Pieces
Year Introduced: 1978
Reese’s Pieces are Reese’s answer to M&M’s. Both are crispy, bite-sized, filled candies. But unlike Peanut Butter M&M’s, Reese’s Pieces are chocolate-free. Also, Reese’s Pieces come in just three colors (brown, orange and yellow), while standard M&M colors are blue, brown, green, orange, red and yellow.
Our Take: We like eating Reese’s Pieces by the handful when we’re at the movie theater. Since they’re chocolate-free, the bite-sized candies are less rich than peanut butter cups. We find Reese’s Pieces dangerously easy to keep eating until the box is empty..
Fun Fact
Sales for Reese’s Pieces jumped by more than 60% after the colorful candy appeared in the 1982 movie E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial.
3. Reese’s Minis
Year Introduced: 2011
Bite-size and unwrapped, Reese’s Minis deliver the classic peanut butter cup flavor in a pop-in-your-mouth format. Don’t confuse them with Reese’s Miniatures which are bigger and individually wrapped.
Our Take: Minis have a higher chocolate-to-peanut-butter ratio than all other Reese’s cup sizes. That’s a plus or a minus depending on your priorities. For us, it’s a plus.
Fun Fact
Despite their small size, Reese’s Minis aren’t appropriate for Halloween trick-or-treaters since they’re not individually wrapped.
4. Reese’s Sticks
Year Introduced: 1998
Sold in pairs, Reese’s Sticks add crunch to the brand’s classic flavor combo. These finger-sized, crispy wafer treats are layered with peanut butter and coated in milk chocolate.
Our Take: Reese’s Sticks remind us of Keebler’s Sugar Wafers but with a peanut butter flavor. We have a split decision on this flavor since one of us (Daryl) likes layered wafer cookies more than the other.
Fun Fact
Manner Neapolitan Wafers, the classic layered wafers from Vienna, date back to the 19th century.
5. Reese’s Take 5
Year Introduced: 2004
Reese’s Take 5 packs five elements into each bite: pretzel, caramel, peanuts, peanut butter and milk chocolate. The result is a layered candy bar that’s ideal any time a person literally wants to take five (i.e., take a break) with a sweet treat. Its original name, Take5, stood by itself as one word. Hershey added a space and rebranded the bar as Reese’s Take 5 in 2019.
Our Take: Reese’s Take 5 is the most complex candy in this guide. Salty pretzel, chewy caramel and crunchy peanuts show up in every tasty bite along with the expected milk chocolate and peanut butter.
Fun Fact
Reese’s Take 5 is sold as Reese’s Overload in the UK.
6. Reese’s White
Year Introduced: 2003
Reese’s White swaps milk chocolate with a white chocolate shell. The result is a candy that looks and tastes different yet similar to the original peanut butter cup.
Our Take: White chocolate makes this candy sweeter and less balanced than the original. This flavor gets a split decision since one of us (Mindi) is a huge white chocolate fan.
Fun Fact
White chocolate shows up in other Reese’s treats, including White Chocolate Miniatures, White Chocolate Thins and White Chocolate Peanut Butter Bars.
7. Reese’s Nutrageous
Year Introduced: 1994
Reese’s Nutrageous fully embraces the all-mighty peanut. The chocolate-coated candy bar is jam-packed with both peanut butter and roasted peanuts as well as sweet caramel.
Our Take: Roasted peanuts give the Reese’s Nutrageous bar a crunch that the cups don’t provide. The nutty candy bar reminds us of Mars’ Snickers bar.
Fun Fact
This candy bar was originally called Acclaim. Hershey changed the name to Nutrageous in 2014 based on focus group feedback.
8. Reese’s Dipped Pretzels
Year Introduced: 2017
More of a snack than a candy, Reese’s Dipped Pretzels flip the usual Reese’s formula by putting peanut butter on the outside instead of the center. The bottom of each crunchy pretzel is also coated with chocolate, and chocolate is drizzled in stripes on top.
Our Take: We like pretzels, we like chocolate, and we like peanut butter. Yet, somehow, Reese’s Dipped Pretzels taste flat to us. We’d like them better if they were saltier or more chocolatey or both.
Fun Fact
Reese’s Dipped Pretzels aren’t the only candy coated pretzels in the Hershey universe. The Pennsylvania candy company also sells Hershey’s Dipped Pretzels and Hershey’s Cookies ‘n’ Creme Dipped Pretzels.
9. Reese’s Caramel Big Cup
Year Introduced: 2006
Year Reintroduced: 2023
Hershey elevated the Reese’s Big Cup concept when its candymakers inserted a layer of gooey caramel inside the jumbo peanut butter cup two decades ago. They’ve since updated the formula to perfect that sweet, sticky layer.
Our Take: Caramel and peanut butter is a winning combo that we both appreciate, albeit in small doses.
Fun Fact
Caramel isn’t the only Big Cup flavor. Other Big Cup flavors include Chocolate Lava, Marshmallow and PB&J.
10. Reese’s Chocolate Lava Big Cup
Year Introduced: 2024
Inspired by molten chocolate lava cake, Reese’s Chocolate Lava Big Cup adds an ooey-gooey chocolate layer to its expected peanut butter filling. That chocolate layer is relatively small, but its flavor takes center stage.
Our Take: Since we’re chocolate fans, we love this flavor. The lava layer is rich and fudgy without overshadowing the candy’s signature peanut butter layer.
Fun Fact
Originally called gâteau fondant au chocolat, chocolate lava cake was invented by a French chef.
11. Reese’s Strawberry PB&J Big Cup
Year Introduced: 2025
Yet another twist on the big cup concept, Reese’s Strawberry PB&J Big Cup has a thin strawberry-flavored layer below its bigger peanut butter layer. Both layers are encased inside a milk chocolate coating.
Our Take: Something is missing for us in the Reese’s Strawberry PB&J Big Cup. We totally get that the combination of peanut butter and jelly is an iconic American sandwich filling. We’d probably like the candy version more if the jelly layer was flavored with actual fruit.
Fun Fact
Americans have been eating PB&J sandwiches for over a century. Hard-core PB&J fans celebrate National Peanut Butter and Jelly Day on April 2 every year.
12. Reese’s Peanut Butter Bar
Year Introduced: 2007
A milk chocolate block bar filled with Reese’s peanut butter, the Reese’s Peanut Butter Bar is essentially a flat, portable version of the brand’s peanut butter cup. It’s separated into 12 squares, which makes the bar easy to share. Not a fan of milk chocolate? The bar’s flavor options include Caramel and White Chocolate.
Our Take: At first glance, the Reese’s Peanut Butter Bar looks like a standard chocolate bar with 12 square sections. However, candy magic happens every time we bite into a square filled with sweet peanut butter. Yum!
Fun Fact
Each Reese’s Peanut Butter Bar square is embossed with a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup design.
13. Reese’s Marshmallow Big Cup
Year Introduced: 2026
This Reese’s Marshmallow Big Cup pairs a thin marshmallow layer with a larger peanut butter layer. The resulting candy is reminiscent of a fluffernutter minus the bread.
Our Take: The flavor’s sweet, soft marshmallow layer overpowers its slightly salty peanut butter layer. One of us loves this flavor since she’s a marshmallow fan. The other, not so much.
Fun Fact
Reese’s briefly sold a marshmallow flavor in 2026. However, that discontinued flavor wasn’t packaged as a Big Cup.
💡 Frequently Asked Questions
Reese’s is a popular Hershey candy that combines peanut butter and chocolate. The candy brand includes cups, bars, sticks, candy-coated pretzels and seasonal shapes.
H.B. Reese created Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups in 1928 in Hershey, Pennsylvania. The Hershey Company bought Reese’s company in 1963.
The Hershey Company has owned Reese’s since 1963.
No. Reese’s Pieces have a peanut butter center and a crunchy candy shell. Chocolate is not a Reese’s Pieces ingredient.
Reese’s Miniatures are small peanut butter cups individually wrapped in foil, which makes them great for Halloween trick-or-treaters. Reese’s Minis are even smaller and unwrapped, which makes them great for eating by the handful.
The Big Cup is a larger, thicker Reese’s cup with extra peanut butter. Hershey sells Big Cups in flavors that include Caramel, Chocolate Lava, Marshmallow and Strawberry PB&J.
Caramel, Milk Chocolate, Peanut Butter, Peanuts and Pretzels
Our favorite is the Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup. Reese’s Take 5 is a close second. You need to taste them all to find your favorites.
📍 Pin This Article
