REVIEW: Post Limited Edition Honeycomb with Twisted Marshmallows Cereal

Post Limited Edition Honeycomb with Twisted Marshmallows Cereal

Your kitchen, circa nineteen-ninety something. Your hair is shabby and your brain is in a fog after another week of grinding through pages of fractions and mitosis, but Saturday morning has finally yielded its sweet relief from the onerous oppression that is the sixth grade. You’ve been put on the spot all week long, but today, there’s no chance of giving the wrong answer. As you open the pantry and breathe in the scintillating aroma of dextrose and trisodium phosphate, you realize the correct answer is “all of the above.”

Hey look, I’m not casting judgment. We all mixed and matched our cereals in those days before chocolate combined with Cinnamon Toast Crunch and marshmallows found their way into Froot Loops. When you think about it, we had to. It was sheer evolution. How else was I suppose to recreate apple cinnamon waffles then to add Apple Cinnamon Cheerios to Waffle Crisp? But somewhere over the last fifteen years the fat cats at General Mills, Kellogg’s, and Post got wind of what we were up to. Like any good business people, they consulted the brightest minds in high-performance and highly refined grains, came up with a flowchart for these sorts of situations, and devised a plan for research and development. I imagine it went something like this:

Mr. Bob Post, CEO: What do we have on the agenda today? Ah yes, Honeycomb. Classic. Underrated. Consistent. The Andre Reed of cereals, if you will. But sales are down. How can we jazz it up?

Herbert Sherbert, Head of R&D: Chocolate!

Mr. Bob Post: Tried it. Absolutely abysmal. What else you got?

Herbert Sherbert: How about Cinnamon? I heard Apple Jacks was doing that now and the reviews have been great!

Mr. Bob Post: I like it, but we’ve tried that too. Just didn’t sell. Kids these days have no sense of nuance. Looks like we’ll have to go with Plan Ireland.

Herbert Sherbet: You mean Curtis Stone? I actually think he’s Australian…

Mr. Bob Post: No, you idiot. I mean that Irish cereal, whatyacall it, the one with marshmallows.

Herbert Sherbert: You mean Lucky Charms?

Mr. Bob Post: That’s the one! Lucky Charms! Now let’s marshmallowize this beeswax!

Post Limited Edition Honeycomb with Twisted Marshmallows Cereal Closeup

And so, through the miracles of capitalism, Post’s Limited Edition Honeycomb with Twisted Marshmallows was born. Why “Twisted”? Other than the squiggly line running down the marshmallows, I seriously have no idea. But considering hearts, stars, and horseshoes, clovers and blue moons were already taken, I guess the options were somewhat limited. In any event, it’s my experience that marshmallows can subtly, yet brilliantly, elevate what otherwise might be a plain cereal base. Lucky Charms is obviously the quintessential example, with the sturdy and crunchy oat pieces—small and not overly sweet on their own—pairing wonderfully with the bursts of sweetness provided by the ‘mallows.

Unfortunately, Honeycomb doesn’t derive such a boost from the marshmallows. The Honeycomb pieces themselves are fine; they have that just-right level of sweetness and gentle, non-toasted crunch which somehow holds its texture in milk. I’ve always kind of admired the strange savory taste of Honeycomb, which seems to blend just the right proportions of corn, oat, and honey flavor.

The thing that has always trouble me is the lack of a glaze. Other honey cereals like Honey Nut Cheerios and Honey Nut Chex have a sturdier glaze, which helps to retain the distinctive taste and crunch of the sweetened grain in milk. Honeycomb just doesn’t have it, though, and the pieces themselves become sort of bland when you let them soak.

Ideally the marshmallows would supply little bursts of twisted sweetness, but because of the bulky size of the Honeycomb pieces, the marshmallows get lost in the shuffle. When you do get the taste of the marshmallows, you get, well, the taste of a marshmallow. For some reason marshmallows work in some cereals and don’t work in others, and in this case, they don’t add anything.

In fairness, the cereal is much better as a snack, where the subtle honey flavor can shine without being slowly diffused and lost amidst the milk. The net effect of the marshmallows, though, doesn’t share in the improvement, and despite granting any given mouthful a bit more sweetness, they don’t contribute anything that makes this iteration of Honeycomb stand out from the original. It pains me to admit it, but I found the cereal to be altogether bland for something that advertising 12 grams of sugar per serving.

Where do cereal R&D people go after trying chocolate, cinnamon, and marshmallow versions of a classic, well, I just don’t have the answer. But it looks like they’ll be heading back to the drawing board soon enough, because this limited time only cereal just doesn’t deliver anything special.

(Nutrition Facts – 1 1/4 cup – 120 calories, 10 calories from fat, 1 gram of fat, 0 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of polyunsaturated fat, 0 milligrams of cholesterol, 115 milligrams of cholesterol, 40 milligrams of potassium, 27 grams of carbohydrates, less than 1 gram of fiber, 12 grams of sugar, and 2 grams of protein.)

Item: Post Limited Edition Honeycomb with Twisted Marshmallows Cereal
Purchased Price: $2.37
Size: 12.5 oz box
Purchased at: Walmart
Rating: 5 out of 10
Pros: If you like Honeycomb you’ll like this. Pretty good snacking cereal. Has a savory corn and oat element. Not having to pick out the marshmallows from Lucky Charms and add them to other cereals.
Cons: Marshmallows don’t add anything. Not nearly as good as Cinna-Graham Honeycomb, which was the shit before Post discontinued it. Doesn’t taste very sweet in milk. Missing the glazed crunch of other honey-flavored cereals. Hardly any fiber.

13 thoughts to “REVIEW: Post Limited Edition Honeycomb with Twisted Marshmallows Cereal”

  1. Grabbed these last week and felt the same as this review. There also seems to be very few marshmallows in general throughout the whole box which doesn’t help

    1. I think there’s to many of them!! By the time I pick them all out and throw them away I have less than 1/2 a box of cereal left!

  2. Pretty sure that you can actually buy cereal marshmallows on its own nowadays (at least online) so there’s no need to painstakingly take ’em out of Lucky Charms.

  3. i remember having that cinniam Honeycomb cereal and hating it was is odd beacuse i love cinniam toast crunch

  4. Hey, I’m 60 years old and been eating cereal since I could pour a bowl by myself. I still like Honey Comb on occasion, but when I had a bowl yesterday, I thought my 2 year-old granddaughter had been messing with the cereals and put some Lucky Charms in the box.

    I like Lucky Charms too (can I say that as a “responsible” adult??) but I definitely like keeping them separate. Post, just keep making Honey Comb the old tried and true way, pull-eaze!

    d

  5. I am annoyed that I cannot find plain old Honeycomb cereal because everyone has the twisted marshmallow version which I am not interested in trying I am desperate for plain regular Honeycomb cereal and I cannot find it anywhere I am going to try Wallmart and Target tomorrow and if they are also out of the cereal then I guess I will be giving up Homey Comb cereal as well.

  6. I’m livid while referring to cereal, good grief? They’re icky, sticky and sickly sweet with smaller honeycombs? And you cannot buy the originals anywhere? I wonder how many years of college the genius that came up with this bad idea has? And the (what to do with the marshmallows) on the back of the box, is so bad it’s hysterical!!

  7. I LOVED the Twisted Honeycomb! I still look every time I grocery shop, in hopes it might just come back. I think it had the perfect combination. Honeycomb is good on its own but, the little subtle burst of sweetness from the marshmallows was terrific! Please bring them back!

  8. I loved the Twisted Honeycomb, so much in fact that I claimed it as the best cereal. Ever. I also look every time I am at the grocery store, hoping it will take it’s place back on the shelves. Its the PERFECT flavor combination. *Please* make these available again!!!!

  9. I liked the marshmallows in the cereal, but I think that the cereal tastes way better on its own. Sure lucky charms are good, but post, ya need to keep them separate.

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