The BeanBoozled Jelly Belly game is all the craze right now, but you won’t find me playing it. I want to keep all my memories of Jelly Belly on the positive and delicious side. When I was little, there was an annual long road trip we would take for one of my sister’s gymnastics meets. About halfway between Spokane and the meet location was a convenient store that sold Jelly Bellys. It didn’t matter that my parents were dragging me away to a gymnastics competition several hours away from home because I got to throw some gourmet jelly beans into a bag at this random truck stop.

I refuse to play BeanBoozled and taint my love for Jelly Belly.

As the years went on, it started to become common for Jelly Belly dispensers to pop up in grocery stores. Heck, there was even a Jelly Belly dispenser on “Supermarket Sweep.” So although the novelty did die down a bit, I still enjoyed the flavorful experience of Jelly Belly.

So, this leads me to something all of you probably predicted…my favorite Jelly Belly flavors. I give you my top five favorite flavors:

5. Cotton Candy – What a fun flavor. Not too off the mark of what actual cotton candy tastes like, the Jelly Belly version is light and tasty. It is also a great bean to load up on to give your bag a bright aesthetic touch.

4. Pear – Like another jelly bean on this list, the pear flavor tastes exactly as advertised. As someone who counts the pear as one of his favorite fruits, this is a good thing. Sweet and flavorful, I could pop a few of these consecutively before the sugar got to my head.

3. Toasted Marshmallow – Although it doesn’t taste like it just came off the camp fire, I always enjoyed the marshmallow flavor. It just has a pleasant taste and could almost pass for a breath freshener if you didn’t have a stick of gum or mouthwash handy. Definitely one of the tastier flavors, this particular bean is calm enough that you can snack on several of them without transitioning to another flavor.

2. Dr. Pepper – I am convinced that you could round up a bag of Jelly Belly Dr. Pepper beans, smash it with a hammer, and then pour the contents into a glass and drink it. Although not advertised as containing actual Dr. Pepper (like the A&W hard candy I wrote about), the bean tastes just like it. I remember fighting with my siblings over the Dr. Pepper beans when we would have a variety pack. However, I never tried to throw that big of a fit because there was always the possibility that the bean I thought was the Dr. Pepper flavor could turn out to be the yucky chocolate flavor.

1. Buttered Popcorn – Unlike the Dr. Pepper flavor, the buttered popcorn Jelly Belly tastes nothing like buttered popcorn. However, the taste is so unique and so smooth that I would always fill my bag with a disproportionate amount of them. You could smell the buttered popcorn bean long before it got within inches of your mouth. Not overpowering but distinctive, I still love a buttered popcorn Jelly Belly.

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When Sloan gets to be a kid, I am sure Jelly Bellys will be to her what candy cigarettes were to me. I just got to make sure to keep her away from BeanBoozled. Don’t Blink.