Carly Seitz
The Girl Scouts Are Lying To You: Despite Their Spiels To The Contrary, Different Girl Scout Districts Very Much Serve Different Cookies.
By now, you’ve surely noticed that certain Girl Scout cookie names are different (Caramel deLites® vs. Samoas®, Peanut Butter Patties® vs. Tagalongs®, Shortbread vs. Trefoils®, Peanut Butter Sandwich vs. Do-si-dos®) depending on where you get them. Perhaps you even know the reasoning behind all of this, which boils down to the fact that the cookies come from two different bakeries (ABC Bakers and Little Brownie Bakers). If so, you’ve also heard the argument that, even though there are two different bakeries out there, the cookies are the same.
Well, no, actually. This just isn’t the case. You’ve been lied to. After a careful investigation, we can confidently tell you that, if the cookies have a different name, they are not the same cookie. Hell, the two bakeries’ Thin Mints® variations even differ, despite using one name.
So why does Girl Scouts, which tells the public that “whether the box says [the cookie’s literal name or its creative name], it’s the delicious cookie you’ve grown to love,” want to keep this information from you? Tough to say.
See Also:
• WHICH BEERS AND WINES PAIR BEST WITH GIRL SCOUT COOKIES? // Girl Scout Cookies Are Sold By Kids, But That Doesn’t Mean There Aren’t Ways In Which You Can Enjoy Them With An Adult Beverage.
• GIRL SCOUT COOKIES… AS ALCOHOL SHOTS? // Why Just Eat Your Girl Scout Cookies When You Can Add Some Alcohol and Drink Them As Shots?
Maybe it’s because the Girl Scout council in your area has always used the same bakery, so you’ve grown up with the same cookies and never suffered the disappointment that sets in when you buy a box of Samoas® and find that the milk chocolate stripes you’re used to with Caramel deLites® have been replaced by dark chocolate — or vice versa. Or maybe they just assume that most people aren’t so observant as to notice these differences.
And, y’know, maybe they aren’t. Hell, the Huffington Post, in an article titled “11 Delicious Facts You Never Knew About Girl Scout Cookies,” even failed to mention how different the variations of cookies taste. Credit where it’s due: The author of that article indeed noted correctly that the different names were due to the different producers; but when she told readers not to worry because they were still getting the same cookie no matter what it was labeled as, she was wrong.
Just wholly, completely wrong.
We know this because we’ve done our due diligence this Girl Scout cookie season. We have our facts straight — mostly because we’re geographically fortunate. Unlike so many other regions across the country, two separate Girl Scout cookie districts, each of which uses a different bakery, actually serve the Dallas-Fort Worth area: The Girl Scouts of Texas Oklahoma Plains operates more in the Fort Worth area, and the Girl Scouts of Northeast Texas sells primarily to the greater Dallas area.
So here’s the question: Why does this matter?
Well, because even if you don’t care if you get Peanut Butter Patties® or Tagalongs®, there are still some cookies that are exclusive to each bakery. So if Girl Scout cookies are your thing, you may still want to buy from one district over the other — or maybe even from both.
Here’s a list of the cookies offered by the Girl Scouts of Northeast Texas, which uses Little Brownie Bakers as its baker of choice:
• Thin Mints®
• Samoas®
• Tagalongs®
• Trefoils®
• Peanut Butter Sandwich
• Rah-Rah Raisins™
• Savannah Smiles®
• Toffee-tastic™
(To see what counties and cities the Northeast Texas district operates in, click here.)
Meanwhile, here are the cookies available from the Girl Scouts of Texas Oklahoma Plains, which elected to order from ABC Bakers (note, however, that each troop selects eight cookies to offer, so only three out of four exclusive-to-ABC options will be available from each troop in the district):
• Thin Mints®
• Caramel deLites®
• Peanut Butter Patties®
• Shortbread
• Peanut Butter Sandwich
• Cranberry Citrus Crisps
• Lemonades™
• Thanks-A-Lot®
• Trios
(To find out what counties the Texas Oklahoma Plains council serves, click here and view either the list or map.)
OK, now, here’s the really interesting part. Let’s delve into the differences between the cookies you think are the same.
Thin Mints®.
The Thin Mints from Little Brownie Bakers are less dense than Thin Mints from ABC, which have a much crunchier texture. As for taste, one bite makes it easy to see that ABC puts more mint flavoring in its Thin Mints than Little Brownie puts in its version. Also, Little Brownie’s Thin Mints are much smoother on the outside than those offered by ABC.
Samoas® (LB) vs. Caramel deLites® (ABC).
Caramel deLites® use milk chocolate for their chocolate stripes. Samoas® use dark chocolate. Also, Samoas® have more caramel.
Tagalongs® (LB) vs. Peanut Butter Patties® (ABC).
Peanut Butter Patties® use a much milkier chocolate than Tagalongs® do. In addition, they are much thicker than Tagalongs®, and each cookie’s peanut butter tastes different.
Trefoils® (LB) vs. Shortbread (ABC).
These two look slightly different — Trefoils® have some little holes that Shortbread cookies don’t — but the two have the least variation in taste of all the cookies we sampled, with Shortbread tasting just a little more flavorful. Still, people we asked to taste test the two each had a definite preference.
Do-si-dos® (LB) vs. Peanut Butter Sandwich (ABC).
Like Tagalongs® (LB) and Peanut Butter Patties®, Peanut Butter Sandwich cookies and Do-si-dos® have different-tasting peanut butters. Also, the peanut butter is more squished on Do-si-dos® we bought.
Through numerous taste tests performed, we found that people often prefer one bakery over the other for most cookies. It’s clear too, we think, that all of these cookies do have definite taste differences, despite what we’ve all been told. Still, the preference votes we took were pretty evenly split overall.
So, anyway, now you know. Hopefully we’ve helped you make a more-informed decision for your next cookie purchase.
Once you find a zip code in the district you want to purchase from, you can find cookies here. Or you can just download the Cookie Finder app. Also, for more information like nutrition facts on the cookies, you can visit the Girl Scouts’ “Meet the Cookies” webpage.