See's Candies Lollypops, Ranked Worst To First

While See's Candies has been around since 1921, the company's line of assorted Lollypops didn't appear until the 1940s. Butterscotch, chocolate, and peanut butter were, for quite a while, the only flavors available, however, many more have joined the stable on a permanent or seasonal basis. Lollypops are such a big business for See's that in 1998 it opened a candy kitchen factory in Burlingame, California, dedicated to making 2.5 million pounds of them a year. President and CEO Pat Egan said, "I love going to our Lollypop factory. It's not just because the smell and feel of the place is magic. It's that I know every shiny wrapper is going to bring a smile" (via See's).

In honor of National Lollipop Day on July 20, we're taking one for the team and unwrapping the beautiful foils to taste the Lollypops and rank them from worst to best. This task literally sucked.

When warmer weather beckons, the Chocolate Coconut Lollypop breaks out of its shell and into stores for a limited time. The union of chocolate and coconut is an acquired taste to begin with, as Almond Joy and Mounds fans can attest to, but as a candy, it can often be the least loved one found deep down in a bag of Halloween candy. Yet even those Mounds and Almond en-Joy-ers would be hard-pressed to equally love See's Chocolate Coconut Lollypops. 

The problem is that it suffers from the artifice of the coconut taste it's trying to emit, and one lick is all it takes here to not warrant many more. If one does proceed, the coconut taste luckily starts to recede into the background, allowing the chocolate to come forward, but at that point, you're just better off starting with a plain old Chocolate Lollypop from the get go.

Root beer began life as a tea blend, but thanks to Charles Hires in 1876, it was elevated to a refreshing soft drink that has stood the test of time. Root beer is a particularly thirst-quenching drink in the summertime and is known to be a great dessert base when dunked with vanilla ice cream to make a root beer float. See's has been trying to capture that frothy summer feeling with their Root Beer Lollypop as far back as 2008.

Out of all the Lollypops See's sells, the Root Beer variety has the strongest smell resembling the flavor it's trying to mimic; and with a touch of honey, it tastes like root beer too. The real question is: Are you really jonesing for a root beer lollipop? If the answer is yes, then by all means, go for it. But if the answer is no (we concur), then hold out hope that a Lemonade Lollypop flavor is in the cards for future summers.

Cinnamon is not a common spice found in See's Candies products, but what was once a limited-time flavor Lollypop is now a year-round treat. Rather than reaching for an Atomic Fireball to satisfy your cinnamon cravings, you can opt for a See's cinnamon Lollypop instead.

In addition to natural and artificial flavors, See's uses brown sugar, butter, and two artificial red colors to help pull off the taste of cinnamon. It certainly works, but for such a strong flavor, it's hard to dedicate so much sucking time to it without it getting a tad nauseous after a while. Maybe that's why some people recommend spicing things up with the Cinnamon Lollypops and having one with a cup of warm milk or coffee. If there is one flavor that works better as a shorter-lasting Little Pop – and not the long-form Lollypop — it is Cinnamon.

Ever since 1995, Tootsie Roll Inc. has been the standard bearer of what a packaged caramel apple lollipop tastes like with its Caramel Apple Pops. A sour green apple lolly imperfectly coated in sticky caramel started as a fall classic and turned into a year-round pleasure. See's finally came around and tried its hand with Caramel Apple, introducing the limited-time flavored Lollypop in 2014, which has returned to stores every fall since.

A faint fake fruit smell leads users off on a not-so-auspicious start, and while the brown sugar, butter, vinegar, and salt do come together for a union of caramel and apple, it ultimately pales in comparison to the one made by Tootsie. The problem here is the ratio between the two flavors, with the apple being too faint to compete with the caramel. It's still a decent pop for sure, but we'd kind of wish it was just a caramel pop on its own.

Coffee is the perfect after-dinner drink, especially paired with any rich dessert. For those looking for a bit of coffee after a meal, but not as a heated liquid, give See's Café Latté Lollypops a twirl in your mouth. Café Latté Lollypops first landed in stores in 1998, breaking up the holy trinity of chocolate, peanut butter, and butterscotch offerings. It has been a staple ever since and is one of the four magical and lucky flavors found in See's Assorted Lollypop box.  

Café Latté Lollypops are made with freeze-dried Colombian coffee, and mixed with butter, salt, and cream. It tastes like what one would expect it would taste like — creamy, room-temperature coffee — and certainly is a worthy after-dinner treat. We're not sure if these Lollypops contain any caffeine, but their strong flavor will liven up any mouth, keeping one's taste buds wide awake for the many more licks to come.

See's sugar free chocolate Lollypops are not only one of the newest flavors to join the lineup, but they also mark the second sugar-free Lollypop option available to customers. It was brought to life due to popular demand and is so good that you might demand sugar-free versions of every single one of See's Lollypops.

In a blind taste test, no one would mistake the sugar-free versions for the beloved regular chocolate Lollypop, and yet, the sugar-free chocolate Lollypop stands mighty tall on its own stick. These Lollypops pass muster by utilizing cream, unsweetened chocolate that is processed with alkali, and vanilla. To pass off being a pleasure that feels a tad guilty, artificial sweeteners such as polydextrose, maltitol, erythritol, stevia extract, and sucralose are used. This sugar-free flavor is a solid choice, even over the other sugar-laden flavors. Now if only they were cost-free!

Three years before Sugar Free chocolate Lollypops proved how tasty sugar-free treats could be, See's Sugar Free butterscotch Lollypops had been setting the gold, er, um, silver wrapper standard for what was possible in the guilt-free category. These Lollypops were introduced in 2020 and quickly became a hit. Forget for a second that the Sugar Free butterscotch Lollypops are even sugar-free to begin with because they are bona fide excellent as-is.

The Sugar Free version differs from the original one in being devoid of corn syrup, brown sugar, and vinegar, and in its place uses polydextrose, maltitol, sucralose, and other natural and artificial flavors. Since most eaters don't know the difference, the Sugar Free butterscotch Lollypops are perfect for those who can't indulge, and for those who don't want to, but still want a taste that is close to the real thing.

By the late 1930s, the pairing of orange and ice cream came together to form the enchanted frozen treat that is Creamsicle. Since then, the rich, milky, and fruity frozen dessert treat has been a welcome alternative to all things vanilla or chocolate.

Ever since 2011, right before spring springs, See's orange cream Lollypops have returned to fill up Easter baskets and sweeten our lives. Living up to its name, this orange cream pop is one smooth sucker, thanks to having actual cream in it, along with natural and artificial flavorings that emit a palatable citrusy edge to it. It also solves the age-old problem (no one probably has) of having a Creamsicle (or perhaps an Orange Julius, if that's your preferred dessert) anytime, anywhere, but without the worry of it melting all over one's hands. Just a hair below the deliciousness of the company's strawberry cream Lollypop, it's still a dependable candy that will surely put a little step into your spring.

While the orange cream was blazing trails as a handy room-temperature Creamsicle for See's, it would take five more years before another fruity delight would take flight. Strawberry cream may be a relatively new kid in the Lollypop box, but it has quickly proven to be a winner during the small window in which it's available just in time for spring. 

Peel back the pretty pink wrapper to find a not-so-pink Lollypop. Press your nose up to it and inhale what smells like an unnatural, scratch-n'-sniff strawberry scent; but it all goes uphill from there. If you've ever had the pleasure of enjoying a Strawberries & Creme-flavored Creme Saver, you'll have a pretty solid idea of what it's like to take on See's strawberry cream, which is made with actual cream.  Sadly, it doesn't hang around until summer, when it would make the perfect treat to ruminate on while watching Wimbledon matches, where the fruit and dairy combo is a queen concession.

While there may be nothing more American than an apple pie, pumpkin-spiced food and drink items is quickly climbing the charts, gunning for the hearts of Americans each and every autumn. Not to be left out of the fun, See's harvested a pumpkin spice Lollypop just in time for fall 2008, and it rejoins the spooky line-up each and every September.

The pumpkin spice Lollypop is made with unspecified natural and artificial flavors, and one quick lick will transport anyone to a Thanksgiving dinner table, just in time for some just desserts (hold the whipped cream). While most pumpkin-spice foods suffer from an overemphasis on the spice end of the partnership, See's Lollypop works well because it's more pumpkin than spice. By not being overpowering in the pumpkin spice department, it has staying power, making it perfect for sucking on during a nice leisurely autumn drive to peep for red, orange, and yellow leaves. 

For a company that made its name in chocolates, it's no surprise one of its best Lollypops is chocolate. In fact, Warren Buffett is such a huge fan of them that he keeps a box of them on his desk. The company believes in its sweet power so much that when it set the Guinness World Record by creating the world's largest lollipop in 2012, it tapped chocolate to represent itself (it weighed 7,000 pounds, which is equivalent to 145,000 regular-sized See's Lollypops).

The chocolate Lollypops' ingredients are sugar, corn syrup, cream, butter, salt, and bittersweet chocolate, consisting of chocolate, cocoa butter, and soy lecithin. They all beautifully combine together to hit a happy medium, smack dab between the milk chocolate and the dark chocolate spectrums, while also hitting the right levels of sweetness. The chocolate Lollypops also do something that See's actual chocolates can't — last more than one to two bites, giving eaters a sensation that feels more everlasting.

Candy canes are primarily the main sucker during Christmastime, but if everyone was hip to See's mint cream Lollypop, it's possible candy canes wouldn't need to exist. The robust and tantalizing mint cream flavor first made the holidays extra happy starting in 2011. They are decked out with a green wrapper colored like a fir tree, with candy cane red stripes wrapped around the white sticks. These Lollypops are partially made of butter and peppermint oil, smell like vanilla, and taste like heaven. It starts off with a hit of subtle mint, and then as it lands on your tongue, the creaminess comes very much alive.

There's always too much to look forward to every holiday season, including the mint cream Lollypops, but as soon as the season is over and gone, the countdown begins for the next one to arrive again. If there was one limited-time See's Lollypop that deserves to exist 365 days a year then it's this one. Why can't it taste like Christmas in July AND October AND the rest of the months?

Ice cream is the ultimate food manifestation of vanilla, but when it comes to the creation of candy of the same flavor, the results have been rather iffy. Anyone for Tootsie Roll Fruit Chews vanilla? Or vanilla jelly beans? Didn't think so. 

Well, the folks at See's hit a home run with the vanilla Lollypops, which have a smooth taste that never seems to grow old, lick after lick. Instead of trying to capture the taste of vanilla ice cream, See's defines it with a richness that reminds us of half-and-half creamer. The café latté Lollypops would actually be a tad better if it had a bit of vanilla's creamy kick to even out the coffee flavoring. These unconventional vanilla winners also stick out from the crowd by not being white in appearance, but rather a light brown hue that is similar to the butterscotch Lollypops from See's.

See's Chocolate caramel Lollypops have only been around for slightly over a decade, but this modern sweet treat feels like a classic throwback that's been with the company forever. Like tasting a fine wine for hints of various flavors, a sucker will enjoy hitting on the notes of both flavors, which play off one another. This Lollypop carries the richness of the standard chocolate Lollypop, but the caramel here cuts through and elevates it into a sensation that tastes like a turtle candy on a stick, without any actual nuttiness in sight.

This mash-up of two of See's finest flavors is more than anyone could ever ask for in a singular Lollypop, and it's a shame that it's only available each year in the spring for a limited time. While we await for its elevation to permanent line-up status, chocolate caramel Lollypops are so great that they require appointment eating. And the combo is so good, it makes one wonder what other mergers would make for a great See's Lollypop.

When it comes to indulgent sweets and desserts, butterscotch is often an overlooked brown sheep. But the flavor makes for a great topping on ice cream, an ingredient in cookies, cakes, pies, and other baked goods, and of course in candies. The fine folks at See's perfected butterscotch in the form of a Lollypop, where corn syrup, sugar, cream, brown sugar, butter, vinegar, and salt combine to create pure deliciousness. Butterscotch remains one of the most popular Lollypops the company has been selling for decades, and is thoroughly enjoyed by the young and old alike.

See's butterscotch Lollypops have everything you're looking for in a (non-fruit flavored) lollipop — measured sweetness, a rich flavor, and a pleasant aftertaste that is so memorable, one can recall it in their mind without even having it in their mouth. Butterscotch Lollypops are not only the best lollypops that See's has ever created, but also one of the best confections the company has on its very deep roster. It may not even be outlandish to state that they are one of the best candies available in the world, period.