14 Discontinued Reese's Candies That Are Gone For Good

Reese's candy is about as embedded into American culture as any product can get. For almost a hundred years, the go-to choice for the combination of chocolate and peanut butter has been Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, invented by H.B. Reese in 1928. They've been pleasing hungry snackers ever since. However, although that flagship product is the one that everyone associates with the Reese's name, Hershey's (the company behind this candy) hasn't rested on its laurels. Over the decades, there have been dozens of different types of Reese's candy that have hit stores nationwide, with Hershey's trying to expand the brand by releasing endless iterations of its famed Peanut Butter Cups.

It's not just the cups that have been reworked, either. Hershey's has also tried to corner various different parts of the market by releasing candy bars, spreadable dips, and chip-like products all under the name of Reese's. It's also pursued some slightly weird tie-in products that didn't quite hit the mark. With such a wild and wonderful selection, it's little wonder that a lot of these candies have been discontinued, never to return. We decided to put together a list of our favorites.

Reese's Peanut Butter Cups are pretty small. However, back in the day (by which we mean the 2000s), Hershey's remembered one key rule when it comes to candy: If you can make something smaller and novelty-sized, while still offering the same great taste, then you should. As such, Reese's Peanut Butter Bites were born. This candy took that classic combination of peanut butter and chocolate and shrunk it down into tiny balls, with an end result similar to Hershey's Whoppers.

Unfortunately, though, this bite-sized Hershey snack was eventually discontinued, and for a potentially good reason. The tiny dimensions of the pieces made them a potential choking hazard, and parents rightfully started to get a little concerned about their kids eating them. Eventually, in 2007, Hershey's Peanut Butter Bites left shelves for good. The product's absence has left a lot of ex-customers pretty unhappy, with folks flocking to social media forums to talk about how much they miss them. "I'd pick up a pack of these every time we rented something from Blockbuster in Toronto. My favourite candy," said one sad ex-customer via Reddit. Talk about a trip down memory lane, huh?

Every now and again, a candy company releases a product that makes everyone do a double-take because of just how weird it is. When Hershey's did this, it was in the form of its Reese's Elvis Peanut Butter & Banana Creme cups. These cups were inspired by what was allegedly Elvis Presley's favorite sandwich, which combined peanut butter, mashed banana, and slices of bacon, which were all shoved between two slices of bread. The sandwich was then fried, to make it even more delicious (and, it must be said, totally unhealthy).

The Reese's version mercifully did away with any bacon, and instead popped banana creme in its cups alongside the classic peanut butter flavor. The limited-edition Elvis peanut butter banana cups were launched in 2007, and we can't quite put our finger on why. Maybe it was to coincide with the 30th anniversary of his death, although it feels like a pretty strange way to mark the occasion. Regardless of why Hershey's decided to release these snacks, they didn't stick around for long. The slightly bizarre Elvis-themed candy was soon discontinued, and it never came back — and we can't say we're surprised, to be honest.

Doubled-up versions of candies are all the rage (Double Stuf Oreos, anyone?), and so it's perhaps no surprise that Hershey's decided to attempt a version with its Reese's Peanut Butter Cups. With this candy, Reese's took its classic cups and switched up the peanut butter, replacing it with a chocolate-flavored version. Folks who tried the candy noticed that the color of the chocolatey filling was the same shade as the chocolate on the outside, making it really look like one big piece of chocolate.

Reviews also pointed out the slight weirdness of the combination itself. The chocolate-flavored filling sat somewhere between a regular chocolate and a peanut butter. However, the problem was that the contrast just wasn't distinct enough. The beauty of these snacks is the combo of peanut butter and chocolate, which is probably why people often also combine them with other foods (weirdly, Reese's Peanut Butter Cups go well with cheese). So what was the point of making a product that just sat halfway between things? Perhaps it was the strange middle ground that this item occupied that led to its discontinuation. One day it was here, and the next day it was gone — and all that's left is a vague memory of the flavor.

A lot of discontinued Reese's candies are basically just variations on its Peanut Butter Cups, but over the years, Hershey's has conducted some surprising experiments. Such was the case with Reese's Swoops. These appeared at the start of the 21st century, and they immediately stood out, thanks to their out-there shape. Swoops were shaped like Pringles, with the candy coming stacked up in little tubs and with a little squiggle of chocolate on top.

Reese's Swoops were sold in a variety of flavors, some of them being expected (like milk chocolate and peanut butter) and others being way more innovative (like almond and peppermint). These wacky candies stayed in stores for three whole years, but in 2006 it was time to pull the plug. Over the years, disappointed fans of the Swoops have begged Hershey's to bring them back, but the company has stood firm on its decision to discontinue them. "It's always great to see the love and enthusiasm for our products, but at this time there are no immediate plans for Swoops to return," said a spokesperson to The U.S. Sun back in 2023.

Reese's Peanut Butter Cups are so well known that some people even use them as cooking ingredients — they make a surprisingly good secret ingredient in a pot of chili! But for those who've ever felt like changing up the balance of peanut butter to chocolate, Hershey's had a solution. Behold, Reese's Inside Out, a version of its cups that flipped the script. As you can probably guess from the name, Reese's Inside Out placed the peanut butter flavor on the outside, and filled the cups with chocolate. Kinda wild how Hershey's managed to do this with the peanut butter side of things, without everything just turning into a gooey mess, but hey: Those candy folks are smart, y'all.

Reese's Inside Out might have been a real hit for people who loved peanut butter, but for most people, the balance was just off. Reviewers noted that the peanut butter flavor was overwhelming, and the chocolate note just didn't stand out enough. Plus, the peanut butter the candy used wasn't the same as the stuff inside a regular Peanut Butter Cup, making the flavor taste slightly different, and potentially not in a great way. Sadly, Reese's Inside Out didn't have sticking power, and the candy soon ended up in the graveyard of forgotten products, once and for all.

If you want to know the secret to giving candy a bit of a refresh, here it is: Just make it a little bigger. We can only assume that was the logic behind the introduction of Reese's Big Cup, which has stuck around since its debut and become a firm favorite among the Reese's line-up. Naturally, though, Hershey's wanted to capitalize on its success with a range of new flavors, leading to the introduction of the Reese's Big Cup with Mixed Nuts.

This product was released in 2006, and is pretty much exactly what it sounds like: It was a Big Cup, full of (you guessed it!) a combination of nuts embedded in its standard peanut butter filling. The nuts in question were peanuts, cashews, pecans, and almonds — and when you combined them with the classic peanut butter inside, it was a pretty nutty affair.

The problem here was that Reese's just completely overstretched itself. In trying to cram so many different types of nuts into a single cup, it left customers trying to figure out which nut was which. Plus, it didn't really taste different from a standard Reese's Peanut Butter Cup — it was just slightly bigger and chunkier. It's little wonder, then, that it was only on sale for a year before being removed from stores.

It's fair to say that Reese's has a bit of an issue with the variations it's released of its Peanut Butter Cups. It's tried to put out many in its time, and none of them have particularly hit the spot. One clear example of this is Reese's Stuffed with Crunchy Cookie Cups. These took the standard peanut butter cup that Reese's is famous for, and put little pieces of cookie inside. Released in 2017, this product could have been a winner — but people who reviewed it noted that it barely tasted any different from Reese's flagship product.

Where the Reese's Stuffed with Crunchy Cookie Cups did excel, though, was in their texture. These cups had a lovely gnarliness to their interior that made them way more interesting to eat than regular Peanut Butter Cups. Maybe it was this unusual textural experience that has left some folks still hoping for the product to be brought back by Hershey's one day, but to be honest, unless it can figure out how to make them taste better, we'd say that might be a waste of time.

Sweet, dippable snacks are almost always a winner — and one fine day back in the 2010s, Hershey's decided that it was time to jump on the bandwagon. The result was Reese's Spreads Snacksters. This candy product was clearly designed with lunchboxes in mind: Each Snackster cup came sealed with a foil lid and with two separate compartments, one holding a bunch of graham cracker dippers, and the other containing a peanut butter chocolate dip. The idea, of course, was that you dip the breadstick-like crackers into the dip, and enjoy to your heart's content. We can see plenty of parents "forgetting" to put this item in their kids' lunch and enjoying it themselves, to be honest.

The peanut butter chocolate dip had a good balance of the two ingredients, and the crackers gave the product a pleasing crunch that was slightly more crispy than a classic Peanut Butter Cup. Although this was a bit more of a candy, Reese's Spreads Snacksters had a slightly lighter effect that made it way more snack-friendly. Unfortunately, though, this effect wasn't enough to keep it around. Pretty soon, Reese's Spreads Snacksters were discontinued, never to be seen again.

Honey-roasted peanut butter is a thing of beauty, combining the salty, malty notes of the classic spread with a mellow sweetness that seriously pleases the taste buds. Clearly, Hershey's was thinking about this when it created its Flavor of Georgia Honey Roasted Peanut Butter Cups. This product was formally released in 2017, but it has been around in various different iterations and limited-edition capacities since 2003. In the 2017 version, the cups were brought to market as part of the "Hershey Flavors of America" range.

In sheer concept at least, we think that this flavor was the standout from that round of new Hershey's items — not hard, considering that the other products available were things like Key Lime Pie Twizzlers and Coconut Almond Kisses. However, that doesn't mean that these peanut butter cups were really that good. The problem with the Reese's Flavor of Georgia Honey Roasted Peanut Butter Cups was that they were just way too sweet. The sugary note was totally overpowering and overtook any subtlety from the honey that might have once been present. This Reese's candy was soon discontinued, and we can't say that we don't understand why.

Reese's Mallow-Top Peanut Butter Cups were a snack product that had the potential to either be totally incredible or totally awful. As it turned out, they kinda sat somewhere in the middle. Hershey's took the slightly bizarre step with this candy of taking its classic Peanut Butter Cup, and replacing the top half of it with a marshmallow-flavored creme. This gave the cup a two-tone appearance which was, at the very least, pretty visually dynamic.

So what about the taste? Well, it was kinda just ... Fine. The white part, which you'd expect to have a strong marshmallow flavor, didn't really stand out. Although it had a slightly vanilla-like note, it was way too underpowered to stand out in any way. There was nothing particularly bad about the taste of this candy, but we were picturing s'mores and campfires, and instead, it seems like folks just kinda got a slightly strange-tasting variation on a regular Peanut Butter Cup. So it was no surprise when this variation disappeared for good, sauntering off to the candy crypt.

It seems like snack companies love nothing more than to release tie-in products for events they have no business concerning themselves with. If you need any evidence of this, check out what Hershey's was doing during the 2016 Summer Olympics. The company put out its Reese's Go For Gold! product, which took Reese's Peanut Butter Cups and emblazoned them with an assortment of patterns on top. These patterns depicted various different figures taking part in Track & Field events, and were clearly intended to give the snack a slightly sporty appeal.

So what about the flavor of the snack itself? Well, it was pretty good — because it tasted exactly like regular Reese's Peanut Butter Cups. It seems like the only difference between these cups and the standard ones was the image on top. Essentially, they were just put out to capitalize on the Olympics happening. It didn't surprise anybody when the Olympics ended and Reese's Go For Gold! was removed from shelves forever more. Skip the gimmicks, and just go for the classic version — or buy your peanut butter cups from Aldi. 

We just love it when a candy product takes its standard form and makes it way cuter. This very thing happened when Reese's put out its Blossom-Top Miniature Peanut Butter Cups. These mini cups took the standard cup shape, shrunk them down, and then turned the top half a shade of pink. Pretty appealing, huh?

We're not sure what Hershey's was going for in terms of flavor, but it didn't quite hit the spot here. We'd guess that the idea was that it would have a kind of strawberry note to it, but reviewers who tried the candy pointed out that it basically tasted like a regular Reese's cup. That wasn't a huge issue to people who bought the cups, though, who absolutely loved them. People highlighted how creamy this version of the Reese's cup was, while also pointing out that its ratio of chocolate to peanut butter really hit the spot. Good ratios aren't enough for Hershey's to keep products around, though, and eventually it decided that Reese's Blossom-Top Miniature Peanut Butter Cups had to go. They were discontinued, leaving scores of heartbroken customers in their wake.

Hershey's Whoppers are one of those veteran candies that's really stood the test of time. They've been part of the Hershey's line-up since 1939 and the combination of malted milk and chocolate has been keeping people happy for generations — but even classic candy products are subject to a mash-up every now and again. In 2008, that's exactly what happened, when Hershey's decided to take its flagship product's flavors and place them in its Whoppers. The result was Reese's Whoppers, a candy that replaced the chocolate exterior of a standard Whopper with peanut butter.

Now, we've got to be honest, we love the sound of this. Peanut butter balls? Sign us up! Sadly, though, what sounded so great wasn't really that tasty. The problem here was the peanut butter itself. Replacing the chocolate with peanut butter meant that the product turned out cloying and slightly greasy, due to the fact that the peanut butter coating used just wasn't very high-quality. The crunchy interior didn't really balance things out enough to add to their appeal. Perhaps Hershey's caught wind that people weren't entirely loving its new product, because pretty soon, Reese's Whoppers were discontinued and never seen again.

Over the years, Reese's has experimented with putting its peanut butter flavors into candy bar form in various different ways. In our opinion, though, none of them have been as memorable as Reese's Whipps. This bar turned that classic Peanut Butter Cup interior flavor into a kind of chewy nougat, and shoved it inside a chocolate coating. The result was basically exactly the same as a 3 Musketeers bar, but with a peanut butter flavor.

Reese's Whipps were first released into the world in 2007, and they did well enough to stick around until 2010. It's clearly stuck in some people's memory, too, as one particularly determined fan of Reese's Whipps started an online petition to bring them back, which has garnered hundreds of signatures. To be totally real with you, though, we're struggling to understand why some people loved these bars so much. By all accounts, the peanut butter flavor in Reese's Whipps was pretty mild and underwhelming. While the bar format was definitely novel, the taste itself just didn't have any punch.