Thin Mints vs. Samoas: Which Girl Scout Cookie Is the Most Delicious?

It's a debate as old as time, or at least as old as 1976, which is still pretty old for a debate: Which Girl Scout Cookie is the best of them all: Do-Si-Dos or Trefoils? Hahaha jkjk lol. The real question: Thin Mints or Samoas? To figure it out, we pitted a hardcore cookie-demolishing fan of each against each other in the below point-counterpoint. But swayed as you may be, so often the real answer lies within you. Like, in your stomach, where the cookies you just ate are sitting. Be sure to let us know your winning choice in the comments. Even if it's Tagalongs. More Stuff You Will Like

I can’t even believe we’re having this discussion. It’s clearly a huge waste of everyone’s time -- time that could be spent devouring Thin Mints, the finest Girl Scout Cookie of them all, an assertion I’m now going to prove, even though I really shouldn’t have to. 

Where to start? How about this: there are 32 cookies in a box of Thin Mints. 32 COOKIES PER BOX. Compared to the pitiful 15 that a box of Samoas offers, that’s basically infinity cookies. A box of Samoas is opened and they're consumed and it’s over. Thin Mints have staying power. Considering you can only get the damn things once a year, you don’t want the party to be over in 20 chocolate-smeared seconds.

And, as if you needed an excuse to eat them, they’re basically a breath freshener. Like a huge version of an Andes after-dinner mint. Have you ever made out with someone after eating, like, seven Thin Mints? No? Me neither, but I’m going to start. And I guarantee you she'll love it.

They’re also the most versatile of all Girl Scout Cookies. Thin Mints are fantastic by themselves. They’re even better after a brief dip in a glass of cold milk. Throw them in the freezer, and you’re dealing with an entirely different cookie all of a sudden. Hell, freeze one sleeve, and eat the other straight-up. Maybe alternate regular and frozen cookies in a beautiful consumption-rhythm. Diversify your life, man.
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In some regions of the country, the Girl Scout Cookies you know and eat too many of have very different names. Tagalongs become “Peanut Butter Patties”. Samoas: “Caramel deLites”. You know what they call Thin Mints in those places? Thin Mints. They call them Thin Mints. The name is an absolute, just like their deliciousness.

And who knows the most about the deliciousness of cookies, of everyone in the world? Cookie Monster. And what would Cookie Monster do with Samoas? Nothing. There’s nothing TO do. You’ve seen how the dude eats: he just rams cookies into his mouth as crumbs surround him like a swarm of delicious, sugary bees. Thin Mints have that classic cookie crumble-ability.

Samoas? They’re too structurally sound, too engineered. The caramel insists they never crumble, which everyone knows cookies are meant to do. They basically have no soul. If you gave Cookie Monster Samoas, he would say, “C is for cookie that’s good enough for me, but what is not good enough for me are these cookies that I hate, which is something I don’t often say, considering I am a monster who loves cookies.”

But here’s maybe the best part: they’re a sleeper cookie. In a room full of Samoas, people will get all excited about the Samoas, eat all the Samoas, and then, eventually, become ill and not want any more Samoas even if they were around, because too much coconut is not a good thing at all. And, then, you look over in the corner, and there it is: an untouched box of Thin Mints, 32 cookies strong and just waiting for you to lean back and pop them into your mouth one by one, and laugh and laugh, and realize that you are eating the greatest cookie ever made by a Girl Scout. Who totally make them, right?

-Ben Robinson

Sorry, I almost didn't hear all that Thin Mint noise because I was too busy eating a Samoa, which, as we all know, is the actual champion of Girl Scout Cookies.

It's undeniably true that there are fewer Samoas in a box, and that you can physically only eat about three at a time. But that's the whole point. You eat five Thin Mints in a row and keep going because they just don't make much of an impact -- your brain goes on "feed me" autopilot and you lose track of what you're doing. Samoas are so complex and delicious that they demand you slow down and enjoy every blissful bite. Is that so wrong? Plus you're never gonna eat a whole sleeve, forget it happened, and then look down in disbelief at the crumbs around you like Lennie realizing what he just did to Curley's wife.

Here's maybe the mightiest testament to how great Samoas are: you don't even have to love coconut to enjoy 'em. I shunned coconut like it was a vegetable as a kid and still can't bring myself to stare directly at a coconut cake. But I hoard Samoas, because they are a flawlessly engineered work of cookie ingenuity. Neither the caramel, the coconut, nor the chocolate overpowers. Instead, all three blend together perfectly to form the best trio since Tom Selleck, Ted Danson, and that baby. Oh, and Guttenberg.

Now, if approximately 60% of the Internet is comprised of people losing their poop over Girl Scout Cookies, a solid 45% is just their prized Girl Scout Cookie recipes. And you know which selection dominates this game? Samoas. A chocolate-mint brownie is good and all, but nothing to feverishly post on Reddit. These Samoa brownies, on the other hand, are making me cry at my desk because I know exactly how magnificent they would taste, but I don't have one. Same goes for Samoa cupcakes and the bundt cake they're based off of. This single cookie opens up a whole new world of exciting desserts, because true greatness inspires.

You probably don't know this unless you spend many late hours on the official Girl Scout Cookies website, but each cookie is supposed to teach the Scouts a lifelong skill. Samoas' assigned skill is, crucially, business ethics. So riddle me this: do you want the little girls of our country to grow up to be terrifying corporate monsters who embezzle your money and spend it on drug-fueled vacations to St. Barts? Of course you don't. Samoas are our only chance.

Lastly, I just have to refute any claims that Thin Mints are a "sleeper cookie". They're the most popular cookie in the entire GD Girl Scout roster. Don't sit here and tell me the Molly Ringwald of baked goods is the overlooked girl at the party! Samoas are more like the Bender of the Girl Scout Cookie world; not the most popular kid, but by far the coolest. And they would totally say hi to Brian the next Monday.

-Kristin Hunt

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Ben Robinson is Thrillist's editorial director and once tried to create and market a line of Boy Scout Cookies, but it didn't really catch. Also he's never been in the Boy Scouts. Follow him @BenjoRobinson.

Kristin Hunt is a former food/drink staff writer at Thrillist and was not a Girl Scout, because they don't have Girl Scouts IN PRISON. Or Maryland, or whatever. Follow her quest to get Maryland's state bird changed to the crab cake @kristin_hunt.