Move over, Thin Mints. You’re no longer the guiltiest pleasure Girl Scout cookie going.
That honor belongs to "Girl Scout S'mores" — a brand new cookie being sold this year to commemorate the 100th anniversary of Girl Scouts selling cookies.
It all began more humbly back in 1917, when a troop in Oklahoma was trying to raise money and hit upon the idea of baking and selling homemade cookies. Since then, Girl Scout cookies have become as synonymous with America as mom and apple pie — 194 million boxes were sold in 2015, according to Fortune magazine — so the pressure obviously was on to find a suitably, uh, impactful centennial commemorative cookie.
Mission accomplished. Described as “crunchy graham sandwich cookies with creamy chocolate and marshmallowy filling,” Girl Scout S’mores also come “stamped” with “artist-created embossed designs” honoring iconic outdoor activities associated with scouting.
All that’s missing, apparently, is the campfire and the stick to accidentally drop said “marshmallowy” concoction into.
Guilty pleasures don't come cheap, of course. Due to the higher cost of ingredients involved, Girl Scout S'mores sell for $6 per box — that's $2 more than boxes of Thin Mints, Tagalongs, Samoas and other beloved flavors (boxes of gluten-free Toffee-tastic cookies also cost $6). What makes it practically priceless: The looks on the scouts' faces when they make a sale. Plus the knowledge that 100 percent of the net proceeds from cookie sales are reinvested back into the originating council to fund activities and projects (here, it's the Girl Scouts of Greater Atlanta, which serves 34 counties).
Cookie sales officially began Jan. 1, with girls going door to door taking orders and emailing out links to their personal Digital cookie store. But don't despair if you don't know a scout to order from (or if you don't work with a scout's parent, heh, heh). Starting next month, cookie booths will be back all over the metro area (that's when troops set up sales booths outside area stores and in other neighborhood settings), as will the online, zip code-based Girl Scout Cookie Finder that's also available as an app.
More information is available at www.girlscoutsatl.org.
RELATED: Read about last year's extra special Girl Scout cookie sales efforts in metro Atlanta
