What's the best Oreo ever? Here are 39 all-time flavors ranked from worst to best

(Shaina Mishkin,MassLive.com)

Despite the fact that the original cookies don't have any problems, Oreo seems intent on constantly trying to fix what isn't broken with a vast menagerie of (often ridiculous) flavors.

This isn't a bad thing. New flavors are fun. Some are even good. Few, though, measure up to the original.

Over the past few years, we've been keeping tabs on the comings and goings from whatever secret underwater chocolate volcano laboratory produces these new flavors. However, we've never put together a full, comprehensive ranking.

Until now.

I ate 39 types of Oreos so you don't have to. Here's where they rank, from worst to best.

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39. Banana Split Oreo

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This "banana flavor" in the filling is about as convincing as a man in a banana suit screaming "Hey! I'm a banana! Believe that I'm a banana!"

There's no actual split/sundae element, which was unfortunate, because I was counting on the red part (I don't even know if it was supposed to be another flavor) to make up for the banana. It turns out, it's all the same awful flavor.

I think I can still smell it on me.

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38. Cookie Dough Oreo

I find this cookie offensive. Like a crotchety old man sitting on his deck yelling at the derelict youth wasting their potential, I am quite nonplussed about Oreo making something cookie dough-flavored that isn't fantastic. It's even got me using my annoying vocab words.

I'd be fine with this cookie being pedestrian. Instead, it tastes like a stick of butter squished between the two cookies. As I told the rest of the office: If we didn't have sprinklers in here, I was ready to just light this bag of cookies on fire.

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38. Berry Creme Oreo

Not bad. This tastes like generic berry flavoring you'd find in your standard macro dessert. It was pleasant enough, but I have no interest to eat another one of these ever again in my life.

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36. Limeade Oreo

Taken directly from my notes:

"LIME"

The single-note lime flavor is sharp and harsh, but not terrible. It's imbalanced and over-the-top, but if you like the lime flavor, it could work.

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35. Caramel Apple Oreo

You know how "salted caramel" products go for a nice clean caramel flavor? This is the exact opposite. You can taste the caramel and the apple, but you can also taste the languid, melding, wet flavors of a caramel apple that's been left out too long. Bleh.

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34. Key Lime Pie Oreo

Shaina Mishkin, MassLive

This tasted pretty similar to the Limeade Oreo - but did suck noticeably less. The lime flavor is still overpowering, but it's a bit more balanced here.

The biggest takeaway is the fragrance. Even if you seal it back up, you can smell the sharp lime lingering. Fortunately, the flavor is a little bit more tactful.

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33. Fruit Punch Oreo

The Fruit Punch Oreos are heavily reminiscent of Trix cereal (before they cheaped out and changed from the actual fruit shapes) and a little bit of raw Kool-Aid. But like the Limeade variety, it's quite pungent, but a little less acrid upon the initial taste.

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32. Pumpkin Spice Oreo

The Pumpkin Spice Oreos are the first cookies to breach the "Just OK" line. They're mellow enough for the eater to simply sit back and enjoy them instead of tensing up like they're tossing a citrus cookie grenade down the hatch and hoping for the best.

There's some pumpkin, and not a lot of spice here. The flavor is a pretty bland "pumpkin/harvest/fall sugar" taste, which is good.

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31. Lemon Oreo

Of all the fruit flavors, this was the most manageable. To be fair, though, a lemon cookie is anything from groundbreaking. That's why this one tastes similar to a low-end Italian lemon cookie, sort of on the lines of a Vienna Finger (a recurring theme).

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30. Oreo Thins Salted Caramel

These fell pretty short of expectations. This was another cookie where you got a nice smell coming off the cookie, but not as much taste.

The "thin" aspect of the cookies really hit these. You really don't get much caramel flavor. You really don't get much flavor at all outside of the cookie, which is a shame, because the flavor of the creme itself is pretty good if you can find it.

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29. Oreo Thins Lemon

I was pretty high on the Oreos Thins overall. The lemon version has a really nice cookie-to-creme balance, especially between the vanilla and lemon flavors.

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28. Cookies & Creme Oreo

Yes, this is the Oreo-flavored Oreo. It's peculiar, because it has about as much creme as a double stuff, but the flavor balance of a normal Oreo.

Hurray.

They'll also cost you about twice as much per cookie.

Boo.

These cookies are dumb and expensive and a monument to man's folly.

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27. Chocolate Creme Oreo (Vanilla Cookie)

I'm pretty sure I didn't touch on this cookie the first time I reviewed Ores. I might've forgotten. If I went back in time to rectify this, I'd probably forget again. This cookie is wholly unremarkable in every way. It tastes a bland sort of chocolatey with some vanilla cookie. Meh.

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26. Oreo Thins Coconut

Shaina Mishkin, MassLive.com

Personally, I don't like coconut. However, I can appreciate that the coconut flavor here is pretty good. This is the first cookie that I could actually go around recommending to people (provided they like coconut).

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25. Peeps Oreo

There's no crazy marshmallow nonsense that normally comes with Peeps. Instead, we get a bright pink filling with crunchy little sugar bits. The best way to describe these cookies is that the creme tastes like "pink."

It's not quite cherry or fruity, but is still noticeably vibrant. Examples include pink Starburst and countless pink candies whose exact flavor definition has been long forgotten in a sugary haze over the years.

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24. Golden Oreo

Golden Oreos tend to get overlooked in the hurricane of flavors, new and old. They're forgettable, but not bad with their Vienna Finger-like flavor and crunch.

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23. Oreo Thins (Vanilla)

It's the same vanilla cookie/creme flavors as the original. But for whatever reason, the balance between the two comes off a little better in this formula.

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22. Golden Double Stuf Oreo

When you start messing with different sizes, it's a weird matter of taste. Somehow, once you reach a certain point of creme content, it breaks into a higher threshold of flavor. That's what happened with the Golden Oreo.

(Full disclosure: So it turns out, we were pretty bad at documenting individual Oreos as the beginning of this process. As a result, I had to go back and find what photos I could. In other cases, I had to go to CVS and take a photo of this box -- because I knew if I bought a new box I'd eat the whole thing.)

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21. Blueberry Pie Oreo

These cookies will likely get your hopes up. Just look at them: Blue-creme Oreos. Plus, they smell great.

However, you don't get that much actual flavor when you eat them. The inclusion of the graham-flavor cookie is a nice wrinkle. However, the blueberry creme just doesn't stand out much.

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20. Jelly Donut Oreo

Conceptually, these are bonkers. But it's actually a pretty ambitious and tasty cookie.

It's a normal Golden Oreo, just with a separate grape jelly-flavored creme in the middle. This adds a really cool wrinkle to the whole experience. You get that nice blend of jelly and vanilla flavors, which go together surprisingly well.

With that said, it's pretty heavy and sweet. Don't binge these.

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19. Peanut Butter Creme Oreo

Whoa. This was not as sweet as I thought it'd be. It's a much duller, darker peanut butter taste than you'd expect. More like a Nutter Butter than Reese's Peanut Butter. But that dull peanut butter tastes doesn't mesh very well with the chocolate, the whole thing tastes dull and doesn't have that fun peanut butter/chocolate combo.

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18. Peanut Butter Cup

A minor step up from the original peanut butter version. The separate peanut butter and chocolate creme flavors both work and create a sweet, mellow overall flavor that's pretty darn good. It's a little more chocolatey than the standard peanut butter version.

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17. Chocolate Creme Oreo (Chocolate Cookie)

Not as chocolatey as I hoped it'd be. It was just an Oreo, with less classic creme taste and a lingering taste of what I guess was chocolate-esque. Overall, it just kind of tastes like a cookie, which isn't bad. But it also isn't double chocolate.

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16. Mega Stuf Oreo (Vanilla Cookie)

Is this a sugar bomb? Sure. But it's an awesome sugar bomb.

In this format, the cookies are pretty much just acting as vessels to carry the creme. Golden Oreos usually aren't exciting. But once they get to ridiculous creme proportions, they start meriting more attention.

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15. Cotton Candy

It's remarkable how spot on the cotton candy flavor is in this cookie. It's got that familiar trademark flavor in the pink/blue creme blend -- though there's no distinguishable difference between the colors.

The standard vanilla cookie complements it well to produce a great overall cookie. It's most successful quality, though, is the texture of the cotton candy-flavored creme. If you isolate it and bite down, you actually get that familiar dense-sugar feel of a bite into actual cotton candy. It's a technological marvel.

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14. Mint Creme Oreo

This is a creamy thin mint.

I love over-the-top-sweet mint mixed with chocolate flavors. So, even though the mint flavor was a little out of control -- like a box of Andes mints fired out of a t-shirt cannon -- it was still enjoyable.

Avoid eating en masse. It'd probably end up feeling like downing a dozen cough drops covered in icing.

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13. Fireworks Oreo

These basically taste the same as Double Stuf Oreos with tiny little sugar sprinkles mixed in. There isn't much change to the flavor besides a little extra sweetness.

It's a minor wrinkle, but does provide a fun change-up to the usual experience. They're noticeably less creamy when you bite into them.

(And yes, you do get a Pop Rocks-like sensation when you eat them.)

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12. Birthday Cake (Chocolate Cookie)

I've long been a proponent of "birthday cake" as a flavor, probably because I've largely been invulnerable to overly sweet things and may or may not still have the palate of a 12-year-old.

Still, this combination works well as a vessel for that little funfetti party of creme between the cookies. The chocolate cookies don't do too much to complement the flavor, but they do get out of the way while providing that crunchy/creamy texture.

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11. Triple Double Oreo

At a certain point, this thing has to stop masquerading as a cookie. The original Oreo was pushing the limits as it was. But this is really just a miniature layered cake consisting of thin biscuits and icing.

The Triple Double takes some game planning to eat. You can't just pop it into your mouth and expect to avoid getting Oreo dust where you don't want it. But when you do corral this beast, it's a much more well-rounded flavor that you'd expect. It's not overpowering and had a bunch of different textures and flavors unbecoming of this group. It really eats more like a dense cake then a sugar-rush cookie.

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10. Red Velvet

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The cookie is red. It doesn't taste any different but it's just really weird to see, like when Daniel Radcliffe appears in anything that isn't "Harry Potter."

The frosting meanwhile, is a damn rockstar. It's got a splendid cream cheese flavor, which is a little sweeter, a little creamier and has the same aftertaste as a dense cream cheese frosting. The creme is indeed pretty heavy, making every cookie hit your stomach with double the weight of a normal Oreo. These may be the least binge-able cookies they have out, outside of the ones that taste bad (looking at you, Banana Split).

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9. Cinnamon Bun Oreo

These are the best-smelling Oreos I've ever encountered.

It helps that this cookies has cinnamon-flavored cookies along with a creme that does a great job of emulating the icing on an actual cinnamon bun. It could've done a better job with adding more cinnamon flavor, but is still a really good cookie.

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8. Oreo Thins (Chocolate)

There's a big gap between regular Oreos and Chocolate Oreos. But when it comes to Thins, the difference is pretty small.

With less creme, there's more room for the cookie to shine. In this instance, it's a more balanced chocolate-y experience that pops off with more flavor than the original version.

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7. Mega Stuf Oreo

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Here we are: We've entered the realm of the classic Oreo. There are four iterations, all basically on the same tier. At this point, it's basically a matter of what kind of creme-to-cookie ratio you want.

Mega Stuf is still really, really good. But unlike the vanilla version, the chocolate cookie doesn't shine quite as brightly when serving as a vessel for a ton of creme.

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6. Double Stuf Oreo

Oddly enough, Double Stuff seems to have turned into the standard level of creme for the new flavors, which is probably why so many of them are over-the-top sweet.

The Double Stuf, though? It's still fantastic. It's the first real experiment that Oreo put out, and remains one of their best. However, it does fall short to two of it's lesser-stuffed companions.

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5. Oreo Thins (Chocolate)

Shaina Mishkin, MassLive.com

Thins over Double Stuf? Call me a heretic if you want, but they've won me over.

I love the balance here. You get the flavor of the creme, but without the mush out the sides that usually comes when you bite into an Oreo. It's a small change, but it does produce a cool overall flavor and texture that makes me want to go back for more than the over-stuffed versions do.

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4. Oreo

Going back to a classic Oreo after trying all of the new flavors is like trying a bunch of slices of pizza topped with lasagna, french fries and chicken nuggets from a mediocre-quality joint before going back to a place that does it right and eating a slice of cheese or pepperoni. It's just so much less of a damn chore to eat. Sure, it's less exciting, but it just tastes good.

This is the only (non-thins) cookie I'd advocate eating more than four of in one sitting. The new flavors are too sweet to do anything other than give you a headache after you have more than a few. It's not dissimilar to pounding shots at a bar: Take a dozen and you run the risk of barfing it all back up.

It's fun to play around with sizes. But at the end of the day, just give me a stack of classic Oreos with some milk.

(Except if you're giving me any of these three cookies.)

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3. Birthday Cake (Vanilla Cookie)

This Birthday Cake Oreo is miles ahead of the chocolate version. It has the same filling, but the vanilla cookie on the outside is playing for the same team, adding another dimension to the bright, sweet icing on the inside.

The combination of vanilla cookie and funfetti icing work in concert to produce a cookie that actively knows what it's doing as a dessert, a rarity among these other concoctions which are random Candy Land checkpoints slapped between two chocolate cookies.

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2. Marshmallow Krispy Creme Oreo

Have you ever tried Rice Krispies Treats cereal? If so, this is the only thing I've ever encountered that's ever come close to replicating that taste. (Note: That cereal was delicious.)

The taste is surprisingly reminiscent of an actual Rice Krispie Treat, utilizing little crispy bits in the creme to produce a unique, mellow flavor. Instead of being a pure sugar bomb, it's a more balanced and buttery. It's a damn shame these were only a limited edition.

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1. S'mores

The creme is addictive, and one of the rare instances where Oreo layered two flavors on top of each other (a technique they should experiment with more).

The separate marshmallow and chocolate cremes that fuse into a satisfying s'mores flavor fusion hitches a ride with a graham flavor jetpack and flies off into the cookie heavens.

This is the king of Oreos and needs to come back. Heck, they should make their own brand just from "S'moreos."

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Flavors we've missed

As much as it pains me to admit, I have not had every type of Oreo ever. The flavors have rolled on and off the shelves too quickly to try and keep pace, and I spend each day marinating in my failure to capture each cookie.

If I was a Pokemon trainer, I'd be Ash Ketchum: I talk big game about being a master, but spend most of my time actually doing a terrible job. (Seriously, look back. Ash is a terrible trainer.)

Here's a list of flavors not included in the rankings: