Read time: 6 min.

Christmas, Thanksgiving, and Easter stood out as the major holidays of my youth. There was a religious component, sure, but celebrating meant reuniting with distant cousins and, often, stuffing ourselves with candy. My brother and I have long since aged out of egg hunts, but we observed this past Easter with a head-to-head battle between Hershey’s underdog 5th Avenue and Ferrero’s beloved Butterfinger.

Indulging in some Easter chocolate was a nice throwback to my childhood, but our taste test had little to do with the holiday. It all started about a month ago when a friend posted about the 5th Avenue bar on social media. Despite noticing them throughout his life, he’d never seen any ads or eaten one. He’d never even seen anyone eating one!

I hadn’t either, but they seemed to leap off the shelf as I checked out at the store the next day. I picked one up and took it home. To my surprise, the wrapper suggested it was pretty much a Butterfinger. I effing love Butterfingers! The next day I grabbed one.

It wouldn’t shock me to discover that I’ve devoured the equivalent of two-thousand king-size Butterfingers throughout my life, but I’d never laid a finger on a 5th Avenue. A 2020 Statista survey says I seem to be in good company: that year, I was one of 26 million Americans who ate a Butterfinger. It was the eighth-most popular candy bar.

At the same time, a mere 3.2 million indulged in a 5th Avenue bar, good for a measly 46th place. That’s Zero or Skor territory, and when’s the last time you saw one of those in the wild? I was intrigued by the mysterious confection that evaded me for more than thirty years, so I dived into its history. As it turns out, we have cough drop maker Luden’s to thank for the 5th Avenue. 

Introduced in 1936¹, Luden’s named the bar either to evoke the sophistication of New York City’s fashion district² or to honor the location of the factory where it was first produced³. Hershey acquired 5th Avenue in 1986⁴ but let it wither. Aside from occasional mentions in Stargate and Seinfeld, the candy bar faded into obscurity. Print ads dwindled by the mid-1990s, and I’ve never come across a commercial.

5th Avenue might be obscure, but Butterfinger is a household name. Otto Scherning of the Curtiss Candy Company invented it in 1923⁵. Butterfingers gained early exposure in the 1934 film Baby Take a Bow⁶, but my generation associates them more with The Simpsons. Curtiss was purchased by Standard Brands in 1964⁷, which merged with Nabisco in 1981⁸. Nestlé acquired Baby Ruth and Butterfinger nine years later⁹ and sold its US candy brands to Ferrero in 2018¹⁰. 

I somehow managed to keep both bars intact until I could rendezvous with my brother for a proper comparison. He likes a Baby Ruth, but my favorite is Payday. With that in mind, we were eager to analyze the two crispy peanut chocolate bars! We began with the familiar. It wasn’t like ripping a phone book in half, but the Butterfinger took some effort to break.

Right away, we noticed the vibrant orange hue of its core. We also noticed a maltier flavor than we remembered, and I didn’t get much of a peanut taste at all. “Crispy and chewy are the operative characteristics of a Butterfinger,” John remarked as he swirled the candy around like a seasoned sommelier. I couldn’t help but agree with his analysis as I swatted the crumbs from my shirt.

We quickly moved on to the 5th Avenue, alternating between it and the Butterfinger. The core seemed colored naturally and the bar was noticeably easier to break and bite into. John attributed that softness to the additional chocolate. The 5th Avenue has a visible skirt of the stuff! “If someone gave me a 5th Avenue and said Butterfinger was releasing their ‘1945’ version, I’d absolutely believe it,” John said.

Not one to skimp on preparation in the face of our grave undertaking, I’d consulted with the taste test guidelines of the National Center for Agricultural Literacy at Utah State University. The standards outlined criteria for evaluation, including appearance, aroma, taste, and texture. 

John observed that the convex shape of the Butterfinger appeared neater and more cohesive than the flatter 5th Avenue, but he and I agreed that a polished appearance was worth a demerit. We felt the 5th Avenue emphasized taste over aesthetics, so it won the point. Unfortunately, the aroma category was a wash since both bars emitted similar scents.

From there, we struggled to distinguish between separate guidelines for taste and texture. Both bars presented a similar mouthfeel mostly confined to our unfortunate molars, but the 5th Avenue offered distinct stages of creaminess, crispiness, and chewiness. Those crystalline layers were absent from the Butterfinger, which featured more of a uniform texture and taste.

John and I concluded that the 5th Avenue is a better Butterfinger, but not by much. If you have a penchant for rich chocolate, opt for the 5th Avenue: its recipe still involves real cocoa butter, and the bar is absolutely slathered with the stuff. If toffee and peanuts are more your speed, you better make a beeline for the Butterfinger aisle! If you’re a contrarian, seek out a Clark Bar. If you seek to maintain your oral health, it’s probably best to avoid them all entirely.

I didn’t expect to find out otherwise, but John and I form an eager and willing jury when it comes to candy. I could see throw-downs between Krackle and Crunch, Skor and Heath, and Snickers vs. Baby Ruth in the near future. Others like the elusive Zagnut might require testing as well! In the meantime, it’s worth giving 5th Avenue a try- if you can manage to find one.