We Tried Costco’s Iconic Peppermint Bark

I’m sure it doesn’t come as a surprise to anyone that Costco was among the first to jump on the early Christmas celebrations this year. Not only did they bring out their advent calendars in October, but the aisles are lined with Christmas trees and decorations galore already.

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Among the things that we are terribly excited to see the return of every year at Costco is their Kirkland Signature Peppermint Bark. In the past, we had reviewed it in comparison to other popular peppermint bark brands, including Williams Sonoma, and in that instance it came out in second place. Ultimately, we knew that this peppermint bark was great, but we thought we should still give it our full Sporked review so peppermint bark critics like myself can get the full inside scoop. Let’s get into it. 

Our Official Sporked Review

Pros — Perhaps the thing I enjoy about this peppermint bark most is actually the thickness. A lot of peppermint barks are distinctly and profoundly thick. And it’s on purpose, you want it to be a nice, significant bite of your favorite holiday flavor. But, when it feels like it takes the entire force of your jaw in order to bite through it, there’s a certain point where the thickness becomes a negative attribute. This, however, does not fall into that trap and is the perfect balance of dark chocolate, white chocolate, and real pieces of peppermint candies.

That is another thing we really appreciate. Too often now we see peppermint bark that doesn’t actually have pieces of real peppermint candies on top, and that’s one of our favorite qualities of the treat to begin with. Finally, to us this peppermint bark does a great job of not being overwhelmingly white chocolate forward. White chocolate can so easily be overbearing, and this peppermint bark actually provides a great deal of balance overall. Oh yeah, and the intersection of value and quality is pretty unmatched here from Costco.

Cons — I didn’t honestly think we would really be finding that much to complain about in this peppermint bark, but the thing that we ultimately ended up not loving was the quality of the dark chocolate itself. With only three components in peppermint bark — dark chocolate, white chocolate, and peppermint candies — each component has a pretty significant role to play, and one falling short is very obvious. And unfortunately, the quality of the dark chocolate just felt off. Even compared to last year’s peppermint bark, it feels like the bold flavor of the bitter cocoa has become weaker, and thus some of the balance in the peppermint bark is generally off as well.