Review: New Exploremores Give The Girl Scouts Cookie Lineup A Chocolatey Boost

Even if you didn't spend your youth rocking the bright green Girl Scout vest, you're probably familiar with the organization's delicious boxed cookies. We all wait patiently every year for the classics — Thin Mints, Caramel deLites, Peanut Butter Patties — but a lot has changed since cookie sales began in 1917. The brand has consistently introduced new flavors over the years, like Girl Scout S'mores and Adventurefuls, and next year, another new cookie enters the fold.

Girls Scouts of the USA (GSUSA) hasn't always leaned on the ever-reliable sandwich cookie. But the organization's esteemed S'mores cookie — which is discontinued after 2025 — was a tasty outlier, and perhaps explains the choices made for this year's new release. Exploremores are triple-chocolate, crème-stuffed sandwich cookies inspired by rocky road ice cream, which typically contains chopped marshmallow and almonds spread throughout a chocolate base. Certainly there's some creative license with that description, but it's enough to excite any lover of sweet treats. So just how well does this cookie capture the iconic ice cream flavor? We sampled some Exploremores ourselves to find out.

Exploremores will be part of the Girl Scouts 2026 season's national lineup, available both online and at any local booths. Despite being influenced by ice cream, these cookies aren't found in the freezer aisle. In fact, they're not going to be found in any aisle. Girl Scout cookies are notoriously elusive, only appearing on pop-up stands and outside institutions during the rush of cookie season.

Only registered Girl Scouts of GSUSA are permitted to sell the cookies, so be on the lookout in your area once cookie season approaches or head straight to the website to fill up your cart. The official Girl Scout cookie season kicks off in January of the new year, so start making room in the pantry now. Exploremores will be joining long-standing favorites like Thin Mints and Tagalongs.

As you might expect for a primarily chocolate cookie, Exploremores are on the sugary side. Two of these cookies run 130 calories and include 8 grams of added sugar, which makes up approximately  16% of your daily sugar value. They won't be the flat-out sweetest cookie in the Girl Scout lineup, but they're certainly in the mix.

Two bakeries manufacture Girl Scout cookies in the U.S. – ABC Bakers and Little Brownie Bakers. Aside from a few small changes here and there, like Caramel deLites vs. Somoas or Peanut Butter Patties vs. Tagalongs, the cookies appear to stay rather consistent regardless of their region.

Chocolate lovers, rejoice. The first bite of an Exploremore is an inundation of rich chocolate flavor, both from the decadent wafers on the outside and the filling within. The creamy center is light when compared to the dense holding it together, but it's still a bit heavy for the concept. It's not easy to replicate a cold, velvety ice cream flavor in a cookie, but credit where it's due — these crumbly chocolate bites do have a certain rocky road essence to them. Exploremores also have a creamy, ice cream-esque aftertaste, but it takes a few bites (or a few cookies) to get there.

Personally, I could use a little bit more secondary flavor in the Exploremores, particularly marshmallow. The packaging lists it along with toasted almond crème (as any rocky road flavored thing should), but those notes seemed to get a little lost between the strong chocolate. While subtle, vanilla from the marshmallow did come through, but I wasn't sensing any almond nuttiness. Given the sheer power of the chocolate flavor here, I'm tempted to crush Exploremores into a vanilla milkshake to essentially turn the cookies back into ice cream, which is not a foreign concept — there are plenty of Girl Scout cookie and ice cream pairings to play around with.

Everyone needs a chocolate overload once in awhile, and Exploremores are enough to fit that bill. But while I enjoyed these new chocolatey Girl Scout sandwich cookies, Exploremores are not ranking in my top three. No matter how hard GSUSA tries, the classics are impossible to beat. Personally, I'll never be able to place anything above Thin Mints — they are, in my humble opinion, a flawless cookie.

As a former Brownie (amateur Girl Scout), I have a soft spot for Girl Scout cookies. They're incredibly delicious, of course, but it's never just about the taste — it's seasonal rush when the community-declared Girl Scout cookie season springs upon us. The organization's mission behind the Girl Scout Cookie Program is still going strong, and all proceeds remain with local councils to go right back into life-changing experiences for the troops. To that end, the Exploremores fit right in to GSUSA's cookie lineup, as chocolate and ice cream lovers' cravings will be emphatically satisfied.