Girl Scout Cookie and Wine Pairing ($10 or Less!)

The ultimate Girl Scout Cookie and Wine Pairing list, all wines for $10 or less! Girl's night just got a whole lot sweeter! 🙂

There are fewer things I love more in life than an excuse to drink wine. One of those things is an excuse to eat cookies. So when my drug dealer (err... I mean Girl Scout cookie seller...) came a knockin' this year my food blogger brain went into overdrive. And the response was me shouting "I WANT ONE OF ALL OF THEM......PLUS EXTRA THIN MINTS."

In reality, I buy Girl Scout cookies through the girls my mom babysits for so it was literally just me yelling alone in my kitchen and then texting her my order. And then waiting impatiently for 400 months until they came in. While I anxiously scoured Pinterest for wine and Girl Scout cooking pairings. Because what better way to welcome Girl Scout cookie season than by eating all of them in one sitting with multiple types of wines and a few of your closest friends?? This is not a hypothetical question by the way--if you have an answer to this I would really like to know because I will definitely do it next year (because let's be real the cookies are already gone so it's too late this season!)

So days after my cookies got delivered I called up some ladies and put together a Girl Scout cookie and wine pairing night! I combined all of my Pinterest research, added in some of our own ideas on which wines we thought would pair well, and have narrowed down a list of the perfect pairings for your enjoyment!

It was a very scientific evening (complete with fully documented voting) and I am hoping that everyone truly appreciates the great sacrifices that we had to make in order to perfect this list for you all! (So many cookies and wine, oh the huuumaaanity! 😛 )

So, 8 cookies, 7 wines, and 6 girls all add up to this. The greatest Girl Scout cookie and wine pairing list around! And the best part? All of these wines are under $10 which just goes to show you don't need to break the bank to host an awesome and memorable party!

First we're going to introduce you to the cookies, then we will dive into the wine pairing and votes, and at the bottom of this post you can find more tips and tricks for hosting your own Girl Scout cookie and wine pairing night! 🙂

THE COOKIES

So first let's get to know our cookies! I'm sure most of you are well versed in your GS cookie line-up but for those of you who aren't (or for those of you who aren't familiar with the new ones) here's a little run down of the cookies and their flavors!

Side note: This is the 2017 line up that was available in my area so it may not be all-inclusive.  Girl Scout cookies come from 2 different bakers so depending on your region your cookie names may vary and you may have other options!THIN MINTS

Ya'll know what a thin mint is, right? RIGHT?! If you've never had one I suggest you use the Girl Scout Cookie Finder to go buy some ASAP! It's a thin, crispy, minty cookie encapsulated in a delicious chocolatey coating and it's HEAVEN ON EARTH. PERIOD.TREFOILS

Okay, people hate trefoils which is one of the million reasons I hate people. Just kidding. (Not really.) They have always been one of my all time favorites. They're a classic and they deserve RESPECT. These shortbread cookies are simple and delightful and as it turns out they pair perfectly with multiple wines so I'm hoping this will help encourage people to start giving them the appreciation they deserve!TAGALONGS

Ahh, tagalongs! The Reese's Peanut Butter cup of the cookie world. You take a vanilla cookie. You carve out a little home in the center for a dollop of delicious peanut butter. Then you coat the whole kit and caboodle with delicious chocolate. What could be better?!SAVANNAH SMILES

If you like cookies that taste like fruit, this one's for you! A savannah smile is a zesty lemon cookie coated in powdered sugar. If you are going to eat these, eat them with a glass of rosé and thank me later!TOFFEE-TASTIC 

"A rich, buttery cookie with sweet, crunchy toffee bits." I had to quote this one straight off the  Girl Scout Website because I have nothing nice to say about this poor excuse for a cookie. It's gluten free, I guess. So there's that.  Sorry toffee-tastic! You're more like toffee-terrible to me! This one was not a crowd pleaser BUT it was suggested that it would pair very well with coffee. I'm not a coffee drinker so these were sent home in a Ziploc with one of the girls who is! 😛DO-SI-DOS

Do-si-dos (pronounced dough-see-doughs, for the record!) are a thin layer of peanut butter sandwiched between two crunchy oatmeal cookies. Am I the only one who wants to dip them into a vat of chocolate frosting? I like them but I'm more of a tagalong girl! Gotta have that chocolate! 😛SAMOAS

Apparently people like these. I don't get it. But that's just because I hate coconut! Samoas are a crisp yet chewy cookie that is coated in caramel then sprinkled with coconut and drizzled with dark chocolate. They're definitely a fan favorite and one of the classics of the GS line up! Although they're not my favorite I still respect them because I know they're the thin mint of some people's lives! S'MORES

Just as you'd suspect...marshmallow and chocolate sandwiched between crunchy graham cracker cookies! I'm always skeptical about s'more flavored stuff because there's nothing like the real thing. But if anyone can make a realistic s'more cookie it's a Girl Scout! They nailed it and these cookies are ddddddddelicious! (Although I heard they sold out so you may be out of luck if you didn't buy any this season!)

GIRL SCOUT COOKIE AND WINE PAIRING 

So here's how I worked the pairing party. (This is where it gets so super technical.) We had 7 wines and 8 cookies. Each cookie was paired up with 3 wines for tasting. We started with the sweetest wine and worked our way to the deepest, darkest, red wine (as you would normally do with wine tasting!)

Each girl gets a small glass of wine (or large, I don't know your friends!) and the corresponding cookie to pair with that wine. They don't have to eat the entire cookie with each wine!! Unless you want to eat 24 cookies. And again, I don't know you or your friends, but just make sure you have enough cookies 😛 You'll only need one or two bites per 1 oz pour of wine for your tasting, and since the cookie will come up again, you can hang onto it. (Unless it's a thin mint then you'll probably need a new one each time! 😛 )

Below are the wines we chose, their prices, the cookies we paired them with, the cookies we thought paired best, and our overall thoughts!

Voting was pretty liberal. For each wine the cookie pairings were pre-decided. You could vote for whether you liked the cookie with the wine or not, and you could vote for multiple cookies per wine. So each cookie had a maximum of 6 points it could receive (since we had 6 girls!) If you didn't like any of the cookies with the wine you didn't vote for any of them. (And some cookies did score a zero!)

MOSCATO--Barefoot $5.99The first wine on our pairing list was moscato. To be honest, in my Pinterest research, I didn't see moscato pop up very frequently, if ever! Some nonsense about it being too sweet to be paired with cookies. I call baloney on this logic. I think some wine snob somewhere probably gave some big speech about high sugar content interacting poorly with the cookies and talked everyone out of this delightful treat. I decided to include it in our wine pairing evening mainly because our list had a lot of red and dry white wines and I had some girls coming over who only like sweet wines. This was still a party after all, and I wanted everyone to have something they would like so I decided to throw it in there, wine snobs be damned!

I'm glad I did because everyone seemed to enjoy the moscato pairing. While a few of the wines were complete misses for some of the guests, this one had at least one cookie pairing that worked for everyone.

And the final tally is:

• Trefoils = 4
• Samoas = 2
• Toffee-tastic = 1
• S'mores = 3

Overall thoughts:

• At least one person thought that every cookie we had paired well with the moscato, and we even had recommendations of other cookies that would have went well with it! The trefoils were the most popular to everyone's surprise, as it is the poor little shortbread cookie that everyone underestimates! However, we decided that because it doesn't have a bold taste (which is likely why people don't like it to begin with) it makes it a perfect cookie to pair with wine because it is kind of like a blank slate and pairs well with anything!

RIESLING--Yellow Tail $5.99Oh, riesling. How you disappointed us. This Yellow Tail riesling is dry, not sweet, which may have been part of the problem. This was a swing and a miss for me personally. It did okay with the trefoils (because almost everything does) but the other cookies were like trying to force a bad blind date. Just not happening. I think we were all ready to move on to the next one!

Final tally:

• Do-si-do = 1
• Savannah smiles = 2
• Toffee-tastic = 0
• Trefoils = 4

Overall thoughts:

• Again the trefoil did well because it's such a blank slate. The toffee-tastic was a horrific choice! Those toffee bits and that dry riesling did not mesh well! Savannah smiles got a few votes, as the lemon and dry white wine flavors worked for two people. I voted for the do-si-do I think because it was the lesser of the four evils? Next time we will definitely do a sweet riesling!

ROSÉ--Sterling $9.99So our rosé we chose was more a dry rose, not a sparkling one, just for the record! For me this wine was a home run, touch down, TKO with the savannah smiles! I wasn't a fan of the savannah smiles until this point (in fact I believe I said they would "pair perfectly with a trash bag") but once I had it with the rosé I completely changed my tune. The flavors of the rosé really brought out the lemon of the savannah smiles and immediately transported me to a patio in the summer! It tasted like a fruit salad and brought a smile to my face immediately! I loved it! Not everyone agreed, though, and some people preferred the tagalongs. No one, I repeat no one, liked it with the s'mores! 😛

Final tally:

• Tagalongs = 2
• Savannah smiles = 4
• S'mores = 0

Overall thoughts:

• Worked perfectly with the savannah smile as it brought out the lemon flavor in the best way possible. Tagalongs were also favorited and s'mores were a swing and a miss!

SAUVIGNON BLANC--LINDEMAN'S $4.99Let me start this one by saying I hate dry white wines. Hate them. But for $4.99 and for being the cheapest wine on our list, I was surprised how much I loved this sauvignon blanc! Some other sweet wine drinkers felt the same way! I might have to put this one on repeat when I hit the grocery store again! 🙂

This one was interesting for me because in my Pinterest research I kept finding that trefoils must absolutely be paired with a dry white wine or champagne. Since we loved it with the super sweet moscato I was curious to see how it would do with a dry white since the internet was so sure about this duo.

Oddly enough for this pairing the savannah smiles took the trophy again. The dry white wine perfectly complimented the lemon flavor of the cookie! Trefoils did terrible. Not a single one of us thought it paired well with the sauvignon blanc! Just goes to show that the internet isn't always right! 😛 We definitely preferred it with the sweet moscato instead!

Final tally:

• Trefoils = 0
• Samoas = 2
• Savannah smiles = 5

Overall thoughts:

• I was surprised the trefoil wasn't better with the sauvignon blanc! This was one cookie that repeatedly came up paired with dry whites and champagne and since we had deemed it a blank slate capable of being paired with anything it was surprising that the one pairing we disliked most was the one it was supposed to pair best with! The savannah smiles continued to gain my respect as a cookie as the night progressed, apparently I just needed some wine to truly appreciate its value! 🙂

MALBEC--Red Rock $9.99Into the reds we go! I was excited about the transition because I knew we were about to dig into the thin mints! 😛 Which by the way, in my research, I think I found thin mints paired with every wine in existence. They're just that good. You can't go wrong pairing them with anything. Except maybe orange juice. But that's not a wine so it's not really relevant here anyway.

I thought all three cookies paired perfectly with the malbec. The smoky finish of this wine brought out coconut flavor of the samoas, complimented the mint flavor of the thin mints, and cut through the peanut butter of the do-si-dos perfectly. Not everyone agreed with me but almost everyone agreed on the do-si-dos!

Final tally:

• Thin mints = 1
• Do-si-dos = 5
• Samoas = 2

Overall thoughts:

• Peanut butter and malbec all day, every day! Better watch out jelly, she's comin' for your man! 😛

MERLOT--Blackstone $7.99 Oh Merlot <3 This was the only wine that received 6/6 votes for one of the cookies. Guess which one?.......Thin minnnntsss!!!! Duh! 🙂

As much as I tried to make S'Merlot a thing I was the only one who enjoyed the Merlot with the s'more's! 🙁

Tagalongs were voted on by half of the crowd but those who did vote for it really voted for it so it was definitely a fan favorite!

Do-si-dos received a lone vote but still seems to be better suited for the malbec life.

Final tally:

• Tagalongs = 3
• Thin mints = 6
• Do-si-dos = 1
• S'mores = 1

Overall thoughts:

• Thin mints by a landslide! Buy yourself a box (or 8) and a bottle of merlot and call it a day!  Although it wouldn't hurt to have an extra box of tagalongs to pair with it as well! 🙂

CABERNET--19 Crimes $10.99 (oops) So this wine went $0.99 over budget but it was worth every penny! Once again the thin mints hit it out of the park as expected! They just pair so well with deep, dark, reds!

Tagalongs got a single vote for this one and toffee-tastic once again disappointed everyone. 🙁

Finaly tally:

• Tagalongs = 1
• Thin mints = 5
• Toffee-tastic = 0

Overall thoughts:

• This one struck a debate as one guest absolutely hated the thin mints with the cabernet!   Everyone else disagreed, though (even those who hate red wines!) so we're just going to assume she had too much vino to make a rational vote 😛

HOSTESS TIPS AND TRICKS 

If you're thinking about hosting your own Girl Scout cookie and wine pairing night (and you totally should because it's so. much. fun!) here are a few more tips and tricks for your evening!

1. Provide a selection of glassware 

Why? Because it looks pretty! It's a wine pairing party after all so it's fun to have a bunch of different wine glasses to choose from. I had all of my wine glasses available. Tumblers, standard, white wine, red wine, take your pick! Some people may prefer to drink their white wines out of the white wine glass then switch to a red wine glass for the reds. Other people may prefer a stemless option strictly for safety reasons. 😛  You may develop a heavy hand during your event (not speaking from experience or anything...) so guests may also need an extra glass if they can't finish their wine before the next round. In conclusion it's nice to have options!

If you don't have a bunch of wine glasses available, don't worry! Any glasses would work! Even some fun, spunky plastic cups would be fine! Have fun with it!

2. Be careful not to develop a heavy hand

As stated in tip #1, be careful of this one! Jon Taffer would not approve of my bartending skills! As you can see from the picture by wine 3 my pours had become a little umm...generous. Although we ended up finishing all of the wine by the end of the night, no one wants to be chugging a glass to move onto the next tasting so try to keep your pours light as you move through the pairing process. The heavy glasses can come out for voting! 🙂

3. Encourage small bites! 

You're going to be taking in a lot of sugar during the night. Like enough to give cookie monster diabetes. Encourage small bites so your guests aren't nauseous by the third wine! For the most part, one of each cookie is enough to last you through the whole tasting process and you can always come back for more!

4. Break halfway for savory food!!

This is my biggest recommendation! I had my friends bring a savory side that we could stop and enjoy halfway through the tasting process. We stopped between the whites and reds to cleanse our palates, take a break from the sugar, and enjoy some salty, savory dishes! It really recharged us for the second half and it was nice to get some real food in our system!

We enjoyed buffalo chicken dip, jalapeño poppers, caramelized onion and bacon tart, and a 3 cheese peach and prosciutto pizza. We also had cheese and crackers with a raspberry jalapeño jam on top, but I was warned not to eat it because of my baby palate and inability to handle spice haha!

5. Finally, HAVE FUN! I didn't 100% know what I was doing when I set this all up but we all just rolled with it and had such a blast! Life is too short take your party too seriously so buy cheap wine and eat too many cookies with your friends! Then fight about which ones go well together! 🙂

CONCLUSIONS

Here are our first and second place votes for each wine:

1. Moscato and Trefoils or S'mores
2. Riesling and Trefoils or Savannah Smiles
3. Rosé and Savannah Smiles or Tagalongs
4. Sauvignon blanc and Savannah Smiles or Samoas
5. Malbec and Do-Si-Dos or Samoas
6. Merlot and Thin Mints or Tagalongs
7. Cabernet and Thin Mints or Tagalongs

Toffee-tastic cookies are best paired with coffee, keep them far away from your wine!

Thanks for reading! Let me know your thoughts and share some pictures with me if you host your own Girl Scout cookie and wine pairing night! Hopefully your guests will be as happy as this little dog I found sketched on the table at the end of the night! 🙂

Looking for something a little less sweet to pair with your wines? Check out my Perfect Holiday Cheese Board and Appetizer Spread! (Not just for the holidays! It also pairs perfectly with a Monday! 😛 )