Crossing the Blanchette Bridge into St. Charles, something caught our eyes next to the Bass Pro Shop: a popcorn place called Pop-Pop Hurray. Enticed by our curiosity, we decided to check it out.

We walked in, and immediately were met with smells of sweet and savory popcorn, with 50 different buckets lining the wall. Everything from Butter and Bubble Gum to Birthday Cake and Jalapeño.

We decided to try 10 of the most interesting flavors and rank them based on taste.

Coming out on the top of the rankings was our favorite flavor, Loaded Baked Potato. This was one of the more savory kinds in the bunch. The reason we put this item in first place was because of how flavorful and cheesy it was.

In second place, the Original Kettle Corn. Although this is a classic and not as eye drifting as the many other colorful and exotic ones we sampled, it was easily close to the top of our list.

Third place was given to Dill Pickle. As we tried this one, we were shocked by how closely it tasted to an actual pickle. It was salty, but different due to the dill seasoning, and not too overwhelming to go with the popcorn.

Next in the lineup was Garlic Parmesan. The amount of seasoning put into this was a little overwhelming at first, but it was most definitely true to its title of flavor and was good nonetheless.

Fifth place came out to be Captain Crunch. While neither of us are super big fans of cereal, the comparison of the popcorn to the real cereal was so alike; they tasted almost the same. There were tiny pieces of the real cereal sprinkled into the popcorn and it added a nice amount of sweetness and crunchiness to it.

As we moved on to the sixth item we tried, we started to realize we were not as big of fans of the sweeter flavors as we were of the savory ones. The Watermelon popcorn did not taste the way we expected it to. Due to the bright pinky-red color, we assumed it would taste like a watermelon Jolly Rancher, but there was not much flavor of anything at all. It definitely did not taste bad, but was more like a less sweet caramel corn.

We decided to put caramel corn in seventh place. Neither of us are super big fans of caramel corn in general. The flavor can be too sweet and overbearing at times.

Eighth place went to Green Apple. This tasted close to how we expected it to. Although it was true to flavor, it was not on our list of favorites.

Furthermore, Peanut Butter and Jelly was second to last. We had really high hopes for this one considering peanut butter and jelly is such a strong combination. There were two pieces, one peanut butter flavored and the other jelly, each good on their own. But in our opinion, the peanut butter flavor and jelly flavor separately didn’t mix well together in a popcorn setting.

Lastly, our least favorite was Strawberry Shortcake. The most comparable thing we could think of to match the flavor of the popcorn was a strawberry Dum-Dum sucker.

Although we only tried a fraction of the available flavors, we quickly realized the variety and sheer difference between each one. Some were sweet, some savory, and some salty, and each had different levels of flavor: some were overwhelming and strong, while others were mild or barely noticeable.

That being said, there’s something for everyone, whether it’s a classic salty or buttery flavor or an extremely spicy or sweet one.

To see the available flavors and for more information, visit poppophurray.com to see their locations.