Ghirardelli’s newest flavor of chocolate bars and mini squares is just hitting the shelves: Milk Chocolate with Peanut Butter Filling.

Thanks to a high-placed secret source in the Ghirardelli Chocolate Factory (we’ll call him Willy Wong-ka), we got a sneak preview. So will it give  Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups a whipping? I’ll use my patented scale of 1 to 10 lip-smackers, with 1 being the “Bleh, save your money” far end of the spectrum; 5 being the
“I’m not sure I’d buy it, but if it was just there, I might nibble some” middle-of-the-road response; and 10 being the “My gawd, I could die now and never be happier, because this is the best thing I’ve ever put in my mouth” supreme ranking.

Ghirardelli Milk Chocolate with Peanut Butter Filling: What I tried was one of the mini squares. It’s a very thin milk chocolate wafer with an equally thin layer of very creamy peanut butter inside, along with a few tiny, crunchy bits of peanut. Whereas a Reese’s cup gives you a wallop of homey, satisfying, dense peanut butter, the Ghirardelli’s is more subtle, perhaps a tad more elegant in taste. It’s hard to top a Reese’s, but the Ghirardelli’s is pretty darn good. Rating: 7.