Twinkies Are Back, Bros! With Fewer Calories!

Hostess filed for bankruptcy last year, but has since been bought out and products are back on shelves

Twinkies are back! And Hostess 2.0 wants you to scarf a couple of the golden goodies down between that game of beer pong you just won and the beer bong you're about to do, brah!

First, a history lesson: Eight months ago, Hostess, the company behind Twinkies, Ding Dongs and a handful of other desserts, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and discontinued production of Twinkies in November.

But you don't know what you have until it's gone (then you get it back and will probably take it for granted again or just wonder why you even cared that it was gone in the first place): Private equity firms C. Dean Metropolous and Company and Apollo Global Management purchased the cake division for $400 million and Twinkies returned to stores yesterday.

And new management means changes.

The Powers That Be behind Hostess have a new target audience: "Young adult males, a.k.a. ‘bros'" according to Time (Note: Just as all rectangles are not squares, not all young adult males are bros, but most bros are young adult males). 

Instead of marketing to mothers and grocery stores, Hostess hopes to sell more of their cakes at convenience stores ("We're really trying to move beyond the grocery store consumers into the c-store target, which is a younger male," the ad execs behind their new campaign explain).

They even have a new slogan, "The Sweetest Comeback in the History of Ever," which "has a 20-something dude feel to it" (or at least what a 50-something ad exec thinks a 20-something dude sounds like).

Mr. Metropolous, one of the new owners of Hostess, is also open to creating Twinkie that fit with the current, health-conscious consumer outlook, saying they could include whole grains, come in the form of lower-calorie snack packs, be gluten-free or contain stevia, a natural sugar substitute," according to The Wall Street Journal. 

That means bros can not only enjoy Twinkies as a late-night snack, perfect to accompany a bong rip or post-smush sesh, but also crush a few with a protein shake after blasting their pecs at the gym. Hella chill!

In the meantime, the Twinkies currently on shelves are actually a healthier option than ye ole Twinkies of 2012: But only because they're smaller (38.5 grams per cake as opposed to 42.5), which lowered the calories from 150 per cake to 135. 

Lastly, the most important change: The shelf life of Twinkies has increased from 26 days to 45 days, a fact that will no doubt prove reassuring to fans who worry about the possibility of Twinkies being discontinued again. You can't kill something that won't die.