Hydrox cookies are back -- thanks to countless fans and one website

Hydrox cookies are officially back. I just got back from the tasting and unveiling. The cookies, I'm happy to report, are quite delicious and creamy tasting.

More than anything, the return of Hydrox represents the wish fulfillment of thousands of customers. Hydrox came up with the chocolate sandwich cookie idea in 1908 (predating Oreos by four years), but was made redundant by a series of corporate mergers. For a while they went by the name Droxies, but then Kellogg Company shut the brand down in 2003. Who needed another sandwich cookie, anyway -- especially one that people eternally mistake for a knock-off?

Well, thousands of people, it turns out. Kim Burton, a Wichita engineer, started a website dedicated to Hydrox in 2000, back in their "Droxie" phase. When the cookies disappeared, she said, the site morphed from whimsy to mourning. Hundreds of people posted messages yearning for the old cookies. For a while she feared Kellogg would make her take it down. "It's all fun and games until a cease and desist letter comes in the mail," she says. Instead, Kellogg ended up honoring her at the event. The lanky, freckle-faced 28-year-old deftly posed eating, dunking, displaying the product.