Photo by Chris Shott

After reading my take-down of Wagshal's homemade Twinkies, Patricia Jinich, a cooking instructor and chef at the Mexican Cultural Institute, told me about these fancy Oreos available at Dean & DeLuca. She thought I might want to check them out, too.

The cookies are not produced in-house at D&D, but by Amy Berg, the freelance baker behind Amy's Cookies in Brooklyn. Berg's version of the Oreo — which some have dubbed the groanworthy Amy-eo — includes cookies made with Valrhona cocoa powder and a buttercream filling spiked with Kahlua.

So how are the Amy-eos?

First of all, the cookies are soft, which almost ruins them from the start. Half the joy of a real Oreo is its hardened texture and its ability to withstand a long and drunken dip in milk. The soaked Oreo then practically melts in your mouth, saturating its creamy, chocolate-y pleasures across your tongue.

Second, the Kahlua in the Amy-eo adds a small-but-detectable amount of alcohol into the mix, which instantly places these sweets in the sophisticated category. They are no longer an innocent treat for private, late-night dunking (or breaking apart, if that's your thing), but an adult cookie to be enjoyed among the cocktail set, perhaps with a single-origin, shade-grown coffee in the other hand.

Third, the richness of the chocolate. See my second point.

Finally, Amy's Cookies sell for $26 a pound at the Georgetown Dean & DeLuca. The standard 18-oz. bag of Oreos at the Safeway in Adams Morgan costs $3.99. It was recently on sale for $1.99.