What fun results! I always like it when readers surprise me with their answers. I thought for sure that Bar None or Marathon would win (though Marathon has an adequate substitute in Curly Wurly). I voted for Bar None.

Who knew there was such passion out there for Bonomo’s Turkish Taffy!

What else did I miss on the list of extinct candies?

Related Candies

1. Twix PB
2. Doscher’s French Chew Taffy
3. I Miss: Bar None
4. Goodbye Reed’s
5. I Miss: Marathon

Here’s the top 10 search strings that brought folks to Candy Blog last month (except for searching for Candy Blog of course).

1. rose petal donuts los angeles
2. M&Ms
3. carnival skittles
4. hershey cocoa reserve size
5. japanese candy
6. bonkers candy
7. trader joes
8. choxie
9. sour skittles
10. maya gold

Well, this past month had a couple of surprises. Honestly, I can’t figure out “rose petal dontus los angeles” at all. Not only that, I can’t even find what page on my site they’d find when entering those search phrases ... let alone why my site was visited 379 times as a result! The second strange one was the “hershey cocoa reserve size”, and I do come up as the first result on google. However, why 233 folks were looking for that, I have no idea. My guess is these are spambots of some sort sifting through my site contents with these keywords, looking for things to swipe from my site to put on theirs. It happens.

The fun thing is to see the staying power of Carnival Skittles (did you know there’s a Carnival Skittles flavored gum now?) ... I wonder what will be next?

There used to be rules and people followed them. Oh, they were informal; things like no white shoes after Labor Day, your shoes should match your belt. Seasonal merchandise wouldn’t be put out until the previous holiday was over (no Christmas goodies before Thanksgiving). But those rules are long gone.

So I shouldn’t have been surprised to see Halloween candy out already at the RiteAid before Labor Day. But at least this was something different. Instead of fruity flavors, this twist is from Brach’s Milk Maid line and is called Caramel Candy Corn.

Most of us have a love-hate relationship with Candy Corn. Well, some folks have a love-love or a hate-hate ... which averages out in the big scheme of things to a love-hate for the general population. I hate-love candy corn. I don’t really like eating it, but I love looking at it and the smell of it.

This stuff smells really promising, if a little overwhelming. Like caramelized sugar. It smelled so great in the store, I really wanted to take it home. Of course in the car (which I admit was as hot as one of those scented oil diffusers) the smell started getting to me in the way that candle stores do.

It all boils down to this, if you like Buttered Popcorn Jelly Belly, you’ll probably like Caramel Candy Corn. I don’t and I didn’t.

The texture is good, a nice smooth fondant. The white tip is unflavored and the two lower layers, orange and brown, are butter flavored fondant. The caramel flavor that the smell implies is completely missing, instead it has that intense note of butter flavored popcorn just crackling away in the microwave.

I just didn’t like them as much as I wanted to. Not nearly as much as the Brach’s Autum Mix (candy corn, Indian corn and mellow cremes). I was really unhappy that it was $2.29 for the bag to boot ... yeah, it’s a 19 ounce bag, but what do I need 19 ounces of buttered popcorn flavored candy corn for?

Related Candies

1. Milk Maid Caramel Apple Candy Corn
2. Caramel Previews: Mitchell Sweets & Caramoos
3. Spangler Candy Canes
4. Gourmet Goodies Candy Corn
5. Mary Jane Peanut Butter Kisses

It’s simply too hot in Los Angeles right now, and it’s a depressing situation for me here at the home offices of Candy Blog. When I say hot, I mean that it’s actually 90 degrees inside my home right now at 9 PM on Sunday. When I say hot, I mean the prospect of turning on the lights and trying to take photos of chocolate is maddeningly impossible. (We have a single window air conditioner in the house in the bedroom, it’s usually not a problem, but this heat is unrelenting.)

The saddest part of this whole confluence of heat is that I planned a wonderful party for Saturday night to feature some 75 pounds of various Koppers candies (mostly Milkies) in a great Candy Buffet. As if the heat wasn’t bad enough, on Friday afternoon a transformer blew on the power pole in my neighbors yard silencing all the fans in my house. What was 99 degrees with fanning was up to 99 during the blazing stillness of the day on Saturday.

No party. Had to cancel. It just wouldn’t be fair to bring my friends in to bake and swelter in my house even if they were going to end up being sent away with sticky piles of melted chocolate.

The power has returned after 18 hours ... but the worst part is I have no idea if the chocolate has survived. I’ve had it all sealed up inside a large cooler with some ice packs (well, cool packs) and am hoping that the ambient heat hasn’t penetrated the insulation too much. I’m afraid to open anything. (I actually considered taking it to my office ... except that we got a memo on Thursday saying the building would be closed on Saturday because they were replacing the air conditioning unit on the roof and the power would be out. See, it’s a conspiracy.)

Hopefully the heat will break and I’ll be able to set up my candy buffet and show you all the fancy photos and help you with ideas for your next party. I’ve taken this opportunity to escape my sweltering house to explore lots more variations on the candy buffet and candy favors.

But on to other good news in candy!

The Passionate Cook hosted this edition of Sugar High Friday with the theme of Going Local! Browse through the roundup of posts from bloggers around the world on their favorite local sweeties. Most of it is baked but there’s a nice selection of puddings, mousses and of course candies.

I’ve been remiss on posting about international KitKats lately, but don’t worry, Megchan is picking up the slack with Banana, Lemon, Raspberry and Orange and possibly one of the best assortments of HiCHEW, the Citrus Mix!

Business Week actually did an article about how successful brand spinoffs and limited edition marketing has been in Japan (and perhaps what we can learn from that). The article is interesting, but so are the comments that follow.

If that’s not enough candy for you, how about bidding on this lot at eBay of hundreds of pounds of candy, including full cases of M&Ms, Lollipops, Fudge, Reese’s, Tootsie Rolls, Milk Duds, TicTacs ... well, the list goes on and on. The current bidding is a lowball $181.50 but there’s a reserve on it (and a buy-it-now price of $2,150). Free shipping.

British researchers have spent a lot of time and money trying to figure out chocoholism. Why can’t they just let us be!

In a rather different OpEd piece on the FDA and Chocolate dojigger, the Salt Lake Tribune thinks that people should have paid more attention to the other foods listed in the Citizen’s Petition put forth by the Grocery Manufacturers Association. (Ya think?) However, I did a quick search on SLTrib.com and found they’d never covered it either ... so how did they think people were going to find out ... from Candy Blog?

This week’s candy reviews in review:

Monday: Katjes Tropical Gummis & Yogurt Gums (5 out of 10)

Tuesday: Ritter Schokowurfel (8 out of 10)

Wednesday: VerMints (7 out of 10)

Thursday: Candy Source: Chocolates a la Carte (8 out of 10)

Friday: Head to Head: M&Ms vs Koppers Milkies (8 out of 10 & 9 out of 10)

8.33 weekly average ... 50% chocolate content!

Related Candies

1. This Week in Candy - The Vacation
2. This Week in Candy - Candy is Energy!
3. This Week in Candy - A Giant Craving
4. This Week in Candy - Elvis is in the Cupcake!
5. This Week in Candy - The FDA Stuff Continues (as does my obsession with nougat)