My day job has been kicking my butt for the last month and I’ve run out of time to write posts at the moment, so you’ll just have to look at something that I’ve been eating but probably won’t review. Early mornings, late nights, European kiss greetings to co-workers, coffee breath ... I’m eating cough drops. Enjoy this peek at the new packaging for Luden’s Cough Drops. I miss the old salmon orange box, but thankfully the menthol cough drops inside are just the same as I remember.

The Candy Store is exactly the kind of confectionery shop I’d like to have in my neighborhood. Sadly for me, it’s in San Francisco, and I only get to visit about once a year.

So I was pretty excited when I heard that Target was going to make some curated shops within Target enlisting the help of Diane and Brian of the Russian Hill store. What I love about the store is that they have such an interesting collection of little tidbits from around the world. Sure, there’s some that’s completely common, but there were things I’d pick up there, especially licorice, that I have a hard time finding elsewhere.

Unlike Target’s house branded line of Choxie items, this is not a permanent addition to Target, when it’s gone, it’s gone.

The store at Target amounts to an endcap near the candy aisle in the food section at Target. The theme colors are black and white with a field of some sort of weird light green that I associate with government buildings, black and white. There aren’t really that many products and only three or four formats. There are lollipops and different candy in jars and then some tins of chocolate confections. The price points vary from $2.49 for the lollipops to $9.99 for the large tins.

The cornerstone, I would say, is the display of lollipops. The packaging is simple but the actual pops are clever and appealing. There are swirl pops and clear pops with little Necco wafers embedded in them.

The largest array of products, though, are the ones in the jars. This is where my disappointment originated. They’re $4.99 for 11 to 14 ounces of bulk candy. The candies themselves are underwhelming and expensive. I appreciated the harder to find items, like the sour sanded jelly stars, the gummi fried eggs and licorice scotty dogs. But $5 for less than a pound of Bit O’ Honey or Necco Wafers? That’s insane, the packaging is nice, but not like the tins for the chocolates. They’re just plastic.

So I bought the lollipop. Because it was the one item that I’d never seen before and I did really appreciate the whimsical touch of using Necco wafers as decoration.

The lollipop is double wrapped, which is a good idea. The outer wrap is loose and is closed with just a little twist tie that holds the bow on. Inside that, the pop itself is shrink wrapped. It was tough to get off, the shrink wrap had a big glob of melted plastic at the stick that took quite a bit of work with some scissors to remove.

The pop is 3.5 inches square and came in a variety of colors/flavors. I chose orange because I thought it would be a good representation of how flavors are handled.

The hard candy part of the lollipop is nicely poured. It’s a little uneven in spots but has only small bubbles in it. The tight shrink wrapping ended up creating creases and lines across the corners and edges of the pop. The Necco dots are lined up in the sort of pattern that might make some think of Lego blocks or perhaps a six sided die.

The flavor of the candy is very simple. It’s orange, just sweet orange. There’s a lot of zest notes in it, but it’s mostly a soft and sugary orange. The Necco wafers are crunchable with the candy, if you’re the type who chews their hard candy. I found the flavors (lemon and lime) of the Necco actually went well (except for pink). But still, it was just a big piece of hard candy on a wooden stick. It’s fun to look at, but really not for eating. The Necco Wafers contain gelatin, so this is not a candy for vegetarians, also contains soy.

I like the idea of a curated set of candy that’s hard to find and well priced. This has some of those elements, but I’m not their actual intended audience. This is for people who don’t realize that there are neighborhood candy shops in so many places where you can find this sort of thing, along with an enthusiastic person behind the register like Diane or Brian. If you’re stuck in big-box store land, this at least has more personality and is a better gift than a peg bag of Scotty Dogs.

Related Candies

1. Original Necco Wafers Return
2. Target’s Market Pantry Malted Milk Balls
3. Eat with your Eyes: Butterfly Lollipop
4. Hammond’s All Natural Lollipops
5. Choxie 3 Ounce Chocolate Bars
6. Friday’s San Francisco Candy Adventure

One of the most popular candy bars in the country is the Snickers bar. This is not review of that.

Instead I’m testing a knock off version, presented by Aldi, the German grocery chain under their house brand Route 1.

The Route 1 Racer Bar comes in a well priced bag of nearly 10 ounces (9.8) fun sized bars for only $1.79.

The little bars smell good, like milky chocolate and roasted peanuts. They’re small bars, smaller than the Romeo and clock in at about .70 ounces and about 110 calories. The size is still a nice portion, and two make a good treat.

The construction of the bar is just as you’d anticipate for a Snickers knock off. There’s a nougat base, which has a light peanut butter flavor to it then a caramel over that studded with peanuts. The whole thing is covered with a very thin coating of chocolate.

(Racer Bar compared to Snickers 3X Chocolate for ratios)

The textures were great, though the ratio of chocolate was a bit lacking. I didn’t miss it though, because it really wasn’t that good. It was more a toffee milk flavor than chocolate. The flavors though, well, sometimes they were what I’d call good. But there were bad peanuts. The photo of the first bar with a bite up there, that was a bad peanut, like spit it out bad. And I accept that when using a natural ingredient that there will be bad peanuts, but then I got another. I’ve eaten seven of these little bars and two had bad peanuts. The flavor of the peanuts is a little more grassy than I’m accustomed to, which leads me to believe they may not be American peanuts.

This is the first product I’ve bought at Aldi that I’ve been truly disappointed about. I doubt I’ll finish the bag, and I doubt that folks who come grazing for candy in my office will be interested in them. I’ll stick to Snickers, even if it is twice the price.

Aldi is a German chain of stores that are very popular in parts of the United States. They carry low priced merchandise, usually Aldi’s house brands and most of the packaged products made in Germany.

They have a great selection of low-priced, good quality candy. Much of it is under the brands Moser Roth, Choceur or Grandessa. But two years ago I noticed that they launched a line more traditional candy bars under a more North American-oriented brand called Route 1. This assortment features knock-offs of common candy bars. The Route 1 Romeo Bar is like the Mounds Bar but is made with milk chocolate instead of dark. Or you can call it an Almond Joy without the almonds. In reality this is most similar to the Bounty Bar, which is made by Mars, but rarely seen in the United States.

The bar is listed as delicious sweet coconut bars covered with milk chocolate. Some of the Route 1 bars are sold as single serving sizes, but the Romeo I could only find in the fun size bag. The bag is really well priced at $1.79 for 9.7 ounces. It’s a far better deal than the Hershey’s Mounds, which are usually about $3.00 for a similarly sized bag. The little bars are a little shy of an ounce (.88 ounces) and come in at about 125 calories each. The packaging is simple, but easy to spot and tell apart from the other candies in the brand line.

The little bars are 2.25 inches long and 1 inch wide. The milk chocolate coating is swirly and looks appealing. It has a nice snap to it and a very milky scent, like heavily sweetened powdered milk.

The whole thing is very milky, the chocolate is more milky than cocoa, the coconut center has just as many cream and dairy notes as coconut. The coconut is soft and has a moist and easy chew without being to dry and fibery.

While I enjoyed them while eating them, I didn’t find the chocolate notes satisfying enough. The combination of the chocolate outside and the coconut inside never quite felt integrated. If you’re not really picky or are looking for a really good value for something like Halloween or a Pinata, this is a good option. If you’ve always thought that Almond Joy wasn’t sweet enough, this is also a good choice.

There is no indication of the source of the chocolate. There are allergens present, made with soy and dairy and may contain traces of peanuts, tree nuts, gluten and eggs.

Related Candies

1. Choceur Chocolate Crisp Bars
2. Blue Ribbon Neapolitan Coconut Bar
3. Choceur Nougat Bites & Marzipan Bites
4. King Leo Dark Chocolate Crunchy Patties
5. Sunspire Coconut Bars
6. Moser Roth Chocolate
7. Choceur Luxury Mini Chocolate Bars
8. Ritter Sport Capuccino and Rum Trauben Nuss

The Sweets & Snacks Expo for 2012 has wrapped up and all the exhibitors are probably on their way back to their candy factories with sheaves of new orders in their briefcases. Here are a few other new items that folks were talking about:

Name: Wild Ophelia
Brand: Vosges Chocolate
Description: Wild Ophelia is a line of eight different chocolate bars with decidedly Americana flavor profiles, such as Southern Hibiscus Peach and New Orleans Chili. The bars are all-natural, gluten free, with ingredients sourced from food artisans and farms from across the United States, while the packaging is made with 100% recycled board and 100% renewable energy.
Introduction Date: 5/1/2012
Notes: Vosges is extending their take on chocolate with this lower priced line (well, I’m not sure it’s really lower priced, the bars are just smaller). The bars have startling ingredients like beef jerky and barbecue potato chips and more sedate and appealing sounding items like caramel corn and peanut butter and banana.

Name: Queen Anne’s French Vanilla Cordial Cherry
Brand: World’s Finest Chocolate
Description: A premium whole cherry and French vanilla-flavored light, creamy filling are surrounded by a milk chocolate shell.
Introduction Date: 10/1/1012
Notes: I think vanilla fondant and cherry is a natural combination. The Queen Anne line is often found at dollar stores, so it’s nice to see a bit of an extension of the flavors within the ingredients available for that price restricted item.

Name: Edible Candy Number Birthday Candle
Brand: Webb Candy
Description: This birthday candle is sure to make the cake a little jealous. While the top is a hat for the wick, the bottom section is fully edible candy. Available in number 0-9.
Introduction Date: September 2012
Notes: I’m a little unclear about what the candy part of this is, but I love the idea. I know that the old school trick for keeping candle wax off your cake is to put them in gumdrops. But an actual candle holder that’s a themed candy is pretty cool.

Name: Ice Breakers Duo Mints - Raspberry & Ice Breakers Duo Mints - Strawberry
Brand: Hershey’s
Description: Ice Breakers Duo Mints expand Hershey’s Mints into the growing fruit segment. Hershey’s is #1 in Mint, gaining 4.1 share points vs. a year ago. Ice Breakers Duo Mints have a fruit flavored, textured side, and a cooling, smooth side with flavor crystals.
Introduction Date: 4/6/2012
Notes: It’s fun to see more fruity breath freshening mints. Too bad they use artificial sweeteners, otherwise I’d give them a try. (A summer fruit salad of strawberries and fresh spearmint is really quite good.)

All images courtesy of the respective manufacturers.

Related Candies

1. Candy Tease: Mars 2012 Announcements
2. Candy Tease: Sweets & Snacks Expo 2012 - Part 2
3. Candy Tease: Sweets & Snacks Expo 2012 - Part 1
4. Candy Tease Spring 2012
5. Candy Tease: October 2011
6. Candy Tease: Mars 2011 Announcements
7. Eat with your Eyes: L.A. Burdick