Candy Blog

I’m hearing a lot of hatin’ on black licorice in the entries for the Red Vines Giveaway. Which makes me sad. I think a lot of folks are very attached to their favorite candies and I’m probably one of those people and maybe I take it a little personally when someone calls something that I appreciate disgusting. (But I’m not a converter or anything, I don’t like to force candy on people who say that they don’t like something.)

Licorice has a long and wonderful history as a confection and even a medicine. It’s also very flexible, used as a flavoring in hundreds of different sweet and savory items. It has some companion flavors as well, such as anise and fennel. One of the more commonly found licorices is the Red Vines Black Licorice Twists.

The most common kind of licorice here in the United States is the twist. It has a wheat base and is usually flavored and sweetened with molasses (and in this case, corn syrup too). Molasses is a great companion to licorice. While pure licorice is very sweet and soft on the tongue, molasses is deep and only mildly sweet with some interesting mineral notes.

The earthy combination and less sticky complexity to it all makes Red Vines Black Licorice Twists a nice treat. They’re not very licoricey, but that’s okay, they do have a nice texture and feel more like a snack than a candy sometimes. (Wheat-based candies can do that.) I think they’re best when they’re fresh, but stale is okay. I’ve revived stale licorice before by placing it in the microwave on top of a very lightly damp paper towel, covered with another paper towel and zap it for 10 seconds.

Licorice and licorice-like candies are increasing in popularity, probably because of their low caloric density and satisfying chew. As a grocery store purchase of licorice, I prefer Good and Plenty, but if you put Red Vines Black Licorice in front of me, I’ll definitely eat it.

Rating: 6 out of 10

So that brings me to the truly original product that American Licorice makes: Original Snaps.

I’d never had them until I started the blog. I picked them up two years ago to try and found the bag was so horribly stale that it wouldn’t have been fair. So again with full warning this time that National Licorice Day was approaching, I picked up another bag.

It’s mind boggling. I don’t even know where to begin with how confused, anxious and actually angry these make me.

First, I opened the bag and it smelled like sweet musk. Yes. Like the Australian Musk Lollies. And I know this smell because I recently bought a bag.

At first I thought I was crazy. I’ve had smell hallucinations and I’ve heard that simply coloring a food one way will make someone expect that flavor, so maybe I was just having some sort of synapse malfunction.

But it’s been a full week and I’ve checked with others. The reaction to the smell ranges from “It smells like my grandmother’s purse” to “that’s like a bad candle shop.”

None of it gets better. The colors are odd, like slightly bleached by the sun or perhaps rinsed in the colander with some fresh veggies and they’ve run.

The texture is like eating surgical tubing ... that’s been sitting next to leaking perfume samples for several months. They candy is made of little tubes of a similar wheat-based licorice vine (no twist to it) that is then coated on the outside with a candy shell (I can’t call it crunchy, only colorful). After chewing a bit the flavor does kind of warm up, after the musk has gone away it’s a little bit like licorice, but lacking the anise punch and the deep earthy molasses flavors.

The American Licorice Company explains them this way:

Snaps(r) is the candy with the licorice center, pastel-colored candy coatings and unique taste. Introduced in the 1930s, Snaps brand candy is the nostalgic confection with a legion of rabid fans.

Maybe it’s just because I don’t like musk. But someone must like these candies or they wouldn’t be making them for those rabid fans. Or maybe people just use them for craft projects. They might make some decent kid-safe chunky beads for stringing on some embroidery thread.

I just ... don’t know what else ...  to write about them. I can only assume that those people who hate licorice have tasted this and I can’t blame them for their hostility towards the stuff. (Go ahead and call me hypocritical for hatin’ on this stuff, I can take it.)

Rating: 2 out of 10

The Red Vines Giveaway closes on Saturday, April 12th, so enter if you want some! (Don’t worry, there will be no Snaps in the winner packages.)

Related Candies

1. Organic Finnska Soft Licorice
2. Licorice Assortment
3. Good & Plenty (Fresh from the Factory)
4. Brachs Bunny Basket Eggs

I was looking forward to this bar when I heard about it at All Candy Expo last September. It was teased, “Satisfy your taste for adventure! Rich chocolate. Crunchy nuts. And a cliffhanger kick of exotic spice and a hint of sweet coconut flavor.” That description doesn’t sound that gripping, but still a tasty combo.

The bars began showing up on store shelves in the past few weeks, along with the other tie-in items like the new color & icons in the Milk Chocolate M&Ms and Peanut M&Ms as well as the Mint Crisp M&Ms.

Here’s the obligatory and gratuitous cross-section:

It looks like a regular Snickers, it has the same milk chocolate coating and two layers inside. The top layer is caramel studded with peanuts and the bottom is a fluffed nougat.

There is a faint whiff of coconut, but I’m not getting any chai spices in there.

I actually found the Minis first, and found them a little bland. So when I saw the full sized bar, I picked that up too, thinking maybe that would have the promised adventure.

Still, all I’m getting is a bit saltier nougat and the coconut flavor mixed into the caramel.

It’s not bad, but certainly doesn’t live up to its name. If you’ve always wanted a coconut Snickers (and I know a few people mentioned a love of coconut in the Snickers Rockin’ Nut Road Ideal Candy Bar question) this might be the bar for you. Of course it may also be a big disappointment for true coconut fans, as there is no actual coconut in there. You might just want to pick up an Almond Joy and smash it on top of a regular Snickers for a better effect (and a true mash up!).

While this may have disappointed me (and the Snickers Rockin’ Nut Road Bar didn’t), I’ve got to give them props for trying some new things instead of just using the same ingredients in different ways (like the Snickers Nut ‘n Butter Crunch) or taking away an element (like the Snickers Xtreme).

The package design is a bit better on this one, I think, than the Mint Crisp M&Ms. Don’t forget to check out the new colors of M&Ms, too.

The Milk Chocolate M&Ms are in a muted color palatte: Red, Brown, Amber and Cream.

The Peanut M&Ms also come in Red, Brown, Amber and Cream with the traditional Yellow thrown in.

They all have assorted new icons on them, integrated with the letter M in some way. I like the one that’s wearing the Indiana Jones hat and the map ordinal. There are also various pyramids and native masks. Some of them feel a bit like a retread of the Pirates of the Caribbean, including the skull. But I guess that’s the genre of movie. The Peanut ones rarely have a legible icon on them as well, but hey, that’s the hazard with using a real peanut center.

All of the Indiana Jones tie in Mars products are available in stores now. I found mine at CVS and Walgreen’s.

I don’t think many folks are excited about the Adventure Bar. Check out reviews by Sera at Candy Addict and Rebecca at Sugar Hog.

Related Candies

1. Starbucks Truffles
2. Elvis Reese’s Peanut Butter and Banana Cup
3. 100 Grand Coconut
4. Mounds Island Orange
5. M&M Pirate Pearls
6. Dagoba Chai

Last year Mike and Ike let us vote for a new flavor blend and when the winner was clear, they announced the new Mike and Ike Lemonade Blends. But it wasn’t just a new flavor set, this one has a tie in with the foundation called Alex’s Lemonade Stand, which supports research into pediatric cancers.

There was also a stunning candy buffet, as you can see, that featured all the Mike and Ike flavors and little bags where you could design your own mix. (Mine was mostly pineapple from the Tangy Twister mix and some strawberry-banana from Tropical Twister and a strong dose of the new Lemonade Blends.)

I went to a press reveal at All Candy Expo last September where Alexandra Scott’s father told the story of his little girl who started a lemonade stand to raise money for cancer research, all while she was battling the cancer that would ultimately take her life at the age of eight. (There wasn’t a dry eye in the house, it’s an amazing story of a selfless kid.)

Just Born will be making a minimum donation of $100,000 a year for three years. (And this mix will return each spring/summer as well.)

Finally the candies are hitting stores and I can post my review!

I was pleased with the quality of the Mike and Ike Tangy Twister, but didn’t care much for the set of flavors. Since citrus is one of my favorite flavor sets, I had a much better feeling about the new Lemonade Mix.

The new assortment has the following flavors: Lemonade, Raspberry Lemonade, Strawberry Lemonade, Lime Lemonade, and Tangerine Lemonade flavors. The odd part is that these flavors aren’t mentioned on the package, or even on the website, unless you dig deep into the Just Born press release archive. But there are little images of five different fruits on the package, so I guess folks need to make the jump themselves.

The colors look like highlighter pens.

Yellow - Lemonade - a good zesty and really sour lemon. After chewing, as with most Mike and Ike, the flavor fades and it’s just pleasant and bland jelly candy.

Green - Lime Lemonade - not as tart as the lemonade, but has a good rounded lime flavor.

Orange - Tangerine Lemonade -  I was hoping this one would be really tart but it didn’t quite rise to that. It’s definitely tangerine and not orange though.

Light Pink - Strawberry Lemonade - I enjoy real strawberry lemonade and this has a nice mix of the fragrant berry and the tangy lemon-ness.

Purplish Pink - Raspberry Lemonade - not as tart as the strawberry, this has a more floral berry essence to it.

They’re all tasty and all have that lemony zazz to them. It’s easy to eat them together or separate your colors. I liked all the flavors ... I wish they were just a little more flavorful, but that would be wishing away one of the essential parts of Mike and Ike, which is the mellow jelly center. (Which is made with pear juice.)

Mariko at Candy Addict also had a preview of these and found them so good she’ll be happy to hear that they’re on shelves so she can get more now. For more fun Mike and Ike adoration, check out Jason Liebig’s photo set of his collection of boxes.

The package says that these are Gluten Free. The colors are all artificial, so I guess these are also Vegan.

Related Candies

1. Hot Tamales Ice
2. Mike and Ike Jolly Joes
3. Mike and Ike Tangy Twister
4. Hot Tamales and Hotter Tamales
5. Mike and Ike Orange ‘n Cream

Sometimes it seems like gummis are the only candies that imitate other food products. (There are gummi pizza slices, gummi fries, gummi fried eggs and of course gummi burgers.)

It’s fun to see some more inventive materials used. Every Burger (or maybe it’s all one word, Everyburger) is two little sesame cookies with a dollop of chocolate to simulate the burger and a dollop of white confection to simulate the cheese.

I’m not sure if they count as candy or if they’re just cookies sold in the candy aisle.

The box has two indivdually wrapped trays, eight little burgers in each. Each little burger is about as big around as a quarter.

The cookies are very sesame. Probably too much for me. I love halvah and those sesame snaps, but I just don’t like the darker taste of toasted sesame, and these have that.

But how can I not love the little detail of the seeds on the bun?

The chocolate is sweet and less than chocolatey - mostly it just has a cool and buttery feeling on the tongue. The cookie isn’t very sweet, it’s kind of like a sesame animal cracker.

Overall, it’s a fun little treat, in a convenient package (about 1.2 ounces per tray and 182 calories per tray).

They’re the perfect size for a large scale doll like Barbie (yeah, like she’d eat an Everyburger) or GI Joe.

They’re kind of like Pocky. Just a bland cookie and some chocolate. But in this case, it’s a really fun bit of tromp l’oeil.

There is (or was) a Bitter version and Caramel and if you’re looking for them, the packaging can vary depending on the size. Here’s an earlier version of the package from Robyn in 2005 and really old school and a current single-serve version.

For those looking for something at the opposite end of the spectrum, there’s the almost life-sized Giant Size Mallow Burger that clocks in at 412 calories. (See Candy Addict review.)

Bourbon, the Japanese manufacturer of EveryBurger also makes the wildly popular CubyRop.

Related Candies

1. Wheat Chocolate
2. Brain Candy! (gummi brains)
3. Almond Crush Pocky
4. Pocky Kurogoma (Black Sesame)
5. Men’s Pocky
6. Gummi Sushi

Mars has a series of candies coming out with a marketing tie-in to the new Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull movie. (Which is set to premiere in the US on May 22nd.) This is rather similar to the stunt last year with Shrek the Third and the Pirates of the Caribbean movie the year before.

The standard Milk Chocolate & Peanut M&Ms got a new skin: a fun shift in their colors and little Indiana Jones inspired icons on some of them. Then, of course, to really excite candy fans they’ve done something completely new, the Limited Edition Mint Crisp M&Ms.

It’s not like they’re completely new though, there were once Crispy M&Ms in the United States (go to Australia if you miss them) and the seasonal Mint M&Ms.

The package is one of the busiest known, rivaled perhaps only Pirate Pearls. There are lots of leaves all over the front, which at first I thought were mint, but turned out to be various palm and jungle-y things (I haven’t the foggiest what’s going on with Indy’s arm and that big palm leaf though). We’re encouraged to “Dig New Mint Crisp M&Ms” in the top left of the package and down in the lower right we’re told to “Get M before they’re Lost”.

The Green M&M wearing a pith helmet is looking admiringly at Indy saying, “Treasure is a girl’s best friend.” At first I thought it was a little creepy that Green has the hots for Indy, then I realized that the Green M&M is actually a year older than Harrison Ford. (M&Ms were introduced in 1941, Harrison Ford in 1942.)

There’s only 1.4 ounces in the bag, but that little bit of air inside each center does wonders to bulk them up.

I was really looking forward to these, though it’s interesting to note that George Lucas has cautioned fans of the Indiana Jones movies not to build up their hopes to unreasonable levels. (And I think I know a bit about how much Lucas can let fans of a franchise down.)

They don’t look so great, some are horribly bumpy and the size variations are pretty extreme, from rather sphere-like ones smaller than a regular M&M all the way up to large ones that could be mistaken for Almond M&Ms.

The little icons are themed shapes that include the letter M. There are pyramids, masks, a compass ordinal and even a hat like Indiana Jones wears. They’re rather irregular as well, but more obvious on the themed Milk Chocolate M&Ms:

But shape and color aside, it’s what’s inside that counts, right?

The crispy shell gives one kind of crunch, then a layer of mostly semisweet chocolate strongly flavored with mint and then a bland crispy center that has a light kick of salt to it.

They’re really easy to keep crunching away at ... a little chocolate, a little mint, a little crisped rice. Kind of like a Girl Scout Thin Mint.

I’d be happy to see these as a seasonal item, though I doubt I’d eat them as often as the Almond M&Ms. I suspect they’ll be a huge hit.

Rebecca already got a hold of these and has a review of the Adventure Bar, too. I’ll have the Snickers Adventure bar review soon. Thanks to Define23 for helping me to find them here in Los Angeles.

UPDATE: Sera at Candy Addict also has a review now & I have the Snickers Adventure Bar. These are also available as a limited edition in Japan, here’s a photo I found by CindyC81 (you too can share photos in the Candy Blog Flickr Photo Pool).

Related Candies

1. Skittles Chocolate Mix
2. M&Ms Razzberry - Limited Edition
3. Cherry Almondine M&Ms
4. M&Ms Line
5. M&M Pirate Pearls
6. Darth M&Ms