It’s fun to see the new iterations of favorite candy bars for Halloween. Some get new shapes or packages, but Mars has gone a little further with their Limited Edition Milky Way Caramel Apple Minis.

They say, “Combining the irresistible tastes of chocolate, rich and creamy caramel and apple, this new item brings a unique, new flavor to trick-or-treating, decorating and snacking.”

I had a tough time finding them in Los Angeles, but spotted them at CVS in Pennsylvania last week and managed to stash a bag in my luggage before leaving.

The Minis part of the Mars line is rather interesting. They’re far smaller than a snack sized bar, taken out of the mylar wrappers, you could easily tuck them in little fluted cups and put them in a candy box.

Each piece is .3 ounces (or 8.6 grams) and about 38 calories. They’re .8 inches square (a little shorter than a cube, about .7 inches tall). A suggested serving size is 5 pieces for 190 calories.

The big difference between the mini and the regular bar is the proportion of chocolate. The chocolate here is a thin veneer, just enough shell to hold the fillings.

The candies look no different inside than a normal Milky Way Mini. (Not like those Shrek Snickers which had green nougat.) This is comforting, as the candy smells more like apple pie a la mode than green apple Jolly Ranchers.

The scent has a light touch of milk and sweetness along with a hint of cinnamon and baked apple. The caramel and nougat are distinct layers. The nougat is a little on the mellow spice size, with notes of nutmeg and chai. The caramel seems to be where the apple flavors come from, more like apple cider and apple peels than an artificial apple flavor but it’s exceptionally mild.

Of all the formats for Milky Way, I prefer the mini, as it’s not too sweet and three can satisfy me quickly. I was not looking forward to this version, but was pleasantly surprised. That’s not to say that I thought they were transcendent and there are far better flavor combinations that I think would translate well to this, like Chai Spice.

For a Green Halloween for ethically sourced and clean ingredients, this candy doesn’t make the grade. Mars is making great strides towards using certified chocolate, starting in the US with their Dove line, but has not rolled it out in the Milky Way line in the US as yet.

Related Candies

1. Werther’s Original Caramel Apple Filled
2. Tootsie Caramel Apple Pops
3. Wonka Exceptionals Fruit Jellies: Grapefruit, Goji Berry & Red Apple
4. Milky Way Simply Caramel
5. Milk Maid Caramel Apple Candy Corn
6. Caramel Apple Sugar Babies
7. Head to Head: Milky Way & Mars (Canada & UK)

The classic combination of chocolate and peanuts meet in this new version of Brach’s Peanut Clusters. The package promises that this is their “Best Chocolate Ever!”

Brach’s has been around since 1904 and has been through a lot, especially in the past 20 years. The company, founded by Emil Brach, was bought by American Home Products in 1966. In 1987, Jacobs Suchard, a coffee & confectionery giant, bought Brach’s. By 1990, as Suchard was being swallowed up by the tobacco company of Phillip Morris, the Jacobs part of the company, Klaus Jacobs, retained Brach’s. Then in 2003 it was sold to Callebaut and only a few years later, in 2008, Brach’s was bought by Farley’s and Sathers. Just this year, Farley’s and Sathers agreed to merge with Ferrara Pan to become the Ferrera Candy Company.

Through all of that, the candy brand remained intact and the favorite confections in their repertoire continued. However, manufacturing changes happened, and the formulas, manufacturing techniques and quality was uneven. Farley’s & Sathers has been trying hard to resurrect the comforting and inexpensive brand by improving the quality for the past two years.

The clusters are made with simple ingredients, plain old milk chocolate and some peanuts.

Ingredients:Milk Chocolate (Sugar, Cocoa Butter, Whole Milk, Chocolate Liquor, Lactose, Soy Lecithin, Butter Oil, Salt, Vanillin), Peanuts with TBHQ, Sugar, Modified Food Starch

The clusters vary in size, from little lines of three or four nuts to a full clump of a dozen peanuts. The overall flavor is fake vanilla. A soft and comforting sort of sweetness, like an angora sweater.

The chocolate isn’t particularly smooth, nor even noteworthy. As far as it being their best chocolate ever, well, it’s not the worst. It tasted fresh though not creamy. The cocoa notes are bland and the dairy is clean but not particularly buttery. What works here is the touch of salt and the peanuts. They’re fresh, small and crunchy. The ratios are heavier on the chocolate than the nuts, but once it’s chewed, it works well.

I don’t think I’d buy these again. In fact, I’ve had them sitting around for review for quite a while but felt no desire to eat them even though I love chocolate and nuts.They’re friendly candy and certainly well priced, but I’ll stick to the sugar confections Brach’s makes.

Related Candies

1. M&Ms Sweet & Salty Snack Mix
2. Brach’s Fiesta Malted Milk Eggs (2012)
3. Brach’s Milk Chocolate Stars
4. Brach’s Peanut Butter Poppins
5. Dove Peanut Butter Silky Smooth Milk Chocolate
6. Brach’s Chocolate Candy Corn & Halloween Mix
7. Sno-Caps, Goobers & Raisinets
8. M&Ms Line

A few months back I went on a little buying spree on eBay for some Japanese candies I was having trouble finding here in the United States. I paid far more than I usually would for mass-produced candies, but I also haven’t bought much candy on eBay and wanted to see what that experience was like so I could share it.

I did a “buy it now” purchase from the storefront of jappy11. The prices were steep, about $2.00 to $2.50 per item and then there was the international shipping, which averaged out to about $1.10 additional per item. These were the small HiCHEW packages, something that I usually spend about $1.25 for here. The key to value for me is to find a seller with a large enough selection that buying multiple items that I simply can’t find anywhere else makes sense. Invoicing, payment and shipping was quick and easy. The items arrived quite quickly (but I’m on the West Coast).

Grape was always my favorite soda flavor as a kid. I love to drink Shasta Grape from a matching purple anodized aluminum tumbler at my grandmother’s house. There’s nothing quite like fake grape soda.The HiChew Fanta Grape is achingly close. The tangy start has some actual authentic notes of concord grape at first. In addition to the layered look of the pieces (a light colored center and a creamy lavender colored outer layer, there are little crunchy bits that emulate the pop of effervescence.

The chew is smooth and lasts a long time, without losing its flavor at the end. I enjoyed these so much that I was sure to pick up another package when I finally found them at a local Japanese grocery store.

Orange soda was probably my second favorite as a kid. The HiCHEW Fanta Orange is less distinct than the grape, but still fun and refreshing. The citrusy taste is a mix of Tang drink mix and orange SweeTarts. It has a little bit of zest in it, but it’s mostly a juicy flavor, also with the little crunchy pops of candy inside.

Even though it’s not a Fanta flavor, I’ve been aching to try the HiCHEW Cola flavor for a long time and could never find it in the States.

These pieces look more mundane, a dull brown that could well be a caramel. The flavor is deep and well defined. What I like about Japanese cola candies it that they’re more intense and concentrated than actual cola soda. This version is actually quite caramelly, with some good lemon/citrus note and a hint of cinnamon. I would definitely buy these more often if they were part of the American release of HiCHEW flavors. (They aren’t they?)

Related Candies

1. HiCHEW Japan vs HiCHEW Taiwan
2. Festival HiCHEW: Candied Apple & Cotton Candy
3. Fresh Cola Mentos
4. Jones Soda Grape Carbonated Candy
5. HiCHEW Assortment
6. Ramune & Cola Bubble Ball
7. Haribo Fizzy Cola
8. Bottlecaps

Fruit Stripe Gum was launched back in the early 1960s as an extension of Beechnuts broad line of gums and fruity candies. The packages were a mix of five flavors, each with striped colors on the gum sticks. The flavors were cherry, orange, lime, mixed fruit and lemon (picture of early ad).

The history of the gum is rather convoluted, as it’s tied up with Beech Nut, which made both candy and baby food. In 1968 Beech Nut (which had also acquired Life Savers in 1956) merged with Squibb to become Squibb Beech-Nut Corporation. In 1981 Nabisco acquired just the confectionery portion with the brands of Beech Nut and Life Savers. In 1999 Hershey’s picked up the brand from Nabisco along with the more popular Bubble Yum, Ice Breakers, Breath Savers and Care Free gums but then sold off the Fruit Stripes brand, along with Rain Blo, Hot Dog and Superbubble, to Farley’s & Sathers in 2003. Just this year Farley’s and Sathers merged with the Ferrara Pan Candy Company.

The concept of Fruit Stripe Gum is largely unchanged over the years. It’s a flat stick of gum, made from a synthetic chewing gum base with artificial colors and flavors. The flavors are now Wet & Wild Melon, Cherry, Lemon, Orange and Peach.

The paper overwraps for the individual sticks are also temporary tattoos. They feature the mascot for the gum, a zebra known as Yipes.

Peach is Peach Smash and has a fresh flavor to it. It wasn’t my favorite, but not too fake or sour. The gum is smooth, the sugar is very sweet, so sweet that I kept checking the label to see if it was some sort of artificial sweetener. I’m actually not accustomed to chewing stick gum, as I prefer the candy coated chiclet styles for the variation in textures.

Yellow is Lemon and as expected, it’s the most sour of the set. The lemon flavor is like chewing on a candle, not at all like a fresh or zesty real lemon, though there are some more zesty notes towards the end but those are reminiscent of cleaning supplies.

Orange is Orange - the flavor starts strongly artificial, sweet and tangy with only a slight grain to it. Later chewing brings out more artificial notes, including the colorings, which have a slight metallic and bitter note to them.

Red is Cherry and seems odd, if only because it’s cherry gum, which isn’t that common. It reminded me a lot of Cherry Life Savers. The flavor lasted longer than the peach and faded into a kind of woodsy medicinal thing that was actually better than the initial overly sweet thing.

Green is Wet Watermelon (but in a pink wrapper) which was much better than I expected. I didn’t care much for the tartness of it at first, but the fake watermelon was rather fresh tasting and lasted longer than I expected.

Overall, it’s passable gum. I’m not that fond of it, but it does offer advantages over most packs of gum in that there’s a variety of flavors. Fruit flavored stick gum has become much more common in the past 10 years, though it was always around in bubble gums, especially the gumball style.

Here’s a classic ad for the gum from the early 1990s:

Related Candies

1. Musk Beechies Chewing Gum
2. Mike and Ike Fruit Flavored Bubblegum
3. Classic Gums: Black Jack, Clove, Beemans & Teaberry
4. Tiny Size Chiclets
5. Gold Mine Gum
6. Bubble Roll Message Maker
7. Razzles

Aerated chocolate bars are quite popular in Europe. The Nestle Aero holds the top seat but there are others worthy of sampling.

The Cadbury Wispa was introduced in 1981 in the United Kingdom. The Wispa was later reformulated and rebranded as the Cadbury Dairy Milk Bubbly Bar in 2003 (2005 review). Fans of the classic bar clamored for the original, which returned as a regular item in 2008.

The ingredients have nothing special in them that mentions the carbonation (extra nitrogen). It’s just the same ingredients as any Cadbury Dairy Milk bar in the UK: milk, sugar, cocoa butter, cocoa mass, dried skimmed milk, vegetable fat, emulsifer (E442), flavouring. It’s the vegetable fat that sets it apart in the UK from Australia or the US.

Hershey’s recently introduced Air Delight (review) to the US, and wasn’t the first to bring aerated chocolate to the masses. It just doesn’t go over here in the States. I notice a consistent comment from consumers (even if it is from a minority) is that they think that the candy companies are making cheaper candy by putting air in it. The odd thing is that I don’t hear the same thing about marshmallows being filled with air, it’s just part of the texture of the product.

The Wispa bar is milky and a tad malty, slightly salty. It’s not as sweet or sticky as a traditional Cadbury Dairy Milk chocolate slab. The aeration helps it melt quickly, but also gives it a drier feeling on the tongue. Often I find Cadbury to be a very soft bar, but this was more crumbly and less fudgy. The bubbles are smaller and denser than the Nestle Aero and many other bubbled chocolates that I’ve tried. It’s no better or worse as far as texture goes, just a slight difference.

The bar contains dairy and soy. No mention of gluten or any nuts. Some of Cadbury’s items are being ethically sourced, including their most popular Dairy Milk Bar in the UK, but the Wispa is not on that list yet. I’m not certain about what kind of vegetable fat is used in the bar, as UK standards don’t require listing it specifically, so there’s no word on its sustainability.

Related Candies

1. Hershey’s Air Delight Aerated Milk Chocolate
2. Frey Chocobloc AIR
3. Nestle Aero 70% Dark
4. Bubble Chocolate (2010)
5. UK vs US Cadbury Dairy Milk
6. Elite Aerated & Lotte Airs
7. Dairy Milk Bubbly

Brand extensions are nothing new in the world of candy. Little things get giant versions, milk chocolate coatings become dark chocolate. In the case of Wonka’s iconic SweeTarts, they’ve gone gummi.

The new SweeTarts Gummies are not exactly new. There have been a few versions around, but they didn’t invoke the classic candies in shape and flavor variety.

The new gummies come in six flavors and though they’re in a bag, they are a similar tablet shape.

The assortment in the bag is soft and fresh and smells like SweeTarts. The pieces are a similar little disk shape as the classic roll version of SweeTarts, complete with a little divot in the center of one side. They’re about .75 inches around and .3 inches thick. They’re coated in a sweet sanding of sugar (not the sour sanding I expected).

What I found interesting about this new product is the list of ingredients indicates that most of these are made from natural colorings ... except for the use of Blue #1. Of course the blue gummi uses blue coloring, but I have to wonder if it’s also in the purple one, too. The other ingredients include cochineal, but also gelatin, so it’s off limits to vegetarians. It’s made in a facility with wheat, soy, peanuts, milk and eggs as well.

Orange = Orange - starts out sweet and then gets more tangy. And when I say tangy, I mean like the one-note drink, Tang. Not that it’s a bad thing, it’s actually very satisfying for a gummi.

Yellow = Lemon - is quite fun. The lemon flavor is well rounded, very sour towards the end but smooth overall. Its flavor is quite close to the classic dry SweeTart.

Green = Green Apple - the spongy texture is fun and the flavor more tangy than apple-y. It’s a generic green apple flavor, but less pronounced than the compressed dextrose candies.

Blue = Fruit Punch - I’m old enough to remember when the Blue SweeTarts came out, and still carry a grudge (this is also when the green switched from Lime to Apple). They’re the one flavor that I usually don’t eat, as I never cared much for the punch flavor itself. That said, these are actually really punch. Smooth, vibrant and the flavor gets less fruit and more sour as your chew or let it dissolve.

Purple = Grape - is one of my favorite SweeTarts as it is. The purple color is vibrant and appealing, but it also indicates a hefty bit of food coloring is in there. The moist and bouncy gummi, like the others, gets more tart as you chew. The flavor is artificial and not quite as subtle as the chalky SweeTart. Instead it has more floral notes that are not at all in keeping with actual grape or even fake grape, it’s more like an ink flavor. I was disappointed with it, but only because I had high expectations.

Hot Pink = Cherry - is medicinal and woodsy, it almost has a raspberry flavor to it at first, but then as it gets more sour, it tastes more like cherry.

My true love has always been the classic chalky candies, but I’m sure there are some people who are looking for the texture experience of a gummi with the bold artificial flavors of SweeTarts. As far as tart gummis go, I’m a little more grown up now when it comes to sour and probably won’t even want to stray from the Haribo Ingwer-Zitrone.

Related Candies

1. Wonka Springy Mini Chewy SweeTarts
2. Wonka SweeTarts Chicks, Ducks & Bunnies (2012)
3. Storck Mamba Sour Gummies
4. Wonka Springy Double Yummy Gummies
5. Wonka SweeTarts Jelly Beans 2010
6. Big Bite Gummy Bear
7. Sour Gummi Bears
8. Lifesaver Gummies

Storck Mamba were introduced in 1953 in Germany well before Starburst came around. According to Storck’s website, they were sold in little packs of 6 pieces at changemaker prices (probably the equivalent of two or three cents at the time).

The new variety of Mamba are the Limited Edition Mamba Duo Chews that come in a long package that holds three of those little packs of 6 pieces. There are four flavors in the new Duo Chews, which feature a combination of two flavors in each piece, but each package only holds three packets. So you never know what variety you’ll get. (I’ve never gotten a package that doesn’t have three different flavors in it.)

The new flavors are Raspberry-Peach, Cherry-Banana and Watermelon-Apple. The final flavor, Redcurrant-Lime didn’t make an appearance in my pack. It’s a lot of wrapping, but it’s that think flow wrap on the outer wrap and for the flavor packs. Each individual piece is in a waxed paper.

In the day glow yellow and red wrapper is Watermelon-Apple, which is definitely distinctive. The watermelon flavor is a little artificial but is balanced nicely by the subtle and kind of natural tasting apple. The flavor is not as intense as a Starburst or HiCHEW, but still has enough zap to get your salivary glands going.

The Cherry Banana comes in a more subtly soft yellow wrapper with red printing. The banana is immediately creamy and the cherry is tart and though slightly medicinal, has an actual natural note to it.

Raspberry-Peach comes in a mango-orange wrapper. The peach is the forward flavor, a bit dusty and tart with a sort of pine and melon note to it. It wasn’t quite peachy. The raspberry portion was also tangy and had a sort of jammy note to it, but lacked a floral berry flavor that I was hoping would be there.

I prefer the more traditional flavors of the classic Mamba Chews. These combos are just slightly off from my taste preferences. Still, the candy is a good value, a Starburst package holds 2.07 ounces and Mamba are the same price but have 2.65 ounces in them. They’re also vegan (no gelatin like Starburst or HiCHEW) and contain no artificial colors (but do use artificial flavors and alpha-tocopherol as a preservative).

Related Candies

1. Storck Mamba Gummies
2. Storck Toffifay
3. Mamba Sours
4. HiCHEW Yuzu & Valencia
5. Starburst
6. HiCHEW Assortment
7. Storck Mamba Chews

Squirrel Nut Zippers were introduced by the Squirrel Brand Company in 1926 as a vanilla caramel with peanuts, part of a line of caramel candies. The name, which sounds more like a collection of nouns than an enticing candy, came from a local alcohol drink called Nut Zipper (this was prohibition).

The Squirrel Brand Company or Massachusetts was sold off to Southern Style Nuts in 1999 and moved to Texas. A mere 5 years later, Necco bought the rights to Squirrel Nut Zippers, and the lesser known Squirrel Caramel Chews, and moved production back to the Boston area. In case you’re wondering, the Squirrel Nut Zippers swing band named themselves after the candy (with permission from Squirrel Brand Company).

The candies are a simple format, a little bite sized chew wrapped in wax paper. They’re sold in bulk bins or pre-packaged bags. I found mine at Rocket Fizz, a small chain of candy & soda pop shops that started in Southern California.

Like Mary Janes (also made by Necco now), a good Squirrel Nut Zipper will be slight soft. Don’t be dismayed if you pick some up and they’re hard. The trick is to put it in your pocket or hold them in your palm for a few minutes or someplace slightly warm just before eating. That way the oils rise slightly to the surface to help the wrapper release from the candy and it’s soft enough to chew easily.

A SNZ is an easy to like candy, it’s quite simple. It’s a vanilla caramel with bits of peanuts in it. The flavor of the caramel is mild and sweet, not as earthy as a Mary Jane, which has molasses in it, and not as toffee like as a Sugar Daddy.

I’m sure I’ve had them before when I was a kid, but they didn’t make much of an impression on me. As an adult, well, there are other candies I’d prefer to have, such as a Mary Jane or some Sugar Babies.

I have no clue about possible allergens, but the ingredients show dairy, soy and peanuts.

Related Candies

1. Mary Jane & Mary Jane Wicked Mix
2. Necco Slap Stix Caramel
3. Nips: Butter Rum & Peanut Butter Parfait
4. Walkers Nonsuch Toffee
5. Sugar Babies
6. Necco Mint Julep
7. Goldenberg’s Peanut Chews