I bought this package of the new Twizzlers Rainbow Twists as couple of months ago but I just had to wait for the crush of Easter to be over before I could open them up. They are stunning. The colors are vivid and opaque, a little less shiny than the regular Twizzlers.

I’ve always been fond of black licorice and find red licorice passably good. You know, if someone puts one of those tubs on my desk, I’ll eat it. For a while I was obsessed with weird twist flavors. There was a fruit stand I would stop at on the 126 somewhere between Piru and Fillmore that had Root Beer flavored vines.

When I think about it, non-licorice twists are one of the few flour-based candies out there (except for candies like Twix or KitKat that have actual cookies in them).

Each color of the Rainbow is a different flavor.

Grape (magenta) - a little tangy and pretty much tastes like a grape soda.
Blue Raspberry (aqua) - the color is kind of a turnoff for me (but I’m sure kids will love it), it has a little bitter taste to me as well, but a good raspberry scent and flavor to it.
Watermelon (green) - kind of strange. It tastes like watermelon smells but with other melons thrown in, like cantaloupe.
Lemonade (yellow) - just the zesty part of the lemon, without the tang that I might expect with something called lemonade. A little bitter aftertaste, but basically a winner as most citrus flavors are with me.
Orange (orange) - tastes like orange zest but pretty mellow, not quite creamsicle. No bitter taste like the lemon and thoroughly good.
Strawberry (light red) - tastes like a strawberry licorice vine. A little on the artificial side, but pleasant.

I was worried that the fake and plastic appearance of the candy reflected a lack of flavor, but they were all pretty punchy. But almost all of them had a weird metallic/bitter aftertaste to me. As a variety pack, I wasn’t fond of all the flavors, but this is pretty much always the way with mixes. I’m just not keen on them. I’m not alone either, the comments on this Slashfood post echo some of my sentiments.

While I had a good time photographing them (check out Sugar-Bliss-Gnome’s cool use of Twizzlers Rainbow Twists for cupcake decorations), I have no desire to finish any of the twists.

Here’s an alternate review that you might want to read (because it’s funny and does not endorse these).

I’ve been puzzling over this candy bar for years. It’s called the Eat-More and is sold in Canada. It was originally made by Lowney but later Nabisco took them over but since 1987 they’ve been made by Hershey’s.

The description of Dark Toffee Peanut Chew sounded to me like the inside of a Goldenberg’s Peanut Chew (now Chew-ets), which I find pretty spectacular and the prospect of having that without the mockolate made me want one.

Amber brought two for me direct from Canada, and in the King Size to boot. I have to say that the bar isn’t that attractive out of the package, which is probably

The King Sized bar is huge - 8.5” long. The slab is soft and chewy and has a pleasant smoky and roasted peanut scent. It’s not a caramelly chew exactly as the bar contains chocolate, which gives the toffee a bit of a stiff crumble.

It’s actually really satisfying and not at all sticky sweet. The 75 gram bar contains 8 grams of protein from the peanuts, so it’s a pretty satisfying snack. I wouldn’t say I wanted to eat more after about half the bar, but it was easy to just eat more later. As for the comparison to the inside of a Goldenberg’s, it’s not as smooth and doesn’t have that molasses kick. But the dark and robust flavors will probably appeal to Goldenberg’s lovers.

Since there’s nothing else in the States to compare this to, I have to recommend anyone who has been looking for a dark chewy toffee with nuts and chocolate to seek out this bar. It’s odd that something that I consider an “all weather” bar comes out of Canada. Since there’s no chocolate coating, it should travel well and stand up to temperature extremes.

Koakuma from UHA are a curious little candy. They’ve taken their wildly popular Puccho and combined them with the flavors and colors of the Gothic Lolita style popular in Japan. Koakuma means “little devil” and the package sports the little character all over it. With a heart shaped face, little bat wings and on the bottom of the pleated bag, she rides a trident like a broom.

These little candies come individually wrapped inside larger pouches. The taffy base is black with rich colored stripes and then studded with gummis.

Koakuma Peach Rose

I’m not usually fond of peach flavored candies. Don’t misunderstand, I’m a huge fan of fresh peaches, canned peaches and even dried peaches. There’s just something about many peach flavored candies I’m just not fond of.

No matter, because these don’t taste like peaches. It smells like peaches, but it tastes like mildly tart floral berries.

The little gummy bits provide and interesting texture to the bouncy chew. It was very fresh and soft and pretty darn good. I was really surprised I ate most of the bag.

Koakuma Blueberry Rose

I’ve never really been that impressed with blueberry as a flavor. I often get it confused with raspberry in candies, and this one is no exception. It tastes like raspberry and a little floral note thrown in there with the rose. But I have to say that I’m impressed that the color actually looks like blueberries instead of like something pharmaceutical.

Again, bouncy and chewy and fresh and thoroughly enjoyable.

Both of them were nice, but the specific flavors just weren’t my favorites. I think I’d like a strawberry with rose or maybe a grape and violet. I bet they’d make a fun gift for someone who’s intro Goth though. (Who doesn’t like candies that match their nail polish?) There is another flavor called Cassis & Grape that I saw on JList for $1.80 (which has lots of other Gothic Lolita cosplay stuff to complete the look).

Here are some other reviews:
Japanese Snack Review & Giant Jeans Parlor

I felt like a little fruity break this morning and picked out these Mentos Plus in Berry Mix to review. They have added vitamin C (4 mg per piece!). I’ve seen these in the States, but only in the sugarless variety. Santos gave me two boxes of these in the last delivery of candies from the Pacific. I gobbled up the first box shortly after taking this photo.

They come wrapped in a clear plastic outer wrapper and the box is about the size of a deck of cards. The flip top makes it easy to share, and with a flavor mix like this, easy to pick out just the flavor you want at the moment.

The lightest pink is Cherry. It’s not bad, tart and with some nice cherry notes that reminded me a bit of the Apple Mentos. As a cherry candy goes, this is quite pleasant and has no bitter aftertaste ... but since I find it palatable, true cherry fans may find it an abomination.

The dusty pink is Strawberry. It’s a very deep flavor, going for the darker musky strawberry notes instead of the light florals that you usually get. A good tart bite and some musk melon in there.

The hot pink is Raspberry. This one is the most “fake” tasting of the bunch, with some pretty intense “flavor” of raspberries going on. Again, it doesn’t go for the light floral elements that you usually find in raspberry flavored things, instead it’s got a razzle-dazzle in there that reminded me of some intense raspberry jam or fruit leather.

This box makes me wish they’d do a Citrus Mix - orange, lemon and pink grapefruit. That’d be awesome.

But back to the product in hand ... I’d buy these, especially if I were traveling. I find chewy candies like these to be great for airplanes, a little something to get your salivary glands activated in the dry cabin and perhaps unstop your ears. Easy to share, maybe a good way to bond with your seat-mates. And perhaps the little dose of Vitamin C will help keep those airplane diseases at bay.

These were purchased in Guam, but made in China. They are certified Halal (which means the gelatin is not of porcine origin).

For those of you who don’t have any Mentos nearby but wanted some Mentos fun, check out the Indian website for Mentos, called the Mentos Helpline ... some of the humor doesn’t translate in all cultures, but it really is rather an interesting and non-traditional promotional site. Kudos to Mentos for thinking outside the box once again and embracing their fans. More about the Mentos Helpline in this article.

Santos of Scent of Green Bananas has been a great source of fun Mentos and KitKats. She’s been promising me some Pomelo Mentos, which I imagine are much like Pink Grapefruit Mentos.

But last month she surprised me with these little gems from Guam.

Ice Pomelo Mentos sound rather odd. For those of you who have never seen them, pomelos are large citrus fruit with a very thick skin and grapefruity taste (the common grapefruit is a cross between an orange and a pomelo).  I’m always a little leary when combining mint and citrus but then I have to remember that the mojito seems to combine Lime and Spearmint to great effect, so I’m game.

They look rather like the Pink Grapefruit Mentos, a cool and mellow pink. Upon biting into them, they’re soft and chewy (hooray for fresh freshmakers!) with an immediate hit of mentholated mint ... kind of like a Hall’s cough drop. The citrus pops in with some nice zest to it, but no tangy/juicy component.

I can’t rate these as high as the Pampelmousse, but I still liked them quite a bit, especially since I’ve been getting over the bronchitis and medicinal tasting things are actually a comfort.

A long time ago there was a taffy called Bonomo’s Turkish Taffy. It was not Turkish and it wasn’t even taffy. But it was made by a family named Bonomo. Though the candy behaved like taffy (it was smooth and chewy) it actually contains egg whites like a nougat (Bonomo even referred to it as a “short nougat”) and was even baked. The Turkish part of the name made some sense, as Albert Bonomo did come from Turkey. But the family admitted that they used the name because it sounded good.

The taffy was a great all year treat because it didn’t melt like chocolate or caramel bars. Though it comes in a single large bar, a little chill and a smack on the edge of a table and it would shatter into bite sized pieces.

In 1980 Tootsie Industries bought the brand and then discontinued it in 1989 citing low sales.

Just as the Marathon caramel braid bar has its stand-in with the Curly Wurly, so does Turkish Taffy. It’s known as Doscher’s French Chew. It also comes in the same flavor array as Turkish Taffy did: Chocolate, Vanilla, Strawberry & Banana.

I don’t remember Turkish Taffy well enough to say that it’s an adequate replacement, so I’ll just talk about the chew on its own.

The bars are nice and big at 1.62 ounces each. You don’t have to chill the bars to break them but it helps. Sometimes I would just bend them in one direction slowly, then reverse direction quickly to cleave a good piece off.

They’re not quite as soft as something like Laffy Taffy or Airheads (totally different texture as well) but they’re less sticky than Salt Water Taffy. The egg whites and density gives it a lasting, smooth chew.

Vanilla - sweet and plain so it’s the texture here that’s the star.

Chocolate  - tastes like eating chocolate cake batter. The chocolate isn’t very rich or creamy or deep.

Banana  - a wonderful fake banana tastes that lasts all the way through the chew.

I definitely enjoyed this chew, it’s pretty smooth and not the least bit sticky on the teeth. I don’t see myself buying it very often but I liked the Banana much better than the Laffy Taffy version (which has a more latexy feel to it). Doscher’s also makes a Strawberry chew.

Doscher’s is a small factory in Cincinnati, OH. They also make candy canes and other chews. They’ve been around since 1871. They sometimes make seasonal flavors like Green Apple for Halloween.

More HiCHEW! This assortment was courtesy of a friend traveling in Japan though I’ve seen similar assortments at the Japanese grocers in Los Angeles. Since the label was all in Japanese (because it wasn’t imported), some of this stuff may be made up or perhaps pictures really are the universal language.

Grape is rather like the Grape Mentos I had late last year, it tastes more like concord grapes (most especially the skins of concord grapes). It grows more intense and complex as the chew goes along and it made me wish that there were more of them in the assortment.

It also makes me wish that we had a truer “grape” flavor in the States.

Litchi is odd. It’s a cross between a honeydew melon and a citrus aromatherapy candle. It’s fragrant and flowery and a little soapy but it also has a nice tangy quality with a bit of musk to it. It also tastes kind of creamy towards the end, like a yogurt.

I’ve decided I’m not a big fan of lichis. Maybe I’ve nust never had them prepared properly, but like macadamias, they’re not bad, just not for me.

Strawberry is sweet and tangy that begins with a strong natural flavor that makes me wonder if there’s a little stem in there somewhere. Later in the chew it starts to taste a little artificial, but still sweet and floral.

It’s less tart than a Starburst, and has a longer chew that doesn’t break down into a little grainy blob.

Apple is immediately tangy and tastes of apple juice. It’s not as complex as the others, but still soft and bouncy with a good flavor to the very end.

Like the Grape, it has a slight essence of the apple peel in it.

I kept half of them and put the other half in the family stockings ... I haven’t heard anything back from the family one way or another about them.

Here are my other HiCHEW reviews: Grapefruit (fantastic) and Strawberry (Doh, I didn’t realize I’d had them before. I wonder what I said.) There are lots of other flavors and one of these days I’m going to try the other citrus flavors because I’m pretty sure they’ll go over well.

Related Candies

1. HiCHEW Aloe Yogurt
2. Japanese Black Sugar & Tropical Chews
3. HiCHEW Yuzu & Valencia
4. HiCHEW Grapefruit
5. Strawberry HiCHEW

If you’re of a certain age you may remember Tang, Astronaut Ice Cream and Space Food Sticks. All of these became famous because of the space craze of the sixties and seventies. As normal mortals we couldn’t go to the moon, but we could eat like an astronaut!

Space Food Sticks less candy and more like the current meal replacement bars. They’re a balance of fat, protein and carbohydrates. Of course many candy bars also contain a lovely balance of fat, protein and carbohydrates in the form of chocolate (fat), nuts (protein) and nougat/caramel/cookie (carbohydrates).

I’m thinking the major attraction to these is nostalgia. I’m not sure anyone who didn’t live through the landings on the moon and Skylab is going to be terribly interested in an early version of an energy bar.

I never had these when they first came out. (I did however, plop down my shekles at the Air & Space Museum in junior high for Astronauts Ice Cream ... you know it said ice cream in the name, not food. It was dang expensive at $1.00 a package and really cut into my gummi bear budget.)

Anyway, one to what I have in hand, which are the present day versions of Peanut Butter and Chocolate Space Food Sticks because the persistent Eric Lefcowitz of RetroFuture.com has brought them back into production after they’d become a quaint memory to many of us.

The format has changed slightly, from a pair of long wand to 10 small pieces. The wand shape was because the snack needed to be inserted into a little hole in the astronaut’s helmet. I actually kind of like the new format, they reminded me of protein-packed Starbursts!

The Chocolate ones smell kind of like Nestle Quik. Not creamy but kind of flat like cardboard or a Tootsie Roll. They’re soft and have an easy bite that might border on crumbly. Kind of like cookie dough and less chewy than a Tootsie Roll. The chocolate flavor is just that, more like flavor, though it does boast real chocolate and cocoa in there. I can easily taste the soy in there, which is a pleasant enough. They’re a bit on the salty side (200mg), which I find a little refreshing and if you’re an athlete probably a good idea. As a candy they’re not really that satisfying. As a snack item, I kind of enjoyed eating some with some mid-day pretzels and almonds.

The Peanut Butter ones were more promising. The peanut smell was pleasant with a touch of honey (though none listed in the ingredients). This had the same crumbly chew which reminded me of eating a slightly raw peanut butter cookie or just the flavor of the old Peanut Butter Cap’n Crunch. The little pieces were great, because I could eat two or three and not have to worry about resealing the package to keep the rest. Just a little twist of the packet and they were safe for later.

As a candy I probably wouldn’t buy them again. As a snack item I appreciate the real ingredients in them. So often the label on a Power Bar or other meal replacement bar can be daunting - this is pretty simple with real ingredients. Of course with only “real” ingredients there’s no fortification with additional vitamins and minerals like you might find in an energy bar.

Cruftbox reviewed the original-style stick-version of them back in ‘04. The SpaceFoodSticks website also has some great old commercials from the Pillsbury product (and one from a competing PET product called Space Energy Sticks).

Old Time Candy sells them in singles (1.99 each) but if you decide you like them and want more, go straight to the source for the best price. It’s possible this will become the hot “stocking stuffer” item this Christmas, as I’m sure there are a lot of 40-50 somethings pining for the good old days.