I have to call this one the deal of the month. I find a lot of great deals out there in candy world, but I had to mention this one because I gave the Queen Anne Milk Chocolate Covered Cherries a bad review last year.

So that makes it all the more wonderful that I took a chance on these.

I found them at the 99 Cent Only Store. In fact, I saw them for several weeks at several different stores, which usually means it’s a new item and probably more likely to be fresh. I’ve seen the Queen Anne line at Von’s for $2.99, so at 99 cents, it was quite a deal for 5 ounces of chocolate. They come in a rather elegant stand up cardboard box/bag with a sealed cellophane pouch inside.

I’m a huge fan of Chocolate Covered Candied Orange Peel and the fact that you can’t get such a thing at Trader Joe’s is rather disheartening (I got the “orange sticks” once thinking that’s what they were, but it was a jelly stick covered with chocolate).

These were fresh and glossy and had a wonderful scent of orange zest. The orange peel inside was firm and a little chewy but not overly sweetened. The dark chocolate though not the best in the world was a wonderful sweet complement to the zesty innards.

If I see these again, I’m definitely going to pick them up. I have quite figured out how to decipher the code on the back as to how old these are (164513 was all it said), so I consider them a limited opportunity good deal. At this price they’re an 8 out of 10, at regular price they’re a 6 out of 10 ... so I’m calling them in the middle for the review rating at 7 out of 10.

(Queen Anne Candy is made by the same company that makes those World’s Finest Chocolate bars that the band kids are always trying to sell you.)

Ah, the last chapter in the Green Halloween series! More lollies.

Yummy Earth introduced their new organic candies at All Candy Expo back in June and I was immediately entranced. They’re not just organic, they’re also vegan and gluten free, so even the most sensitive folks can have a treat.

The lollipops come in four different flavors which gives you some variety but the one that intrigued me most was the Pomegranate Pucker. They’re just getting into stores, so you may be seeing them at Whole Foods or other health food stores soon. I got some samples back in Chicago and promptly ate them, but I didn’t want to do a review from memory so I popped the Yummy folks a note and they sent me this super-cute “Personal Bin” that holds 5.6 ounces & 30 assorted pops (and some other new candies that I’ll share a review of in a few weeks).

Cheeky Lemon - very lemony, like someone threw a whole lemon in a blender and poured it over a stick. The whole lemon taste is here, from the juice to the rind. It’s more of a grown-up lemon flavor than a kids one. The zest part of it gets really intense though never technically bitter, it gives me a kind of buzzy feeling on the inside of my lips after a while.

Pomegranate Pucker - dark and mysterious. It doesn’t taste quite like pomegranate to me but has a complex berry flavor to it with some elements that reminded me of red wine. Smooth and tangy, it’s quite different from other candy flavors and of course isn’t as messy as eating a real pomegranate (oh, how many shirts have I ruined with pomegranate squirts).

Wet-Face Watermelon - sweet, tangy and with a nice floral melon scent that really tastes like watermelon without that bitter chemical aftertaste that I’ve been getting lately from artificially flavored candies. The color is like a watermelon sorbet.

Orange Squeeze - wonderful mix of zesty and tart, like eating a spoonful of concentrated orange juice.

Razzmatazz Berry (not pictured)  - it’s like a fruit punch, kind of raspberry, nicely tart and flavorful.

If you’ve got kids and want to give them little treats or are looking for something for your Halloween basket, this might be the thing. My only recommendation for children is to pick out the Lemon ones, They’re great, I just think that kids aren’t going to like them as much as the other flavors. You still might be able to order online before Halloween!

Hershey is hopping into the upscale chocolate venue with their new Cacao Reserve line.

Milk Chocolate with Hazelnuts (35% cacao chocolate) - the description from their website says, “Premium-grade roasted hazelnuts in smooth, rich milk chocolate for an indulgent taste and texture.”

Much creamier and less grainy than regular Hershey’s chocolate. They’re not kidding about the premium hazelnuts, they are fresh and crunchy with a wonderful malty/nutty flavor. It’s sweet but dense and satisfying. A 1.3 ounce portion is rather puny considering my desire to eat more.

Extra Dark Chocolate with Cacao Nibs (65% cacao dark chocolate) - the description from the website says, “Deep, rich chocolate profile with cacao nibs ‘the heart of the cacao bean,’ for a lively textural crunch.”

The bar has a deep smoky scent with berries and cherries as added notes. A little bitter on the tongue at first, it has a nice melt (65% is a nice compromise) with some strong charcoal and woodsy elements dominating. The nibs have an excellent crunch without the fibery chew that they sometimes add. This may be the first “consumer” nibby bar, and it’s pretty good at that.

The ingredients are a little odd for a “reserve” dark chocolate bar: Semi-sweet chocolate (chocolate, sugar, cocoa, milk fat, cocoa butter, organic soy lecithin, vanilla beans), cacao nibs, milk.  What’s with putting the dairy in there?

Overall, Hershey has created a high quality product. I prefer these to the Extra Dark line. The portion size is smaller than a normal candy bar, and of course the price is a little high, but the quality of the bar is evident. There other two bars in the introductory line are plain milk chocolate and dark chocolate, which I wasn’t as interested in as these two, so I was glad these were the two that the 7-11 had in stock. I would definitely pick both of these up again as a quick, upscale treat, especially for traveling or to put in a lunch.

Purple is the best color ever. It’s the best of both worlds - half blue and half red, like a melting pot of America. When I was a teenager and on the swim team I had two sets of sweats - both were purple. I loved purple and often wore it head to toe (with purple Robin Hood boots). My attraction to grape candies is based largely on this affinity for the color and possibly influenced my love of grapefruit even though it has no grape in it and isn’t purple.

I had a good experience with the Mike and Ike Tangy Twisters and was hoping with something at least equal to that, after all, Jolly Joes have been around a lot longer, so you’d think they’d have something going for them.

They’re very dark, such a dark purple I’d call it eggplant. They smell fake-grapey, with a slight odor of Bic pen ink. When you first place it on the tongue, there’s a slight tangy tingle, but that soon goes away and there’s very little flavor. They’re soft and chewy like a jelly bean, but with very little going on. At the end the flavor is more like cotton candy than grape. Not really very jolly at all.

Special note: this package has both a manufactured date and expiration date ... all in plain English. Hooray for clarity! However, the back of the package was also printed in Hebrew (I think it’s Hebrew, it’s going right to left). I have no idea what market these were intended for, that’s what you get at the 99 Cent Only Store!

Every great candy has variations in size. Of course shrinking or enlarging a candy doesn’t necessarily make it better, in fact, it usually makes it different. Same components, just different ratios.

Trader Joe’s has gone and mucked around with their Peanut Butter Cups. These are made by the same manufacturer but are wee-tiny. Seriously, you can hardly call them cups. They look like knobs. Little peanut butter and milk chocolate knobs.

The little knobs don’t have flat tops, so they don’t sit quite right, they roll over easily. The easiset way to line them up is to have the top of the cup facing down ... which makes them more knob-like.

The ratio on these definitely leans towards chocolate over peanut butter. The chocolate is cool and sweet and slightly grainy, but matched well with the dash salty peanut butter.

It’s quite easy to just grab a handful of these out of the tub. And of course being chocolate they start to melt in your hand and you have to pop them in your mouth ... then you’ve got an empty hand and need to repeat. So the tub can go quickly. I know it’s tempting to want peanut butter cups with out the little fluted paper cup so that you can shovel them into your maw faster, but really no one needs anything to improve the efficiency of gobbling Trader Joe’s candy.

In the end I kept eating them because I wanted more peanut butter. I think I’ll stick to my Reese’s miniatures.

Note: Yes, I’ve been eating a lot of peanut-heavy candies lately, I credit it to the change in the weather. Some people think fall is all about spice, I think it’s all about nuts.

Related Candies

1. Trader Joe’s Dark Chocolate Sea Salt Caramels
2. Daffin’s Candies Factory & World’s Largest Candy Store
3. Trader Joe’s Espresso Chocolate
4. Disneyland for Candy Bloggers
5. Maud Borup Potato Chips
6. Trader Joe’s Chocolate Covered Banana Chips

Around this time last year I barely knew what Fair Trade was and there really weren’t that many chocolate products out there that were Fair Trade Certified. Now you can not only get cocoa and plain dark chocolate, but also some pretty cool flavored chocolate bars. Endangered Species seems to be leading the way with the Fair Trade “candy” bars in their new Premium Organic line.

Each bar is a single serving and easy to pick up at the checkout of your favorite “wholesome” market like Whole Foods, Wild Oats or Zoo gift shop.

Along with the Fair Trade and organic certifications, this bar boasts high cocoa content of 52% (high for a milk chocolate). This wrapper has a giraffe on the label and everyone knows that the pattern on giraffes is known as the peanut shell. (Okay, I made that part up.)

The chocolate is buttery smooth and very sweet on the tongue. It has very strong smoky qualities with a slight bitterness at the start but a good nutty flavor. Once I start eating the bar, the unpleasant burnt quality goes away, but each time I stop and start I have to go through the process all over again. I’m afraid I can’t give it the highest marks because of that. Now, I’m one of those “supertaster” people, so I tend to be more sensitive to bitter, so your mileage may vary.

Interesting fact about giraffes from the wrapper: A giraffe’s neck contains seven vertebrae, just like ours.