An ancient mammal discovered in Australia has been named after the Cadbury chocolate company in a wonderfully twisted tale.
Check out the National Geographic for the full details of how the Kryoryctes cadburyi, an ancient ancestor of the spiny anteater, got it’s unusual name.

Don’t worry, there’s as much chocolate mentioned in the article as paleontology. The bet started when a bounty was offered to the students doing the digging part, a cubic meter of chocolate to anyone who found a mammal bone. Mind you these folks were digging in dinosaur bones territory - a spot where they were finding bones more than a million years old - it was exceptionally unlikely that they’d find such a thing. Even odder, the bones were found but not identified for more than ten years as it was first thought to be a turtle bone.

Once the bone was identified, Tom Rich, the man who offered the bounty, had to make good on the bet. But a cubic meter of chocolate is a lot of chocolate, like a ton of chocolate. Which is not only big, but expensive. Luckily a series of connections led the Melbourne Cadbury factory to donate the chocolate to the then-students. In turn the ancient beast was named for Cadbury.

Chocolate Obsession is on board with the “candy season” idea. There are some great sales out there (I found some good things at Sav-On yesterday on the sale table, including 10 cents for York Peppermint Patties in the shape of snowflakes and filled raspberry hard candies for 49 cents instead of $2.49).

Lake Champlain is having a pretty amazing sale that’s not just holiday themed stuff, you can get their 5 Star Bars for $14.40 instead of $24.00. I might have to order that up, or drop lots of hints for my upcoming birthday. Hint, hint.

Godiva is also posting their “Chocolate Covered Sale” items at up to 50% off. Not my favorite brand, but I certainly wouldn’t turn up my nose at it.

I also shopped at Cost Plus World Market yesterday and found that all of their holiday candies were 50% off (even the Hanukkah stuff, even though we’re only half-way through). Much of it had been picked over, but they had some nice tins of candy that you can still bring as hostess gifts for New Years or of course just snuggled down with yourself.

Crate and Barrel has some stellar mark downs on their candy as well, you can pick it up in the stores or order online. 18 ounces of Mint Cookie Joys for $4.50? Buy a dozen! I loooooove Mint Cookie Joys.

No sign of sales on Dean & Deluca or Zabars and Williams-Sonoma doesn’t have the treats on their site at the moment. Look sharp, there are some great deals out there. Post if you’ve found something!

I saw a news item that said that Starbucks is pulling Chantico, a scant year since it was introduced.

It may not be completely gone:

Audrey Lincoff, a spokeswoman for world’s largest specialty coffee retailer, said the company will start selling two new chocolate drinks in mid-February, but would not provide any further details Wednesday.

I actually liked the stuff, but my positive review earlier this year was hardly enough to keep it on the menu. I’ve had the drink a total of three times, I don’t go to Starbucks very often (even though they are everywhere). I try to frequent the independent chains, but I would actually patronize them more if their fair trade coffee was always one of the drip coffee options.

Departures, the American Express magazine, has an incredible list of The Only 149 Chocolates You Need to Know About.  Well, I didn’t count 149 manufacturers on Christine Muhlke’s list, but there’s some good stuff there, not just what to eat, but where to go on vacation for full immersion.

There are also some great quotes from other foodies and this was my favorite:

Alan Richman | food writer
“I like See’s Candies [from San Francisco]. They’re huge—not little wussy designer chocolates. It’s a great middle-class product. I also like chocolate that’s sold in any crumbling store run by old ladies. You know it’s fresh and they’re making it.”

I happen to love See’s because it’s so dependably fresh and tasty and I don’t need hand painting on something that’s going in my tummy. Of course I’ll have to work my way through the list to see if they stay at the top!

(Link found via Roboppy - thanks!)

Now that we’re through Christmas and the stockings and desserts, there’s New Year’s to consider.

It’s not a very candy holiday, but you can make it that way if you want. I found two great lists of candy cocktails:

Chocktails - 10 recipes for chocolate cocktails including Raspberry Truffle and what I think sounds good, Italian Licorice. (Link found via Chocolate Obsession - thanks!)

And the Candy Addict has a roundup of 15 recipes as well for all sorts of candy oriented cocktails including a Tootsie Roll and Peanut Butter Cup. The SweetTart sounds pretty good to me, although I’ve never been particularly fond of sweet drinks (I pretty much drink water, unsweetened tea and milk though I will indulge in hot chocolate from time to time).

This leads me to a recipe The Man and I formulated this summer for a Lemon Martini:

1 part fresh lemon juice
1 part limoncello
1 part lemon vodka

Shake with ice, serve in a chilled martini glass, rub the rim with lemon rind or if you want a festive look, try yellow sugar or cocktail sugars. You might also want to drop a lemon drop in there or if you can find one of those lemon stripe candy sticks, that’d be pretty cool as a stirrer. The drink is VERY zesty, as it has a lot of lemon in it. We make our own lemon vodka by simply taking a lemon and using a peeler to get just the best yellow zest off of it, placing the strips in a jar and covering with good vodka. Stick in the fridge until insanely yellow and the zest strips star to curl. If it’s too lemony (is that possible?) dilute with plain vodka.

Of course always be safe - it’s easy to over-imbibe when the drinks are sweet and tasty. I want everyone around for the New Year!

Stockings are one of my favorite traditions of Christmas. I’ve written before about my love of the stockings Santa brought us as children. They were eclectic mixes of little gifts, novelties, traditional American chocolates, gelt and international confections. These were candies that we didn’t get any other time of the year, not in Easter baskets and certainly not in Halloween trick-or-treat bags.

For the past few years I’ve also continued this tradition with my friends when I’m in town for the holidays. We often host a Christmas Eve dinner for friends and I give out a version of these stockings to my guests.

Our family tradition is that everyone has a stocking and it must be at my mother’s house in order for Santa to find it and fill it. Instead for my guests I put their goodies in fabric wine gift bags. They’re pretty and because they’re reusable they’re a gift as well. I found this excellent assortment in Chinatown much less expensive than at the wine store or Cost Plus. As this year was an all-couple affair, each couple got a stocking.

The cornerstone of a stocking is candy. The Santa of my childhood seemed to favor a mix of nuts in the shell (which were obviously pretty but were also intended to minimize the actual candy content). Those nuts were immediately sorted out of the candy mix and placed in a bowl on the kitchen table. My stockings skip right to the punch - chocolate. This year we picked up a mix of chocolate coins, Hershey’s Kisses (plain, thank you), Hershey’s Mint Miniatures Mix & Butterfinger Jingles, Brachs hard candy/toffees and the Trader Joe’s Torrones.

A stocking wouldn’t be much fun without some sassy little toys and additional candy. So I assembled a bunch of stuff, some from the 99 Cent Store, others I picked up here and there. Everyone gets a special big candy, usually just for their tastes: Toblerone bar, Jelly Belly Assortments, Bazooka bubble gum, mints (those round things are mints that look like roller blade wheels) and some grapefruit pastilles. The things that look like ice cream cones are scented bubbles (non toxic for those folks who have pets who like to play with bubbles like we do).

The gelt is more fun when packaged up. I got some cute little coin bags and pencil keepers in Chinatown as well that are even better stuffed with candy.

And there it is, all stuffed to the seams! (Okay, I have a problem with trying to stuff too much into them.)

Everyone goes home happy and if they have a long way to travel they’ve got a snack along the way. Of course you can scale up or down for finances and it’s always a good idea to keep your eye out year round to find the stuffers. Things like little notebooks, lip balm, ornaments or even CDs are good fun things to add.

(click on any photo for larger, yummier goodness)

Merry Christmas to all my Candy Blog readers.

May your day be as sweet as your sugar plum dreams.

Someone’s gone out and done the legwork for me! The Washington Post published a taste test of Hanukkah Gelt or Chocolate Coins, so if you’re looking for the pretty and tasty stuff, take a look at their list before you hit the store.

The good and unsurprising news is that See’s is at the top of the list along with Godiva as the best (See’s is far more affordable).

Full list here.

Of course there are dozens more brands, but always good to have something to go on.

More from the Washington Post here. (May ask for registration ... check bugmenot).