I got an early taste of the new Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups Minis courtesy of the Sweets & Snacks Expo. As the name explains, they’re an extra miniature version of the classic Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup.

The selling point in this version is that there’s no wrapper, no fluted paper cup. These morsels are ready to pop right in your mouth. The initial launch will be in King Size packages of 3.1 ounces, but I also expect them to be released as 8 ounce bags for baking. They won’t be hitting the stores until December 2010.

They look exactly like the foil wrapped miniatures, except of course, they’re smaller still. As ratios go, you can expect this to be the most chocolate version of the Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup you can get. (On the peanut-butter-heavy end of things, the Reese’s Egg is tops.)

Each is exquisitely formed, they all had a precise and consistent shape. As you can tell, they get a little scuffed up rolling around loose in the bag, so no glossy chocolate sheen.

They smell sweet and nutty. The chocolate is cool and melts quickly, with only a light milky cocoa note. The peanut butter center is just a quick pop of roasted peanut butter, crumbly texture and salt. Since they’re so small, a mouthful takes at least two.

These would be ideal for snacking and I could see them as a huge hit in theater boxes. For those who miss the Reese’s Peanut Butter Bites, these might be just the thing (there’s no waxy glaze either). The ratios weren’t quite to my liking but I enjoy the fact that you don’t have to unwrap each individual piece.

Related Candies

1. World’s Largest Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups
2. Whoppers Reese’s Peanut Butter Flavored Candy
3. Reese’s Pieces
4. Trader Joe’s Mini Peanut Butter Cups
5. Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup Line
6. Hershey Bites: York, Reese’s Peanut Butter and KitKat

The first new Choward’s flavor that I can remember in my lifetime is Guava. Introduced earlier this year it joins the current line up of flavors of square compressed sugar mints that come in Peppermint, Spearmint, Lemon and Violet.

This new version is called simply Tropical Candy. It’s not a mint at all, more of a little treat with no breath freshening powers.

The package is the same weird salmon pink of guava flesh and mid-fifties tiled bathrooms.

Chowards are not your ordinary mints. They’re exquisitely made to exacting tolerances. Build a house for your Lego mini-fig out of Altoids? Never! But these little squares are smooth and perfect with straight sides, consistent colors and crisply chiseled logos.

The best thing about them, as far as I’m concerned, is their stack-ability. They’re stable. Dependable. The same on both sides.

I’m not a guava fan. If it’s in a fruit salad, I pick around it. I’m not even keen on the musky flavor it imparts by proximity. So I wasn’t really looking forward to these.

They smell tropical, like pineapple and orange blossoms. Or a Tommy Bahama store.

They’re tangy and fruity, the flavor is a mix of melon and pineapple for those who have never had guava before. For those who have had guava, it’s authentic enough though a bit more tart.

The texture is smooth. Since they’re made with sugar and not dextrose they have a very sweet note to them with a strong honey-fruity finish.

On the whole, they’re better than I expected and they’re certainly different from other candies on the market (as are all of Choward’s offerings). They’re not minty but still leave my mouth feeling fresh (like a tropical green iced tea will); they’re not quite tangy and flavorful enough to compete with SweeTarts.

Related Candies

1. Puntini Jujubes - Frutti Tropicali
2. Short & Sweet: Tropical Flavors
3. Starburst Baja California & Tropical
4. Chuao ChocoPod Collection
5. SweeTarts: Chicks, Ducks & Bunnies (2006)
6. Choward’s Violet

Last year Hershey’s announced their new expanded Hershey’s Pieces line at National Confectioners Association’s Sweets & Snacks Expo. This year the new product line is Hershey’s Drops.

Hershey’s Drops are billed as Hershey’s Happiness in a little drop of milk chocolate without a candy shell and featuring a light, shiny, mess free finish. They’ll be on store shelves starting in December 2010, starting with King Size packages of 2.1 ounces.

The packages I got to try are just sales samples, in little .6 ounce packets with ingredients listing but no final nutrition panel (which isn’t that surprising since they won’t be available for another six months).

Now your family can have all the goodness of bite-sized chocolate without the candy shell.

HERSHEY’S Milk Chocolate DROPS have a light shiny finish, so there’s no mess. They’re perfect for snacking and sharing anytime, anywhere!

The drops are larger than the Pieces about as big around as a nickel. Brits may be familiar with the size and shape, they’re rather similar to Mars’ Galaxy Minstrels, except without the shell - in fact, they’re exactly like the re-released Galaxy Counters (which I haven’t tried, but Chocablog did a nice review of a couple of months ago).

Some may wonder if the light coating is like that on M&Ms Premiums. There is a light waxy coating on there, but it’s thinner than the latexy and colorful stuff on the M&Ms Premiums. It’s more like what you’d find on Junior Mints or Whoppers. Just a simple glaze that melts away quickly.

The flavor is pure Hershey’s Milk Chocolate, not much else. A little tangy and fudgy, sweet and milky. The coating keeps them fresh and smooth, I’ve found that Kisses can taste a little rancid when left out of the bag, even though they have a foil wrapping. Of course I didn’t have these candies for very long, so I can’t say for sure that they’d be like that if left out in a dish.

The second item in the Drops line is a bit more inventive, Hershey’s Cookies ‘n’ Creme Drops.

The confection is made of a white chocolate with cookie bits like Oreos mixed in. The white chocolate ingredients are a little muddy, the label says “cocoa butter, palm, shea, sunflower and/or safflower oil” so I don’t know how much of this white chocolate is actually cocoa butter. That and/or confuses me.

Hershey’s currently offers the Cookies ‘n’ Creme in a few formats. The original is their bar but there are also Kisses from time to time, Nuggets, as well as holiday foil wrapped versions. This little morsel version with no wrapper is actually a great new take on the candy.

I have to admit they don’t look so great. They look muddy and dirty. The cookie bits show through. They’re consistently shaped, but the white isn’t quite white and not even that light yellow that French vanilla ice cream sports.

They smell especially sweet and milky. The texture is thick and a little fudgy and heavy on the dairy flavors. The crispy bits of cookie are crunchy and crumbly, with a sandy grain to them that sets off the sticky melt of the white confection very well. It’s a little salty, so though it’s sugary at times and kind of throat searing, it doesn’t stay that way to the end. It’s more like cookies and cream ice cream than a candy version of a chocolate sandwich cookie.

I haven’t been much of a fan of the Cookies ‘n’ Creme bar up to this point, but I have to say that the smaller discrete bites do help. They’re best, as far as I’m concerned, mixed with the Milk Chocolate ones to keep it all from getting too sweet.

Overall, I think this is a fun new take. I’m glad that Hershey’s is making them with the bar version ingredients, instead of going the route they did with Kissables as a “chocolate candy”. I see the benefits to getting rid of the foil wrappings and the candy shells plus making the morsels larger than a chocolate baking chip. I’m sure some folks will be happy to see that there are no artificial colors in here either, since there’s no colored shell.

The ability to combine these with other items to create a custom trail mix snack is also intriguing. I’d like to mix them with nuts, pretzels or sesame sticks. I can also see a lot of possibilities with expanding this with other candies in the Hershey’s line.

Related Candies

1. Cookies ‘n’ Creme Showdown
2. Galaxy Minstrels
3. Hershey’s Nuggets Double Chocolate
4. Kissables (Reformulated)
5. UK Smarties (no artificial colors)
6. Hershey Eggs
7. Hershey’s Cookies ‘n’ Mint

Last year Gimbal’s Candy introduced Cherry Lovers, a fanciful assortment of nine different cherry flavored jelly candies in the shape of hearts. It wasn’t my kind of thing and I wished that there was a citrus version. Gimbal’s went far more inventive than that and created Honey Lovers which features 16 different honey infused flavors of jelly beans.

Gimbal’s makes a wide array of panned candies and licorice but the big selling point for them is that they operate in a low-allergen facility. No peanuts, no tree nuts, no gluten, no dairy, no eggs and no soy. Honey isn’t just a flavoring here, the third ingredient on the list is actually honey. (The first two are sugar and corn syrup.)

The Honey Lovers come in either a 10 ounce bag or a 38 ounce resealable tub. Each of the hearts is colored and patterned to match their flavor. They also feature 25% of the RDA of vitamin C. On top of that, Gimbal’s is donating 5% of their sales to honey bee research at the University of California at Davis (which is just 100 miles or so away).

Golden Honey a wonderful and simple little jelly bean heart. It’s not a bright sweetness, it’s more of a concentrated honey with a little sugary grain from the shell ... which mimicked crystallized honey or honeycomb. The flavor was just a little different from the Jelly Belly Honey Bean, not quite as caramelized but still authentic.
Peaches and Honey tastes like peach fuzz and honey, kind of strange but true. Honey and peach have similar syrupy notes, so these go together well, kind of like a peach cobbler flavor.
Tangy Orange Honey starts our like a plain juicy orange jelly bean then becomes a deep honey flavored and smooth chew.
Buttered Honey Popcorn was the one I avoided. I detest fake butter flavor and this one had that “old movie theater” flavor. It was a little on the toffee side because of the honey, but still my least favorite of the bunch. (I’m sure some folks will be in love with it.)
Meyer Lemon Honey is kind of like a cough drop without the menthol. The lemon is light and only slightly zesty but no sign of tartness. The honey note is defined but separated from the lemon-ness, like the lemon is on the shell and the honey is in the center.

Cinnamon Honey wasn’t terribly strong but mostly cinnamon. I didn’t catch much honey on the end of it. Not as blazing as Gimbal’s stellar Lava Balls, but still fun and quite a change up from the rest of the primarily fruity bunch in this mix.
Black Cherry Honey has a little tartness at the front and was a very well balanced heart. The cherry flavors weren’t exceptionally strong, but still lasted well into the emergence of the honey flavors.
Honey Mocha Toffee (not pictured because I thought it was Black Cherry Honey) is just dreadful, there’s that fake butter flavor that I guess is supposed to be toffee and then a faint whiff of instant coffee. It’s like a bad hazelnut coffee creamer.
Coconut Honey is terribly sweet and with a strong tropical vibe. The coconut is strong on this one and since it’s easily confused with the vanilla, I ate it by mistake a few times. As long as you’re looking for something really coconutty, this is a great little heart.
Honey Vanilla this was my absolute favorite, I kept searching the bags for this one. It’s like a jelly bean version of the marshmallow in a See’s Scotchmallow. Fragrant and soft vanilla with the deep sweetness of honey.
Honey Raspberry is deep red and jammy sweet with just the right touch of honey at the end. The floral berry notes lingered long after the chew was gone.

Honey Dipped Strawberry is sweet and has that great summer taste to it, the honey isn’t a strong as the others, but then again, I didn’t need it to be with the great toasted sugar notes of the strawberry there.
Huckleberry Honey is kind of a mystery to me. I don’t know huckleberries that well, but can definitely say that the light berry and summer fruit notes have a tangy bite and a sweet finish.
Pomegranate Honey is a nondescript tart berry flavor where the honey takes over pretty quickly.
Blueberry Honey is like the other berry and fruit flavors, quite mild and mellow. I caught a faint bit of blueberry flavor to it, but mostly it tasted like a very honey-laden iced tea. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
Orchard Pear ‘n Honey tastes rather green in the best way possible. It doesn’t have the same crunchy grain of a real pear, but the deep malty flavors of the honey go well with the grassy notes.

Overall this was a very inventive mix. Of the 16 flavors there were only two that I picked out and refused to eat (Mocha Toffee and Popcorn), and another three that I picked around but didn’t toss back in there if I got by accident. But the ones I liked, I thought were stellar (Vanilla Honey, Honey, Meyer Lemon, Strawberry). Even if I didn’t like some, there were others whom I shared these with who did, so they are a real crowd pleaser. The only suggestion I’d have would be to have a smaller flavor mix (with 5-8 flavors in a more limited color palette) that might do better for themed buffets and folks who simply buy candy for the colors.

Related Candies

1. Eat with your Eyes: 100% Honey
2. Jelly Belly Honey Beans
3. Cool Honey Altoids
4. Puffy Candy Corn
5. Boules de Miel (balls of honey)
6. Melville Candy Company Honey Spoons

Goetze’s introduced new Gourmet Caramel Creams last year to their line. The two new items are Licorice Caramel Creams and Double Chocolate Caramel Creams.

Licorice Caramel Creams are not new, they were made years ago and then discontinued as licorice fell out of favor and Goetze’s concentrated on the core products in their line.

The new caramel creams are formatted in the same way. A hoop of wheat-based caramel surrounds a crumbly soft sugar center. They’re individually wrapped and in the case of this new line, they’re sold in 9 ounce stand-up gusseted bags.

The gourmet part isn’t about fine, locally sourced ingredients or small batches:

As with all Goetze products, the new Gourmet Caramel Creams are low in fat and sodium, have no cholesterol, and are made with the finest wheat flour, milk and cream ingredients. However, the Licorice and Double Chocolate treats have also been fortified to enhance their quality and content. Both of the Gourmet flavors are considered a Good Source of Calcium, with a single serving of each containing 30% RDA of Calcium (the same amount as an 8oz glass of milk)! In addition, the Gourmet Caramel Creams Licorice also contains 11% RDA of fiber!

First, I have to remind folks that Caramel Creams are a little different. They’re really not caramels at all, they’re a wheat-based chew so they’re hardly even sweet on the outside. I liken them to cookie dough, but in the case of the Licorice variety I can only say that they’re like a very chewy version of the Aussie-style of soft licorice.

The scent of the licorice is strong on the anise and reminds me of Ouzo. The molasses notes are restrained. The chew is tough and long lasting, the acidic notes of the molasses and licorice come through very well. There’s a tar quality to it, the strength is so aromatic at times it’s practically corrosive (I mean the best way possible). The cooling sugar center gives a little splash of cold water and helps spread the flavors around.

I really enjoyed these a lot. I’ve tried them several times now as samples from trade shows and I’ve been looking forward to buying a full bag for myself in stores ... if only I could find them. (Looks like OldTimeCandy.com has them, maybe I’ll have to place an order.)

They’re so different from any other licorice or caramel product. The closest thing I can think of might be a Licorice Allsort - but with a softer, fresher and more intensely-flavored chew.

Each Bullseye has 40 calories each, 10% of your calcium one gram of fat plus they’re made in a no-nuts/no peanut facility.

The second gourmet version is the Double Chocolate Caramel Cream which honestly doesn’t differ that much from the straight Chocolate Caramel Cream. Sure the center has a little cocoa in it, but the chocolate flavor is all in the caramel chew outside. The selling point here is the addition of calcium, which is substantial.

The flavor is like eating brownie batter, or the edges of a freshly cooked brownie bar where it’s really chewy. It’s not terribly sweet, so the cocoa flavors are rich and a little milky with just a slight hint of salt.

They’re both really filling and sometimes feel more like a snack than a candy.

Related Candies

1. Panda Soft Herb Licorice and Licorice Cremes
2. Broadway Black Licorice Rolls
3. Bassett’s Licorice Allsorts
4. Goetze’s Caramel Creams

Jelly Belly Fruit Snacks are smooth fruity jelly chews in six flavors and made with seven fruit juices.

The package is simple and appealing, focusing on the fruits and the fruit shapes of the candy inside. They’re entering a very crowded markeplace, there are dozens of fruit snacks already on the market, many with licensing tie ins with cartoon characters.

They come in: Berry, Cherry, Orange, Lemon, Strawberry and Apple. Each flavor is a different color and shaped for the fruit it’s emulating.

(Sorry about the photo, I’m missing the apple one from that array - it looks strikingly like the strawberry, just no little seed bumps.)

Overall the texture is closer to gum drops (like Dots) than jelly beans or gummis. It’s an easy and smooth chew, but still a little sticky.

Cherry - is quite mild, a light woodsy black cherry with a tartness to it, but nothing terribly overwhelming.

Lemon - is vivid - a good blend of tangy and zesty.

Strawberry - is floral and a little bit on the fruit punch side of things. It’s mostly jammy sweet without much sourness.

Orange - is a bit ordinary but hard to be disappointed with a decent mix of juicy and zesty.

Berry - was hard to find in my mixes that I got. Two of the single serve bags that I opened didn’t have them at all. It’s a good raspberry flavor, but a little on the non-descript side.

Apple - is fresh and authentic, a lot like apple cider and nothing like “green apple.”

The caloric density on these is very low. As an all-sugar candy there’s no fat in it but also not much in the way of nutrition… no protein, no fiber. But there is a good dose of vitamin C and of course the fact that you can eat a handful for less than 100 calories can help a lot with a craving.

They’re pretty late to a crowded market where there are a lot of choices. The price point is a bit higher than I think many folks are willing to spend but it’s the kind of candy I might pick in a vending machine or if it came in theater boxes - the idea of a naturally flavored and colored version of Dots or Jujyfruits is probably appealing to parents as well.

Related Candies

1. Lemonhead Fruit Snacks
2. The Simpsons Fruit Snacks
3. Dogs versus Cats (fruit snacks that is)
4. Sunkist Fruit Gems
5. Fruit Parfaits

Candy and toys are a classic combination. It’s surprising that there hasn’t been a candy version of the Plastic Green Army Guys before Albanese introduced them in the early 2000s. These guys, you know these guys, right? They were sold by the pound and featured all sorts of pre-posed soldiers doing soldier-like things.

This version of the candy features all opaque green candies in four different poses. They’ve even assigned names: “Bazooka” Bob, “Forrest Fight” Steve, “GI” Johnny, “Sniper” Scott, and “Rifleman” Rich! They’re green apple flavored.

I got this 4.5 ounce bag for $1.99 at Powell’s Sweet Shoppe in Paso Robles. It was the first store I saw them in and was a little surprised at the price, considering the fact that I can buy a half pound of Albanese other gummi products at the 99 Cent Store for a buck. But hey, these were cute and unique.

I don’t have much else to say beside the fact that they’re in fact green, look exactly like plastic army guys (except they’re only about 2 1/2 D instead of 3D because they have a flat back). They’re green apple flavored, soft and chewy. Above is Sniper Scott.

So enjoy the photos of the Gummy Army Guys. This is Rifleman Rich.

I’m guessing this is Forrest Fight Steve. I thought maybe he was Grenade Gary. Or maybe Shotput Sheldon.

Apparently Albanese also makes a smaller version of these in red and green - but they’re transparent instead of the opaque army green. Albanese makes a lot of other fun shapes in their gummis, including fighter jets, snakes, butterflies, bears, rings and fish.

And that brings us to the last one: Bazooka Bob.

On the whole, a quality product. A little more expensive than the other really well priced Albanese gummis, but still a good deal, especially when you need a themed item. I’m not as keen on the green apple flavor - I prefer their citrus and pineapple.

Related Candies

1. Grave Grabber Gummy Candy
2. All Gummies Gourmet Fruity Fish (Swedish Fish knock-off)
3. Albanese Gummi Butterflies
4. Gummy Fishies
5. Krunchy Bears
6. Gummi Lightning Bugs

The world of gummis is filled with candy that looks like other things: soda bottles, centipedes, spiders, body parts (brains, whole hands, eyeballs, lips), dinosaurs, rabbits, birds, flowers, butterflies, toads, frogs, sharks, fast food, fruits, vegetables, cracked eggs,  and of course bears.

Sour Gummy Pop Corn from Flix Candy looks like popcorn. But they go one further, instead of making it popcorn flavored, or some other yellow themed flavor they’ve made them apple, strawberry, popcorn & watermelon. You don’t know until you eat them.

The package is cute, it looks like the tall box of popcorn that they used to sell at the fair and probably at the movies before people starting consuming it by the bucketful.

Here’s the first thing: a caramel corn flavored gummi sounds fabulous to me. It wouldn’t have a year ago, but after the caramel gummis I reviewed last week I truly believe you could make a great Cracker Jack flavored gummi with real molasses, caramelized sugar and milk.

This isn’t that ... so I’ll have to adjust my expectations.

I thought maybe I could tell the difference between them by smelling them, but they all smelled like Bed, Bath and Beyond (a mixture of watermelon, strawberry and carpeting).

Watermelon (yellow) was tart and fresh, though more sour than I actually like my watermelon to be. The bounce of the gummi was satisfying and fresh.

Strawberry (yellow) was sweeter at first and had a good berry flavor but then descended into sour.

Apple (yellow) if that’s what I tasted, this one was the most sizzling of the, it was an odd sort of burnt note along with that chemical green apple flavor of Jolly Ranchers.

The Pop Corn gummi was either elusive or so similarly flavored that I couldn’t tell. After finding the first three flavors in about 8 tries, I ended up just biting the rest of the pieces in the package. Something smelled vaguely like artificial butter flavor, but nothing tasted like it (but who wants sour buttered pop corn?).

These weren’t that good for me, but I get that when watching a movie the look of the candy isn’t that important since I can’t see it anyway. But the flavor mix with apple and watermelon wasn’t high on my list either.

Related Candies

1. Au’some Easter 3-Dees Gummy
2. Trolli Little Green Men
3. Puffy Candy Corn
4. Wonka Puckerooms
5. Big Bite Gummy Bear
6. Albanese Gummi Butterflies
7. Krunchy Bears