One of my favorite booths to visit at any food show is Melville Candy Company. Not only is their candy pretty, the guys that run the company are always really enthusiastic and seem to really love the products they make. (Which is what we all expect from folks who work in candy, but you’d be surprised at some attitudes I’ve run across.)

There’s always someone at the aisle handing out Honey Spoons (so I always have a stash at home). The spoon line at Melville’s is expanding. They have their honey varieties, and the flavored spoons and now they’re making actual tea spoons.

This spoon is a mix of tea and sugar and, I think, honey.

It can be eaten as is or mulled in some hot water to create a beverage! Instead of being an “instant tea” though, there are actual tea leaves in there.

Even though it looks a little weird, I found this to be a really tasty combination. Like a cup of sweet tea. The dark brewed flavors & tannins were there along with the light malty taste of honey.

The second variety I picked up was the Jasmine Green Tea Spoon. This opaque spoon is dark green with a strong freshly mowed lawn scent.

Though I prefer eating my candy, I decided to see what it would be like to make this into a beverage, as it’s actually designed to do. So I made up a cup of hot water and popped in the Jasmine Green Tea Spoon.

(Well, actually, I tasted the spoon first. It was sweet, terribly bitter and very grassy tasting, just like matcha powder.)

I let it melt for a while and then pulled out the spoon. It’d gotten stuck to the bottom of the cup and made a long, soft string of hard candy. It was fun to bend around and then stir into the hot water. It turned the water green pretty quickly, too.

I left it alone for five minutes and then stirred well again to get the pictured version here.

It smells quite grassy, a lot like henna or wet hay.

I found the beverage was far too sweet for me, but I’m also not a fan of sweetening my tea or chai lattes.

As a lollipop though it was a quite a refreshing change from the normal lemon & cherry variety.

They’re not featured on the Melville website just yet. But there are some other fun items that I saw at the show but haven’t tried yet that I thought I’d mention:

Melville’s has really been thinking outside the box lately. Though their honey spoons collections are expensive, they are unique and come in a huge variety of honey types & with added flavorings.

Their other new products include tea spoons made with real cinnamon sticks, for extra flavor.

The most innovative (and perhaps silliest) is their line of Cereal Flavoring Spoons. They come in Apple Cinnamon and Cinnamon & Sugar. I’m guessing if you’re not eating already-sweetened cereal, this is no worse than spoonfuls of sugar or honey. (I do like a heaping pile of lumps of brown sugar in my hot cereal.) Eating from a spoon made of sugar would mean sweetness & flavor in every bite, especially with a real cinnamon stick for a handle.

They’re still a bit expensive, but small batch candy often is. They’re not the kind of treat I’d buy often, but definitely a fun thing for guests or when you travel.

Related Candies

1. Bit-O-Honey
2. Jelly Belly: Lollibeans
3. Charleston Pralines
4. Hanahiyori - Green Tea White Chocolates
5. Hard Candy: Juntsuyu
6. Artisan Marshmallows: Plush Puffs

This week I’m going to try out the theme of “drinks & candy.”

I actually ordered this set of four boxes of Wine Filled Chocolates made by Bouquet of Fruits Vineyard from Wine Woot! I’ve seen them for sale before, way back around Christmas 2007.

I was a little grumbly because it took so long for them to arrive. I ordered them at the end of January, and though they said that they’d arrive by Valentines, I assumed they’d be shipped out within five days or so (like other items I’d ordered from Woot!). Instead they arrived on Thursday last week. My hope is that they were being made to order, so they’d be extra fresh.

The set is four boxes of 9 pieces each, 4.5 ounces. The flavor array is Champagne (Pink), Chardonnay (Brown), Cabernet (Magenta) & Port (Black). Each little sphere or chocolate is advertised to be filled with wine. All for $29.99 plus $5 delivery.

Champagne

The boxes are rather large for the amount of chocolate inside, however, since these are liquid filled, a bit of cushion is a good thing. Each chocolate is in a fluted cup, inside a slot in a plastic tray. The sides of the box have a bit of space around them and the whole thing is topped off with one of those cushioned waxed paper pieces. It’s all sealed in shrinkwrap, then a ribbon.

The ingredients are admirable. Chocolate, wine and vanilla. This really didn’t make sense to me, because the wine in the center always seemed very sweet & syrupy ... but I guess that’s the magic of wine filled chocolate.

The chocolate look rustic & hand rolled.

The chocolate shell is very sweet and melts readily, not quite oily but quite soft… but then there’s another shell underneath, a perfectly formed sphere that seems to have a seam. Aha!

That shell doesn’t taste quite the same as the outer shell, maybe a little darker.

Inside though is a syrup of white wine. I wouldn’t call it champagne, as I would assume that it’s not true champagne (from France) and it has no bubbles. It’s a sweet mixture, a lot like a dessert wine. Not quite to my liking, but I ate a few of them.

Chardonnay

Chardonnay is a rather varied white wine that can be bold or delicate and it can be pretty confusing because it’s such a common wine but can take on so many different profiles.

Let me just say before I go too much further that I am an excellent wine taster, but I don’t consider myself a wine aficionado. I can enjoy it and drink it several times a week but if I never had it again, I don’t think I’d miss it much. (On the whole I prefer spirits with botanicals or aromatic elements like Gin, Ouzo or Pastis, though again, I don’t really drink that often but when I do, that’s where I go.) So if you want to add to the info here that I’ve mentioned about each of these wines, feel free.

The Chardonnay filled Chocolates were the only white chocolate over the bunch, which was over the functional milk chocolate shell. The ingredients on these were wrong, it made no mention of the white chocolate, which caused me to doubt the accuracy of all of them. (I also started to suspect that perhaps the sugar from the chocolate shell leaches in, to form this syrup.)

These smelled quite milky and a little yeasty (in a good way). The wine center was tangy and fresh tasting like grapes - not quite snappy though.

Cabernet

Cabernet Sauvignon, as a red wine, has a lot tannins in it. So it can be quite striking and sometimes bitter, tart or dry (or all three) and takes on some wonderful oak & tobacco flavors. However, a lot of the bitterness of the tannins can be mellowed by fats when pairing with meals. So pairing it with a good dark chocolate actually makes a lot of sense.

As I went along in this process, I learned that the big charge here is either biting into the sphere and getting a burst of light, wine flavor or letting the whole thing melt until it’s an oozy puddle.

After a few of these I was starting to feel a bit full though (so I did this review over three sessions). I was comforted to see that each piece is about 107 calories - about 110 calories per ounce, which is much lower than most other boxed chocolates.

I was letting the chocolate melt for my tastings of the Cab, there was a definite “butter” taste for the Cabernet. The wine center was fruity but lacking a sort of dry bite that red wine offers when paired with chocolate. Of the three so far, this was definitely winning out.

Port

Port is a sweet, fortified red wine. While at first that sounds dreadful, it’s quite mellow and rich (usually fortified with brandy, not just any old distilled spirit like the long gone Ripple was). It’s sweeter than most wine’s but not quite as rich and complex (or alcohol laden) as something like brandy. It’s usually sipped from a snifter as a dessert wine.

Since Port contains more alcohol (about 19-20%), these actually carried more of the wine scent when I opened the box. (The others just smelled like chocolate.)

This was the most successful for me. The port was much more intense. There were dark brandy notes, woodsy flavors, a hit of alcohol of course and then the subtle notes of the mediocre chocolate shell.

The boxes are color coded, though there’s no actual key. The only place that the variety is indicated is on the little tag on the ribbon. Once you take the ribbon off it’s a guessing game. (The champagne & port were pretty easy to guess by color, but I kept getting the Chardonnay & Cabernet confused, especially since the Cabernet label never actually says Cab on it. )

Overall, the package was still a decent value. It’s over a pound of chocolates (18 ounces) delivered for $35. However, it’s Woot! so you never know when they’ll offer it again. (This is the second time I’ve seen it on there, which is why I ordered it. Thinking this review might be of value to someone in the future.)

It’s certainly a unique product, I’ve seen plenty of liquor filled chocolates and some ganaches flavored with wine, but I’ve never had another wine filled chocolate. I don’t think I’d want a whole box of them, but it might be fun as something to serve with a dessert cheese plate.

Related Candies

1. Michel Cluizel 99%
2. CocoaVino
3. Chuao Chocolatier
4. Choxie Champagne Truffles
5. Wine Gums

I have more candy than I will ever be able to review at my pace of 5-7 products a week. Here are a few items I’ve tasted recently and some notes on them (most gratuitous photos). So here are some small bites of a whole week’s worth of candy. Get ready to scroll!

I visited with Anne Hickey and the Plush Puffs’ crew when I was at the Fancy Food Show. At closing time they gave me a box of their Vanilla Bean Marshmallows. It’s new packaging for them, which I really like. It’s still spare and highlights the product well.

But what I liked best is that they’ve made the marshmallows a bit smaller. Now they’re 1” cubes instead of the larger version I tried several years ago. This means that when toasted the center gets molten before the outside catches on fire. (There are important physical laws that even marshmallows must obey.)

The box has been sitting next to my stove top and some evenings I’ll toast up two or three for dessert on the gas burner. It makes the house smell wonderful.

(Original review.)

I visited a few times with Seth Ellis Chocolatier while at the Fancy Food Show. They had a lovely array of samples, but for some reason I eschewed their truffles and became obsessed with their Candied Lemons.

It’ might be because they’re so beautiful.

Perhaps it’s because of this little nugget from their website, “We candy the freshest organic lemon slices slowly, over twenty-five days, using a traditional European method to preserve the intense lemon flavors.”

The box contains one full lemon slice plus and extra quarter. Special bonus, the packaging is made with wind power (well, that and some tree pulp).

The candying doesn’t make the peel as soft as some others, but then again, sometimes that makes them gummy and flavorless. This definitely has a bitter bite and because the pulp is also still there, it’s quite tangy. The dark chocolate is creamy and also has a woodsy bite to it.

(Website.)

I must have been obsessed with lemon and lemongrass at the Fancy Food Expo because the other item I knew I had to bring home was L’Estasi Dolce Sweet Ecstasy Lemongrass Ginger Truffles.

Lemongrass is a bit of a strange flavor. I love it in Thai cooking (hot & sour soup especially). It imparts the zesty notes of lemon peel, but it has a soft side to it as well, that I can only compare to bubble gum.

These nicely sized truffles are a real ganache made with lots of real cream.

The center is soft and silky with an immediate soft flavor of lemongrass. Then there’s the warming power of the ginger. The woodsy ginger flavors never come forward, it’s just that little burn in the background. This all combines well with the slight dairy flavor of the cream and the mellow dark chocolate.

One of the Fancy Food Show items I mentioned in my show notes was Rubicon Bakery.

They not only make all natural, wholesome products right here in the United States, their mission is to help people in need by giving job training, jobs placement assistance to work their way out of poverty.

The package pictured here is a mock up used for the distribution of the samples, the real thing is much nicer.

Their Strawberry CocoaBerries may put them on the map even without the amazing backstory.

They’re little meringue kisses, a little larger than a Hershey’s Kiss. The center is a crunchy fluffed egg white made flavorful by the addition of gobs of real freeze dried strawberries. To seal in the crispness, they’re dipped in bittersweet Guittard chocolate.

The freaky part about the whole combination is that it’s so tasty & satisfying yet so low in calories. They say that a serving of five is only 90 calories (about 100 calories per ounce, amazing for a chocolate product). So even if you ate a whole box of 15 bites, you’re still under the 300 mark of most king sized candy bars.

SFGate wrote about them last week too, those lucky dogs, it’s a local company for them.

Lest you think that everything is a rave and everything is from the Fancy Food Show, I thought I’d mention the Limited Edition Andes Mocha Mint Indulgence.

These candies have single-handedly caused me to swear off of all Andes products except for the original Creme de Menthe.

While I rail against mockolate, I recognize it has its place and there are a few products that I like and still eat that have it. (Goldenberg’s Peanut Chews & Hershey’s 5 Avenue.)

The Mocha Mint Indulgence is a freak product. I don’t even know what it is. The pieces are ugly (sorry, no photo of the interior, this is supposed to be a tantalizing post). Putty brown mockolate over a layer of mint green confection like the center of the regular Andes.

It smells like minted cardboard. The texture is like grainy wax. The flavor is like musty Christmas candles found in a drawer at an estate sale.

To close is something to restore our confidence in nuts: Ococoa Nut Butter Cups made right here in Los Angeles by Diana Malouf. I picked them up from her in person before Christmas but never go around to posting the review.

More than just gourmet peanut butter cups, these are tall cups filled with exotic nut butters & fruits. The flavor array is: Classic Peanut Butter, Pistachio Date, Sesame Fig, Hazelnut Chocolate, Almond Cherry, Cashew Apricot, Marzipan Truffle, Macadamia Guava, and Sunflower Honey.

The box is elegant and substantial.

The cups are about an inch high with a cute ruffle of chocolate around the collar and an inch in diameter at the top.

They were a bugger to photograph the interior, luckily their website has the fantastic and accurate cross sections that you can peruse. This one is Guava jam & macadamia nut butter. Probably the best experience I’ve had with macadamias & guava, which aren’t really my fave, but done very well here.

I was attracted most to the Sesame Fig, which I gobbled up after taking a photo. The sesame paste is combined with chocolate to create a sesame Nutella of sorts, though quite firm. Inside the center was a reservoir of fig jam. The toasted & grassy flavors of the sesame went well with the fresh & slightly tangy notes of the fig. Sunflower Honey was next on my hit list. Sunflower seeds have such a distinctive taste. This center was like a creamed honey with sunflower flavors.

Cashew Apricot was really decadent, as the apricot’s pine-notes were offset by the deep toasted butter flavors of the cashews. The hazelnut was also stellar, the freshness of the nut butter was so different from many other guianduias I have regularly. (I shared some others and didn’t take complete notes on the rest.)

Unlike many nut creations that rely on salt to bring the nut flavors forward, Ococoa lets the sweetness of the nuts come through. The only problem I had with these, if it could be called that, was the construction. The chocolate cap on the top was very thick, so biting the pieces in half wasn’t very easy. While I don’t think it’s imperative that all chocolates be dissected, it meant that there was always a larger reservoir of chocolate at the end when sometimes I really wanted to end on a nut note.

They’ll set you back $22 for a 9 piece box.

Candy Addict also had an excellent write up on these back in December.

Related Candies

1. Fling: Milk Chocolate, Dark Chocolate & Hazelnut
2. Andes Fall Harvest Mix
3. Candy Dump 2008 part 2
4. Caffarel Figs & Chestnuts (Fico & Castagna)
5. CocoaBella “World’s Best Box”
6. Jacques Torres
7. Chocolate Sunflower Seed Drops

Mars has definitely mucked around with new Starburst over the past few years. Luckily they don’t touch the original.

The newest item on the shelves is this Starburst Sour & Sweet mix. (It’s a little unclear if this replaces the Starburst Sour or not, but the actual words on the package are New flavors - Starburst Sour - Sour (6 chews) Sweet (6 chews).

The two sour flavors are Sour Watermelon & Sour Green Apple and two sweet flavors are Sweet Strawberry & Sweet Blue Raspberry.

Sour Watermelon - hot pink - this has an immediate sour bite that’s almost salty. The flavor other than that is the typical fake watermelon. It’s quite intense all the way to the end.

Sour Green Apple - acid green - quite tangy and juicy, there’s the plastic flavor of chemical green apple and just a little dash of apple juice flavor in there.

Sweet Strawberry - maroon - This was weird. I thought it was just a regular strawberry Starburst, but the flavor, maybe from being near the green apple, is much more artificial and less floral.

Sweet Blue Raspberry - cerulean blue - at first this seemed much too tangy to be called a “sweet” flavor, but then I ate a few more sours and it seemed a bit tamer after that. The raspberry flavor is mellow, a little jammy but not much in the floral notes.

The balance of sweet and sour was fun, especially since I don’t think I could eat a whole package at once. The sours seemed much more sour than the previous Starburst Sours I’ve had. I enjoy Starburst’s smooth chew and intense flavors. I think they could probably lighten up on the food coloring, seeing how they’re individually wrapped. But the flavor assortment was kind of boring, I’d love to see them really reach for some exotic, powerful flavors instead of these same retreads.

Starburst’s website is insanely annoying. It takes two minutes to load ... and then another two minutes once I clicked on “products” ... then clicking on nutritional info takes me to a Mars list of products (okay, no biggie, central databases are good) but I have to navigate that list AGAIN. It also doesn’t list this product specifically, it still has the old flavor array for the Starburst Sour on the Starburst site and not at all on the Mars site.

Starburst Sour still contain gelatin but are listed as Gluten Free on the package.

Related Candies

1. Eiffel BonBons
2. Starburst GummiBursts
3. Cinnamon Fire Twizzlers
4. Sour Extinguisher
5. Starburst Baja California & Tropical
6. Starburst Berries & Creme and Fruit & Creme
7. Starburst

I was more than pleased with the Q.Bel Crispy Wafer Bars that I reviewed last week.

The other half of Q.Bel Foods’ all natural candy line are their Wafer Rolls.

Unlike the bars, which are made in The Netherlands and not Kosher, the Wafer Rolls are Kosher and made in the United States.

They come in three companion varieties: Dark Chocolate Wafer Rolls, Milk Chocolate Wafer Rolls and Milk Chocolate Peanut Butter Wafer Rolls.

The packaging is a bit overly-protective and perhaps deceptive. 

There are two rolls in each package, which weigh .9 ounces total.

They come in a plastic wrap around a plastic tray. The tray does a good job of keeping the rolls in good shape. But I think if you’re going to position yourself as an all natural product, less packaging is a good idea. (Especially when your tagline is Be True - Be Honest - Be Good.)

I would suggest doing a sealed top on the tray with all the label on that and ditching the over-wrap. (Kind of like most yogurt got rid of the plastic lids and just went with a foil seal.)

The rolls are lovely to look at. A slender stick about .5 inches in diameter and 4.75 inches long, the enrobing is nicely rippled and usually has a matte shine to it. The sides were sometimes scuffed a bit from being tossed around in my bag inside the package.

I was, as you can imagine, most attracted to the Dark Chocolate Wafer Rolls.

The dark chocolate is quite dark looking though like the bar counterpart, did contain milk in the ingredients. Not that it would make any difference towards the non-dairy status of the bar. The wafer roll under the chocolate was crisp and flaky, with a light malty note, a bit of salt, it reminded me of a fresh waffle ice cream cone.

The chocolatey cream inside was also a dark and firm cream that melted pretty readily with the help of some palm kernel and coconut oils. It tasted a lot like a good cup of hot chocolate with some wafer cookies.

The portion size of two sticks means that the whole thing has only 120 calories. Even though a lot of them are from fat, the price tag alone should keep most folks who weren’t sent a whole box as samples from wolfing them down.

Rating: 8 out of 10

The Milk Chocolate Wafer Rolls looked a little different than their wafer bar counterpart, this time wrapped in blue instead of orange & red.

They smelled a bit more like milk and cereal with a little chocolate cake note to it.

The chocolate seemed a bit silkier and creamier than the dark version, but also much sweeter. The toasted-flavored wafer kept it from being too cloying.

Rating: 8 out of 10

The Milk Chocolate Peanut Butter Wafer Rolls smelled like fresh roasted peanut butter. (And I get to smell that often at the LA Farmers Market.)

The silky milk chocolate sets off the wafers, which seem even more flaky in this version than the others.

The peanut butter center on this tastes different than the wafer bar. The bar is sweet and sticky, a little oily. This is salty and pasty - just the right balance. The peanut butter is very strong with a slight bitterness to it, as it tastes very darkly roasted. (This version has 130 calories.)

Rating: 8 out of 10

Besides the packaging & price for the size (retail $1.39) I think these are a resounding success. They’re not unique, they remind me of Pirouline, except more decadent. Other products on the market that are similar are the Nestle Stixx, which I do like quite a bit but avoid because of all the hydrogenated oils in them. It might be nice to be able to get them in a large tray for entertaining. They’d be the perfect garnish for ice cream, sorbet or just an after-meal coffee.

Other reviews: Candy Addict just reviewed the whole line & Chocolate Blog also liked them.

Related Candies

1. Nestle Crunch Cappuccino Stixx
2. Butterfinger Stixx
3. KitKat Bitter & White
4. Nestle Crunch Dark Stixx
5. Milky Way Crispy Rolls
6. Paskesz Klik
7. Chocolate Pocky

Nestle has jumped on the caffeination bandwagon introducing their Limited Edition Butterfinger Buzz.

I got a hold of the king size version (I don’t know if it comes in the regular size) via Nestle’s PR company who offered me some samples. I’ve been looking for them for about a month, as the Butterfinger Buzz Facebook page says they should be available at 7-11 and Walgreen’s.

The name pretty much explains it all, it’s a Butterfinger with extra caffeine. The king size version is two smaller bars - 3.75 inches long & 1.85 ounces each (a regular bar is 2.12 ounces).

The package is a little confusing. It says with as much caffeine as the leading energy drink. The whole package has 80 mg of caffeine (the same as an 8 ounce Red Bull). But the recommended portion is one half of the package which nets you 40 mg of caffeine. 40 mg is about the same caffeine as 3 ounces of brewed coffee.

The little bars are less than attractive. The mockolate coating isn’t very chocolatey looking, it’s much lighter than most milk chocolate and has a chalky, matte appearance instead of a silky & shiny look. It does smell a bit like cocoa and peanut butter with a small whiff of Cap’n Crunch cereal.

The crunchy peanut butter candy center is rather different from the regular Butterfinger. First, it’s an unnatural red/orange color (thanks to Red 40!). It’s also denser. I’ve eaten three of these bars, just in case it was just that one bar that was a little off from the norm. The middle half of the bar is more like a hard candy than the flaky peanut butter crisp.

Other than the color & texture difference, I can also state that there is a definite bitter bite to this. (Who knows if it’s just the caffeine or and added contribution of the detestable red food coloring?) The bitterness lasts as a slight metallic aftertaste for several hours, at least for me. I don’t have this problem with coffee, which also has caffeine and can often be bitter, but will fade away after I’ve swallowed it.

I know these will likely generate lots of interest, especially from students, gamers and long-haul truck drivers. It is nice to have the option to get a little candy boost with some caffeine. This integration didn’t quite make the cut for me, though.

Mars introduced Snickers Charged around this time last year, which was 60 mg of caffeine as well as B vitamins & taurine.

Honestly, if Nestle wanted to impress me, they should make a gourmet Butterfinger, with some of their real Swiss chocolate. And I can have that with a cup of coffee and really a buzz going.

Related Candies

1. Butterfinger Buzz (Caffeinated)
2. Loud Truck Energy Gummies
3. Caffe Acapella - Coffee Confections
4. Butterfinger Stixx
5. Head-to-Head: Butterfinger vs. 5th Avenue
6. No Time & Black Black

Someday I may write a long(er) article about public relations, marketing and product launches. I have a few case studies. Well, not really case studies, perhaps they’re just essays where I make fun of PR. Mars’ new Fling would probably be at the top of the list.

(If you just want a review of the candy, skip down to the photos of the actual candy bars out of the package, because I’m gonna go on here for a while with liberal use of parentheticals.)

The Ranting about Marketing & Press Spin

Fling is a new candy bar being test marketed in Los Angeles. The tag line is naughty but not that naughty (tm).

It’s geared towards women, and even more specifically towards women with food issues.

But it’s packaged like tampons (the individual fingers sold in stand up boxes moreso), so maybe it gives women who are embarrassed to be seen with a chocolate bar a more discreet package to disguise it. (If I were a child or man searching through someone’s handbag for a snack, I’d certainly think at first glance that this was some sort of feminine hygiene product and not a sweet consumable.)

The press release that accompanied my single sample (yes, I requested samples since I hadn’t seen it in Los Angeles, yet and I was overnighted a huge box with a too-small tee-shirt, press release and one package of the milk chocolate ... no samples of the other flavors, which is pretty much what I do here, eat all the flavors and then provide oodles of description & photos) is filled with fascinating stuff that defies logic:

Can chocolate be a replacement for men? Not yet, but California women confess that they enjoy chocolate as much as passionate kissing (77% enjoy chocolate, 75% enjoy passionate kissing).

There was no accompanying Venn diagram to show me what the overlap of that was. Is that 75% that enjoy passionate kissing a subset of the 77% of all women that enjoy chocolate? (The footnotes did provide me with the information that these surveys were conducted in Los Angeles and San Francisco, so perhaps this is only the leanings of 500 California urban women who were willing to talk about items so personal?)

The only fact contained in the release that I think will be of interest to retailers is that “California women claim they are less likely to give up chocolate and splurging on clothes than other indulgent flings, such as drinking gourmet coffee, having girls’ night out and spa treatments.” So with the current economic situation, this product will thrive. I have to say, I am not these women! (I don’t drink gourmet coffee, I don’t have girls’ night out, spa treatments or splurge on clothes ... really the only thing that I fling my money at is chocolate.)

The other threats contained in the press release include a marketing campaign that will include innuendo-laden headlines. (Just when I was starting to recover from the Herbal Essence commercials - as long as they don’t become the GoDaddy of candy.) Oh, I could go on and on about the things that I found insulting about the press release. But hey, consumers don’t get to read it.

There’s a companion website as well, which actually contains information about what the product actually is (there is an accompanying fact sheet that does have some additional scant info with more marketing-speak).

We’ve broken the rules by creating FLING(tm) Chocolate, an un-regrettably indulgent premium chocolate. It is a delicate truffle sitting on a subtle crisp layer enrobed in shimmering chocolate that looks at glamorous as the woman it speaks to.

The marketing mentions that these are 85 calorie treats, but they’re sold in packages that are pairs. So each package, each serving size is 170 calories. They come in three flavor varieties: Milk Chocolate, Dark Chocolate and Hazelnut.

The Actual Candy Review

The Fling Milk Chocolate is meringue plank with a layer of chocolate cream covered in milk chocolate. The milk chocolate has an iridescent/pearly finish to it.

The marketing calls this premium chocolate, yet careful reading of the ingredients reveals that it has PGPR in it. Odd.

The fingers are rather like a Twix bar, about 4.25” long in a mostly half-round log. There are little squiggles that distinguish it from the Hazelnut variety.

They smell sweet and a little milky. The bite is quite nice. The meringue is crispy and has a very distinct crunch. It’s a very smooth meringue, not like a honeycomb. The vaguely sweet and toasted meringue is set off by the truffle cream, which is silky smooth and a little salty. The milk chocolate coating is a bit milkier than the rest of the bar and gives it a little malty punch and pulls it all together.

It’s a rather nice bar, wonderful blend of textures and delicate flavors. A bit on the sweet side for me when eaten alone, but with some strong tea or a cup of coffee, it’s a good break.

The Fling Dark Chocolate is meringue plank with a layer of chocolate cream covered in dark chocolate (which contains milk, milkfat and lactose) but no PGPR.

The iridescent coating on this was more noticeable and frankly, more disturbing to me. What is that stuff? Eyeshadow? Crushed gemstones? Powdered mussel shells?

The smell of this bar reminded me a lot of Dove Dark Chocolate. It has a woodsy and slightly acidic/milky scent to it.

Again, the snap of the bar was really refreshing. It releases a little waft of toasted marshmallow flavor from the meringue. The darker chocolate gives it a dry finish and a bitter bite towards the end, leaving me feeling a bit more satisfied.

The Fling Hazelnut is the same meringue plank with a layer of hazelnut-flavored chocolate cream covered in milk chocolate. (The zig zags are doubled on these.)

I thought this one was the most innovative. Hazelnut isn’t a common flavor in the United States for candy found in single packs at grocery & drug store checkouts, so they’ve found a unique selling proposition right there.

The bar smells like a flavored mocha drink. Sweet, with a toasted nut scent like hazelnut “flavor.”

The crisp bite still pleases me in this version, but the overly fake hazelnut flavor doesn’t do much for me. I would have preferred an actual giaunduia instead of the truffle cream, but I recognize that the coffee drink culture owns this hazelnut flavor thing.

There are a lot of things to like here. It’s a completely new style of bar, they’re really well made. The attention to detail is great (even the imprinting on the bottom of the bar is little flowers & swirlies like the package design).

I think the use of meringue, the mix of textures and the finger format is excellent - perfectly proportioned. It was crisp, it was creamy and overall, two bars was satisfying. The dark chocolate was my favorite of the three, but all were definitely good and different enough that I can see people having favorites.

The calories controls stuff is a little disingenuous (as most stuff regarding dieting and portion control is). The packages only hold 1.11 ounces. The caloric density is actually higher than most other candy bars on the market at 153 calories per ounce ... just a smaller portion. Twix, which is their own product and perhaps the target audience for this is only 140 calories per ounce, 3Musketeers is about 125, KitKat is about 150. The big difference here is that it doesn’t look small. (I think this was a similar hurdle with the 3 Musketeers Mint.)

To bring this back to my earlier assessment of the marketing and positioning of the product, I think it’s a huge error to launch this as its own product line. I think it should be part of the Dove products, which are already about indulgence (and strike me as less likely to alienate men) and have a recognizable package & logo design.

The other striking thing is that Fling is not new to planet Earth. It’s been around in Australia for two years. (Candy Addict had a review of it on its launch.) The packaging there was less feminine (no pink) and though still aimed at women it had a quirky campaign that used the tagline, forever is overrated. Here’s an animated commercial. (Thanks Sera!)

They’re only available in Los Angeles in stores right now, but if you’re convinced this will be your new secret love, you can order online.

UPDATE 2/15/2009: A couple of other blogs have picked up on this marketing campaigns & have commented on it. Read more views on Mother Jones (picks up on women with food issues) & Jezebel.

Related Candies

1. Trader Joe’s 100 Calorie Chocolate
2. Ferrero Prestige (Ferrero Garden)
3. 100 Calorie Packs - How Lazy Are We?
4. Twix PB
5. Candy Mash Ups - Marshmallows & Chocolate
6. Head-to-Head KitKat vs KitKat!

There are so many ways this review for Topp’s new Blue Razz Wazoo could start.

I could talk about the fact that this candy bar is unlike any other that I’ve ever tried.

I could talk about how it is the antithesis of most new candy bar launches: it has no extra fortification of vitamins or caffeine or omega3 fatty acids. There are no marketing tie ins, it’s barely even branded with the name of the company that puts it out. It’s not low in calories, it’s not made from 100% recycled plastic it’s not biodegradable.

I could talk about what I think a wazoo is (and dictionaries agree).

I could talk about the cultural references it brought to mind. Like Woody Allen’s Sleeper, in which his character finds out when he wakes up 200 years in the future that all the organic rice, wheat germ and tiger’s milk are inferior to steak, hot fudge and cream pies.

Mostly it made me think about the late George Carlin had a bit in his stand-up back in the 70s about blue food:

Why is there no blue food? I can’t find blue food - I can’t find the flavor of blue! I mean, green is lime; yellow is lemon; orange is orange; red is cherry; what’s blue? There’s no blue! Oh, they say, “Blueberries!” Uh-uh; blue on the vine, purple on the plate. There’s no blue food! Where is the blue food? We want the blue food! Probably bestows immortality! They’re keeping it from us! (source - watch clip)

Instead of all that, I’ll try to stay clinical.

The Blue Razz Wazoo is similar in format to a bar like 3 Musketeers, though a bit smaller. It clocks in at only 1.6 ounces and is about 4.5 inches long.

The structure is pretty easy to understand. Two layers of flavored chewy filling covered in a blue version of a white confectionery coating and then sprinkled with festive colored crunchies.

Those in cupcake circles may be more comfortable with the shocking appearance of this bar than I am. Unlike George Carlin, I usually suspect blue food is poison. (Because it’s made with poison!)

The bar smells like raspberry. It smells a lot. If you are looking for a way to freshen up your house and don’t want to splurge for an air freshener, pop down to 7-11 and pick up one of these. Put slices of the bar on saucers in every room in the house. The scent is actually rather nice, it has booth the floral perfume and the woodsy seed notes down pretty well.

The assortment of crunchies are fun, and they’re actually flavored too, a little tangy berry flavor to them. (The package says they’re made in Thailand, the rest of the bar is made in the USA.)

Biting into the bar, it’s a soft nougat texture with a tangy raspberry flavor to it. One layer is sweet and the other has the tart bite to it. It’s a little grainy towards the end of the chew, kind of like a fluffy AirHead. The blue confectionery coating is also flavored (or if it wasn’t when it was put on there, but the time it gets to the consumer, it’s been infiltrated by the plethora of raspberry).

Frankly, it’s not a bad bar. It’s funky looking and I can see that being a huge appeal to kids. The package design does portray the bar accurately. It’s certainly different, so I didn’t feel like it was a retread of other bars that have been around for ages.

So kudos for Topps for coming up with something original. I think the name is unfortunate. (Do they not have an internet connection at the Topps research and development facility? Or participate in English-speaking culture?) But then again, I never would have thought the Baby Bottle Pops would be such a huge sensation. I can’t see myself buying this again ... though I’ll be curious to see if other flavor variations come out.

UPDATE 3/20/2009:

Topps finally included the Wazoo on the website. They’ve also launched an advertising campaign. Here’s a commercial:

If you enjoyed that, or were freaked out by it, you might really like these outtakes from the commercial shoot.

For those having difficulty getting a hold of the candy, they may be a little hard to come by. According to one of my industry insiders, there have been some manufacturing difficulties that may interrupt shipping.

Sera of The Candy Enthusiast has a photo of the Wild Berriez version.

Related Candies

1. Topps Wild Berriez Wazoo
2. Big Bite Gummy Bear
3. Junior Fruit Cremes
4. 3 Musketeers Cherry & Raspberry
5. Bratz Candy Cosmetics
6. Gummi Lightning Bugs
7. Rolly Pop
8. Kinder Egg