Candy Blog

I love getting candy from friends who travel. I love being surprised by candy that I didn’t even know existed. Finally, I love getting Mentos.

My friend Ernessa went to Belgium. While she brought me a wonderful box of Galler bonbons (we ate half the box after dinner on Saturday night, eschewing fresh peach pie for it), I was most excited about these: Mentos Fresh Cola.

It seems natural that a candy that’s become world famous for fountains made from putting the mints in diet soda bottles would eventually have an actual cola flavored version. (But strange that it’s not available in the United States.)

The wrapper has the familiar red color that many colas adopt for their packaging.

The pieces look a bit like fizzy cola. They’re light beige, but a little mottled, like there are bubbles.

The flavor is absolutely cola, a bit tangy like light lemon with a woodsy spice to it. It tastes fizzy, though that’s probably just my imagination. There’s a little spicy flavor in there, like cinnamon or nutmeg. It’s a bit sweeter than I’d like (but that’s kind of why I don’t drink soda anyway).

As I don’t drink soda, it’s nice to be able to get my cola flavor somewhere else. In a world of few cola options, these are a fantastic option. I think all that’s missing is the little dose of caffeine.

Related Candies

1. Barley Mint Mentos
2. Banana n Cream & Red Orange Mentos
3. Brach’s Soda Poppers
4. Mentos Fuji Apple
5. Soda Can Fizzy Candy
6. Jelly Belly Soda Pop Shoppe
7. Pink Grapefruit Mentos
8. Bottlecaps

A few months ago I reviewed Darrell Lea Soft Eating Liquorice from Australia. I enjoyed it quite a bit and now that the weather should be turning chillier (though we’ve had our ups and downs in Los Angeles lately), I was keen to try more chocolate covered licorice varieties.

The Kookaburra variety I tried used milk chocolate, the Darrell Lea Dark Chocolate Covered Liquorice is made with dark chocolate. (Well, it’s not vegan, as it does have butterfat in it.)

Anise and chocolate are a natural pairing, quite common in Italian and Greek confections but pretty rare here in the United States.

There are not a chocolate covered version of the Soft Eating variety I reviewed before. Instead these have artificial colors in them, which makes even less sense since it’s covered in chocolate. They’re also a bit thicker and have a twisted band to the shape.

The scent is nice, a mix of the woodsy and coffee notes of the chocolate and the mellow molasses and anise of the licorice.

The bite is soft and the chocolate melts easily. The overwhelming flavors are of molasses with those hints of sweet licorice, fennel and some cedar and spice notes. It’s not at all like the Indian curry and coriander I noticed with the Soft Eating variety.

Overall, even though these have the senseless addition of my nemesis Red 40 food coloring, it’s satisfying stuff. The price difference for the addition of chocolate is substantial. The regular bags are $2.99, the chocolate variety at Cost Plus World Market are $4.99.

Rating: 7 out of 10

I haven’t tried Darrell Lea’s fruit flavored licorices yet, but decided to try the Dark Chocolate Coated Strawberry Liquorice. Mostly because I like chocolate covered strawberries.

I also like the packages. They’re simple, but the striped color coding makes it pretty easy at a glance to tell which is which (and this is the fifth package of Darrell Lea I’ve had).

Like the Licorice, this strawberry variety is also not all-natural like the Soft Eating variety. But it’s still a generous 7 ounce bag with a clear expiration date, which I always appreciate.

I found these much more attractive than the black licorice counterparts. The pieces are slightly smaller, just narrower, but still have the little twist in them. The chocolate was glossier, but that could simply be attributed to handling.

The bag smelled like bubble gum and chocolate. Sweet and summery. The strawberry flavor of the licorice is mild with a good combination of the floral notes and the light tangy berry flavor. The chew is a bit stickier than the black variety, leading to some glops stuck to the sides of my molars.

The chocolate sets off the sweet elements well and melts smoothly to a creamy syrup to go with the strawberry chew. I liked it a lot more than I thought I would.

Rating: 7 out of 10

Related Candies

1. Mitchell’s Candies
2. Organic Finnska Soft Licorice
3. Dolfin: Anise and Red Pepper
4. Bassett’s Licorice Allsorts
5. Dutch Licorice
6. Panda Bars

Chocolate covered almonds. Ho hum, how many different version of them could there be? I mean, they’re just almonds and in this case, some dark chocolate.

I think chocolate covered almonds but great and probably don’t need to be mucked around with. However, it’s 2008 and it’s not an innovative product unless it contains evaporated cane juice or sea salt. But wait, Trader Joe’s has it all wrapped up here with Trader Joe’s Dark Chocolate Almonds made with Belgian chocolate and sprinkled with sea salt and turbinado sugar. Could they be more on top of trends? I think not!

What’s turbinado sugar? That’s the large crystal unfiltered stuff you’ve seen before, often sold as Sugar in the Raw or in the UK, it’s called demerara.

The effect of adding the two crystals to the chocolate coating is bumpiness. No more glossy ovules that look like olives. Instead they look like miniature Oak Galls.

They smell woodsy, a little astringent. I expected them to be messy like the cocoa rolled version of chocolate covered nuts, but these were mercifully neat, only bearing a scuffed appearance but not powdery residue.

Without the waxy glaze on the outside, the flavor and melt of the chocolate was readily accessible - and the chocolate was tasty and smooth.

The deep crunch of the nuts were balanced with the high pitched staccato interruptions of the salt and sugar crystals. Not knowing if that little nugget was going to be sweet or salty was kind of fun. But some nuts were extremely salty, to the point where the neighbors and I made faces from time to time. But it wasn’t so bad that we didn’t keep eating them.

I think I’ll probably stick to the plain ones from now on, the Russian Roulette is just to stressful, or if I need an additional salty pop, I’ll go for Sconza’s Toffee Almonds.

Related Candies

1. Trader Joe’s Dark Chocolate Covered Pretzel Bites
2. Short & Sweet: Fancy Food Bites
3. Trader Joe’s Dark Chocolate Sea Salt Caramels
4. Das French Salted Caramels
5. Charles Chocolates

Years ago, before the current rage of putting carbonated popping candy into chocolate, there was a Wonka bar called the Exploder. It was released in 1999, though I don’t recall seeing it until the Charlie and the Chocolate Factory movie was released in theaters. And then poof, it was gone before I even got to try it.

Flash forward about four years and suddenly chocolate and pop rocks are all the rage. And finally Wonka (part of Nestle) has gotten back into the act. Earlier this year they released Wonka Tinglerz which they bill as Poppin’ Tinglin’ Chocolate Candy or Chocolattos que revientan en tu boca.

The package doesn’t hold much, just an ounce, but comes at a pretty dear price of a normal sized candy bar. (I got mine for $.69 at KMart.)

I honestly just figured that these were chocolate covered pop rocks, just like the ones made by the Pop Rocks folks themselves.

Nope, Nestle Wonka-fied these and the result is pretty surprising.

Instead of just chocolate covered unflavored pop rocks, it’s a combination of pop rocks and crisped rice. So biting into the bits, it was a gamble as to whether they were going to bite back.

The flavor isn’t as stellar as I’d like though. The chocolate is sweet and waxy and tastes more like powdered hot cocoa mix than rich chocolate. But the malty flavors of the crisped rice and of course the blend of textures sets this apart from other candies.

Rating: 6 out of 10

Above, on the left are Wonka Tinglerz. On the right are Nestle Buncha Crunch. Obviously Buncha Crunch are bigger nuggets (though some were the same size).

Pretty different, not just in size.

Buncha Crunch came along after I’d already made my crisped rice affections be known. As I’d already decided that I didn’t like Nestle Crunch much any longer, trying Nestle’s movie bite version seemed silly.

So at least I get to approach this with an open mind!

The movie box was a pretty good deal at only a dollar and filled with 3.2 ounces.

The idea behind the candy is pretty simple, globs of crisped rice covered in milk chocolate. They’re irregular, some as large as hazelnuts, some as small as peas.

They smell milky and sweet, a little malty.

Biting into them, they’re less than crunchy. There’s a lot of chocolate in most of them, which is a disappointment for someone who is expecting bunches of crunches.

The texture of the chocolate is decent. There’s a little waxy glaze on the bits but the chocolate flavor is mostly sweet, kind of musty and empty.

I was hoping the crunches would offset the sweetness or have a little salty kick. I can see these being a nice antidote to popcorn, but that’s about it.

Crispy M&Ms were far better at this game.

Rating: 5 out of 10

Related Candies

1. Nestle Treasures 50% Cacao Dark Chocolate Truffle
2. Christopher Elbow: No. 6 - Dark Rocks
3. Nestle Crunch (Now Even Richer Milk Chocolate)
4. Pop Rocks Milk Chocolate Bar
5. Pop Rocks and Shoogy Boom
6. K Chocolatier
7. Wonka Bar

I picked up this Rally Bar at Hershey’s Chocolate World last month. The only place I know these are being sold is at the Hershey’s stores, as a few other candy bloggers have mentioned. (Hershey’s Insider, Jim’s Chocolate Mission & Sugar Hog.)

The Rally Bar was one of the few candy bars introduced by the Hershey’s company under its own brand name during the 70s. Sure, Hershey’s has plenty of chocolate bars with inclusions and they also have other candy bars like Almond Joy and Fifth Avenue but those were made by other companies that were later purchased by the Hershey’s corporation.

The Rally Bar wasn’t much of an innovation. It’s a nougat center with a coating of caramel, rolled in peanuts and then covered in a chocolatey coating.

I remember them existing when I was a kid, but I also recall them having a yellow, orange and red wrapper, not this generic white wrapper. The Rally isn’t quite extinct either, it’s found in some small enclaves around the world.

I was intrigued by the idea that Hershey’s would re-release nostalgic bars. Kind of like bringing back Good & Fruity.

The bar looks nice, it’s great to get a fresh candy product. Thought it wasn’t a real chocolate coating, it was glossy and smelled sweet and milky.

Biting into it, I got a feeling that this was familiar. The nougat center is a decent toasted vanilla flavor, the caramel around it didn’t do much for the flavor but adds a great texture and cements the peanuts to the bar. The nuts were well roasted and of the three bars I’ve eaten, only one had a bad nut. The mockolate coating is rather smooth, certainly less grainy that Hershey’s Milk Chocolate is these days and at least let the stars of the bar, the nougat and nuts come through.

After seeing them on Frances’ blog post though, I was pretty convinced that these were not really the Rally Bar, but just repackaged Oh Henry! bars as sold in Canada.

On the left is the Canadian Oh Henry and on the right is the Rally Bar.

They look rather similar. Each weighs 2.2 ounces (larger than most American bars). And Hershey’s no longer makes any of its candy in Canada, leading me to believe that they’re now made in the United States and exported. (Perhaps some Canadians could confirm this.) And they’re both mockolate.

The only appeal I see in this bar is the nostalgic value, whether you’re Canadian or American and remember it from the 70s. There are plenty of other bars that are remarkably similar and could probably serve the same role. Snickers, Chocolatey Avalanche Payday, Oh Henry (USA) and of course Baby Ruth. But I’ll finish the ones I picked up. No use letting them get stale.

Related Candies

1. Trader Joe’s Lumpy Bumpy Bar
2. Head to Head: Twisted vs Take 5
3. Payday Avalanches
4. Chocolate Payday
5. Pearson’s Buns