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July 2005

Friday, July 29, 2005

Coming Soon!

Yes, on Monday I’ll launch my first head-to-head review. I’ll take on the original gummi bears, Trolli and Haribo. I’ll tell you what flavor each color actually is and give you my assessment of which bear is best.

POSTED BY Cybele AT 2:44 pm     Head to HeadNews

Pop Rocks Dips

Name: Pop Rocks Dips
Brand: Pop Rocks
Place Purchased: Sample from CandyWarehouse.com
Price: $.95
Size: .63 oz
Calories per ounce: 100
Type: Sour


I’m old enough to remember Pop Rocks when they were first introduced (then made by General Foods which later dropped them). And I liked them then. I also liked to experiment with them. You know, what happens if you put them in soda? In milk? Will the dog eat them? What if you dry your tongue out by holding it in front of a fan for twenty minutes and then put the pop rocks on it? The variety as a child was endless. (I guess my mother never stressed that whole, “don’t play with your food thing.”)

This new iteration of Pop Rocks solves one of the issues of dispensing Pop Rocks for consumption. Before you’d either have to pour it into your mouth or out onto you hand and it’d invariably get sticky there. This packet of Pop Rocks includes a little rocket shaped lollipop (of the same flavor) for wetting in your mouth and dipping into the foil pack. The lolly itself is pretty good, not terribly sour or flavorful, but a good delivery device.

Pop Rocks themselves are interesting, probably a candy to be enjoyed in a group. Tart and crunchy with a good fizz. When I was a kid, I think the only flavors they came in were orange and grape. I liked the orange best. The rocks themselves are more like flakes (I’m not sure, but I thought they looked like little crisped rice kernels when I was a kid, but who knows).

If I have one tip for the packaging is to put the lolly in a separate package and make the Pop Rocks envelope a little smaller. It’s damn hard to get the little lolly into that big bag where the Pop Rocks only cover the bottom of it. Also, it’s been damn humid here lately, so if you open the package and don’t eat it right away, be sure to close it tightly, mine ended up being one big pop rock.

Good fun. Additional Info - How Do Pop Rocks Work?, Mikey from the Life Cereal Commercials and Pop Rocks, Super 70s Website and the unofficial Pop Rocks website.

Rating - 6 out of 10 (I might buy it again if they made orange)

POSTED BY Cybele AT 9:18 am     CandyReviewPop RocksCarbonatedHard Candy & Lollipops6-TemptingSpain

Thursday, July 28, 2005

Junior Caramels

Name: Junior Caramels
Brand: Tootsie
Place Purchased: 99 Cent Only Store
Price: $.99
Size: 4.5 oz
Type: Caramel

What took the Junior line so long to expand? Apparently they’ve been around for a while, but not everywhere (I guess they’re sold in Canada?).

Junior is currently owned by Tootsie Roll. Junior Mints have long been a favorite of mine. For the record, I like them equally as well as peppermint patties - their fillings are rather different with the only similarities being they’re both white and mint flavored.

Junior Caramels are just soft caramel balls about the size of a garbanzo bean in chocolate. What’s good about them is that the caramel is actually soft and chewy, unlike Milk Duds, which I think must be subsidized by the dental care industry because they’re probably designed for pulling out fillings. (Don’t get me wrong, I love Milk Duds ... especially since they started using real milk chocolate on them, but Milk Duds don’t love me.)

You can pop more than one in your mouth at a time. But they’re kind of fun to bite in half, too.

The caramel in the Junior Caramel doesn’t have that good burnt sugar/toffee taste that Milk Duds do, but they’re still a good chew. They’re sweet and need a little something to counter that. I’ve been eating this huge box with some raw almonds and pretzels, I’ve found it’s a good combo. I haven’t tried them yet at the movies, but I’d think that they’re the perfect movie candy because each one takes a while to chew and actually goes well with popcorn.

Rating - 6 out of 10

Other resources - find a rerun of this episode of Unwrapped to see them made!

POSTED BY Cybele AT 10:48 am     CandyReviewTootsieCaramelChocolate6-TemptingUnited States99 Cent Only Store

Wednesday, July 27, 2005

Japanese Black Sugar Candy Finds

One of the best things about this blog is finding out about completely new varieties of candies I’d never heard of. One of these is Japanese Black Sugar Candy. Known as kuro sato, black sugar is basically brown sugar/molasses.

True brown sugar is basically sugar made from the whole boiled cane instead of just the cane juice that keeps the molasses. Molasses and black sugar is high in potassium as well as traces of iron, calcium and even a little salt. The taste of black sugar is similar to muscovado and has a salty, smokey taste to it. In the States, most brown sugar that you buy in the grocery store is just white sugar that has a bit of molasses added back into it.

Some Japanese just eat nuggets of black sugar as a treat (similar to maple sugar candies or Mexican panela). In fact, I used to eat brown sugar right out of the box as a kid. I loved the flavor of it. Many doctors and pharmacists have for years used muscovado-type sugars for medicinal use, either as a base for cough remedies or added to make medicinal syrups.

The Japanese use the bold taste of kuro sato to full effect in a lot of candies. Most are hard candies which are either for eating or for use as cough drops (often with the addition of honey or menthol).

Here are a few I found:

Name: Kuro Ame
Brand: Kasugai
Place Purchased: Jbox
Price: $2.00
Size: 200 grams
Calories per ounce: unknown
Type: Hard Candy

from JBox - “A wonderful traditional Japanese hard candy, this is “Kuro-Ame” (Black Candy), a famous Japanese treat loved by everyone since the 1860’s. With a long history and a unique brown-sugar taste, this is a classical Japanese treat. One bag includes 22+ individual wrapped candies.”

Name: Pocket Black Sugar Throat Treatment Candy
Brand: Nobel
Place Purchased: Jbox
Price: $1.50
Size: 50 grams
Calories per ounce: unknown
Type: Hard Candy

In the tradition of a cough drop (similar to Ludens), this black sugar candy is packaged to carry easily in your pocket. Each piece is individually wrapped and has the distinctive taste of black sugar mellowed with a tinge of honey and menthol.

Name: Kasugai Honey & Black Sugar Candy
Brand: Kasugai
Place Purchased: Jbox
Price: $1.50
Size: 250 grams
Calories per ounce: unknown
Type: Hard Candy

Shaped like little gems, these black sugar hard candies are individually sealed and packed with a little silica gel pack to keep them dry. They have a very smooth, sweet taste because of the honey. Not as smokey tasting as the Kuro Ame made by the same company, these are probably a great one to carry as a little pick me up and throat soother. Of the three products I bought, this is the one that is already gone.

Ratings - Kuro Ame - 6 out of 10
Pocket Black Sugar Throat Treatment Candy - 7 out of 10
Kasugai Black Sugar & Honey - 8 out of 10

For more reading: Black food power, Sugar Cane - Okinawa’s Way of Life, Kokutoo - Black Sugar

Also - see previous review of Asahi Drops (I didn’t know what Japanese black sugar was when I reviewed them)

POSTED BY Cybele AT 9:32 am     CandyReviewKasugaiHard Candy & Lollipops6-Tempting7-Worth It8-TastyJapan

Tuesday, July 26, 2005

Starburst Sours

Name: Starburst Sours
Brand: Starburst (Mars)
Place Purchased: 99 Cent Only Store
Price: 33 cents
Size: 2.07 oz
Calories per ounce: 120
Type: Chew (Sour)

I love sour stuff, though I must admit that as I get older, I’m not really into the tortuous super-sours that I pursued as a kid. So, basically what I look for in a sour is something that gets my salivary glands to tingle, but also delivers flavor and hopefully doesn’t trash my tongue too bad.

The issue I run into with many of the more modern sours is that they’ve gone off and created rather chemical tasting candies. I’m kind of a fan of citrus sours, but the new sour flavors like green apple just taste like something I’d clean my windows with. The Starburst Sours are green apple, blue raspberry, cherry and watermelon. Now, I don’t think I’ve ever had a sour watermelon in my life, so that one was especially puzzling. But perhaps I should drop logic and reality from this review.

First flavor was watermelon. It’s got a nice sour bit to it without overwhelming the watermelon flavor. Green apple is chemical through and through. Very sour and creates (sorry to be gross) some pretty unpleasant burps for me. Blue Raspberry reminded me of blue highlighter pens (and a bit like those scented markers we also had as kids) - the flavor is just like what I’d expect for a red raspberry, but I think that’d be too many pink things in the package, so they made it blue. I think the most successful flavor in the package is the cherry one - though I’m not a big fan on the flavor cherry (mostly because I associate it with poison because the red dye #2 thing back in the 70s) but this has a lot of flavors within it. It’s got a good sour bite to it that goes on through the whole chew, a nice woodsy cherry flavor and then a sweet maraschino topnote.

On the whole, I think Starbursts are great. They were a great addition to the market when they first came out because they filled that hole - they’re chewy like taffy but not likely to pull out your fillings (or as a kid it seemed like I was always losing a tooth or a new one was growing in so taffy was pretty hard to eat). Starbursts have that great chew but are forgiving and not so rubbery as to pull on anything. Don’t get me wrong, they can get plenty stuck in your teeth, they’re just not taking your teeth out.

These are not a flavor pack that I’m likely to buy again (I really love the originals though and will continue to buy them or Skittles) but I appreciate the addition to the line for those that like artificial sours.

Rating - 7 out of 10

Related Candies

  1. Starburst Sours (New)
  2. Starburst Retro
  3. Starburst Baja California & Tropical
  4. Starburst Berries & Creme and Fruit & Creme
  5. Starburst
  6. Starburst Icy Bursts

POSTED BY Cybele AT 10:01 am     CandyReviewMarsChewsSourStarburst7-Worth ItUnited States99 Cent Only Store

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