About a month ago we got a new dog. Since she’s a young dog she needs lots of exercise and my new ritual is to get up at 6 AM (I used to get up at 7:20AM) and taker her out for a two mile walk and several times a week stop at the dog park and let her play for a half an hour with other dogs. The relationship to candy? Well, losing an hour and a half of sleep and the addition of several miles of walking today (we walk in the evening too but I’m not losing sleep over that) is making me very tired.

Enter caffeine! Pocket Coffee is a chocolate covered espresso dollop. Three chocolates equals the caffeine in a single shot of espresso. Original review here. It’s a bit more expensive than plain espresso though, I paid $3.99 for a package of five pieces.

The idea of a dark chocolate KitKat Bar is nothing new. The new part right now might be that Hershey’s is introducing this KitKat Dark not as a limited edition item but as a regular product. (Though that is never a guarantee that it will continue to be produced.)

It follows on the coattails of Hershey’s introduction of the Dark Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup after also flirting with various limited edition releases. The construction is just as you’d suspect: a semi-sweet chocolate covered stack of chocolate-cream filled wafers all molded into a four finger bar.

Some folks who also spend an inordinate time not only eating candy but also reading about it may remember that the bar is one of Steve Almond’s obsessions mentioned in Candy Freak.

The package isn’t terribly exciting, it’s the same as the milk chocolate variety but instead of a beige swirl that says Crisp Wafers in Milk Chocolate it’s a bolder dark brown that says Dark and then followed by Crisp Wafers in Dark Chocolate. It may be hard to spot on store shelves if you didn’t know it was there.

It smells like sweet cocoa and cereal. The wafers are crisp and rather bland but provide and airiness to the candy. The cream center has a little bit of a greasy grain to it that I like so much that I often pry the planks apart with my teeth and lick it separately. The dark chocolate is quite sweet but has a woodsy and berry note to it that gives the candy a different flavor profile, it’s less about milk and more about cocoa. It wouldn’t call the quality great, but this is candy, not fine chocolate.

The ingredients don’t break out the difference between the chocolate coating and the wafers with cream, so it’s hard to tell what kind of chocolate is in there.

Sugar, chocolate, wheat flour, cocoa butter, palm kernel oil, cocoa processed with alkali, milk fat, contains 2% or less of lactose, soy lecithin, PGPR, yeast, salt, vanillin, sodium bicarbonate, milk.

Hershey’s brings these out as miniatures from time to time, I’ve picked them up around Halloween before (2007 & 2008) but the mini size has different chocolate ratios. For the most part when I want a dark KitKat I was buying this 100 Calorie KitKat Singles Dark version from Canada.

It’s hard to top the Japanese KitKat Bitter I had about three years ago which used actually good chocolate. But this is a nice change of pace if I couldn’t get the Q.bel Double Dark Wafer Bar.

Candy for Dinner has some good photos of all the various domestic KitKat versions including two introductions of the limited edition darks. For reviews of the UK version made by Nestle check out Jim’s Chocolate Mission and Chocablog.

Related Candies

1. Q.Bel Double Dark Chocolate Wafer Bar
2. Hershey’s Special Dark Pieces
3. Fling: Milk Chocolate, Dark Chocolate & Hazelnut
4. Ghirardelli Intense Dark
5. Dark Chocolate Peanut M&Ms
6. Ritter Darks
7. Twix Dark Chocolate

I picked up a few Haribo Cola Wheels at Mel & Rose a few weeks ago, mostly because I love cola but also because I love things that I can unroll.

A stack of fruity gummis shaped like butterflies.

Last year I found out that Hershey’s was moving the manufacture of their classic Miniatures mix to Mexico. It took me several weeks to find a bag of the new ones and a bag of the old, American made ones.

The big difference in the packaging is easy to spot. The American made version was mostly clear so the mixture was easy to see and the center of the package had the brand and product information. The new Mexican made version is yellow and extremely easy to spot on the shelf. It’s still consistent with Hershey’s branding, but now opaque so no way to tell if the bag was light or heavy on a particular variety you liked.

The packaging on the inside, the little paper-backed foil wrappers were absolutely identical.

Beyond the bag and the small notation that they were made in Mexico, it’s hard to say that there’s any difference at all. I bought both bags expecting to find that something substantial was different.

So let’s just consider this post a photo comparison, because I couldn’t detect any difference otherwise.

Now, I don’t know that much about Hershey’s and the manufacture of their actual chocolate any longer. A few years ago they stopped roasting their own beans and sub-contracted that out. So they don’t even make their chocolate from bean to bar any longer. Further, I don’t know if they actually make the chocolate in Mexico, or just melt and mold it there. My guess is that or something in between. The Hershey’s chocolate flavor is more milk than chocolate. According to this article from the Washington Post, Hershey’s Milk Chocolate is only 11% cocoa. The rest is sugar and milk. But it’s the milk that’s hard to duplicate, American milk does have a distinctive flavor. 

Hershey’s Milk Chocolate is sweet, soft, fudgy and a little grainy. It has a distinctive tang to it, rather like yogurt or even feta cheese on a bad day (it can give it an off smell, like spoiled milk or baby vomit). There are caramel notes to it, a little peppery bite. It’s more confection than chocolate.

No difference in texture, taste or appearance between Mexican and American

Hershey’s Special Dark is the newest bar of the bunch. Hershey’s has made semi-sweet chocolate since the early days, but the Special Dark wasn’t introduced until 1971.

The smell is woodsy and sweet with a little dash of burnt black coffee. The texture is a bit on the chalky side, not quite a dry finish but not mouth watering either. The cocoa butter doesn’t feel like it supports the chocolate flavors and there’s a fair bit of dairy oil in there, which tends to wash away flavor as far as I’m concerned. This could be a lot better, but probably never will be. The fact that it’s such a small piece is the only good thing about it.

No difference in texture, taste or appearance between Mexican and American

Hershey’s Krackel bar as a single product is no longer available. I’ve seen bags sold at the Hershey’s stores (at Hershey World and the Hershey’s stores at Times Square) that are just the Krackel miniatures. But they don’t just make a regular sized Krackel bar any longer.

It’s a great idea, and was probably even better in its original version which was crisped rice and nuts in milk chocolate. It was introduced a year after the Nestle Crunch bar, probably to be a little different, but somewhere along the way they were the same product but different makers. The Krackel bar as sold now is a mockolate product, made with chocolate adulterated with vegetable oils instead of all cocoa butter. The flavor suffers as does the texture and I have little interest in these any longer. They’re more chocolatey than something from R.M. Palmer but also far too expensive for the cheap product that they are. Sweet, cocoa-ish but with a nice crunch.

No difference in texture, taste or appearance between Mexican and American

Mr. Goodbar has also gone through some changes over the years. Once a fantastic and simple milk chocolate bar studded with oodles of fresh roasted peanuts, it’s become a sad imitation of that. (Literally, it’s imitation chocolate.)

Hershey’s moved to a more nutty flavor profile, which seems to involve the scent of burnt peanuts being incorporated right into the milk chocolate, which is then diluted by some extra vegetable oils. It’s bitter, now has too much salt and lacks a satisfying mouthfeel and the nuts always taste too darkly roasted for me.

No difference in texture, taste or appearance between Mexican and American

It’s a testament to the manufacturing facility in Mexico that they can absolutely duplicate the American versions that we’ve been eating for decades without any noticeable differences. So that gives me confidence about the factory there, that it’s the same standards that we expect.

I can’t say for sure that all Miniature Mixes are made in Mexico, but all the ones that I can find on store shelves in my area are ... but I’m closer to Monterrey, Mexico than Hershey, Pennsylvania, so it could be a regional thing. If you want to support American jobs then I say find a candy mix that is made in the USA. My biggest reason for not buying these is that they’re just not that good. Half the candy in the package is mockolate for chocolate prices. Read the whole package before buying if you care. I listed a few in the “related entries” that are also made in Mexico.

Related Candies

1. Wonka Fruit Marvels
2. Classic Gums: Black Jack, Clove, Beemans & Teaberry
3. Hershey’s Special Dark Miniatures
4. Hershey’s Miniatures
5. Now & Later
6. Yummy Earth Organic Pops
7. Short & Sweet: Butterfinger Jingles and Mint Miniatures