I hear there’s this bunch of football (soccer) games going on halfway around the world. When I say hear, I mean, hear. Literally, there are people in my neighborhood of have been watching it live and I can hear it in my house.

Fini is a Spanish confectionery company who makes mostly sugar candies like gummis, jellies and novelty gumballs. These World Cup themed gumballs are shaped like a football and feature a flavored liquid filling. They’re just called Bubble Gum Football - Liquid Filled.

The package has just four pieces in it, but each is a good mouthful for chewing, not quite enough for adequate bubble blowing (which is probably preferable to vuvuzela blowing even if it means people will step in gum, they’ll still have their hearing).

Each piece is .75 inches in diameter. I’m accustomed to soccer balls that are black and white with a hexagonal pattern. These are white (well, pink) with a red (well, darker pink) concentric circle pattern.

The flavor, I believe, is strawberry. The gum part has a light sugar coating, but it’s only barely crunchy. The grainy sugar of the gum itself is overshadowed by the tangy berry goo in the center. It’s a nice combination and the chew is soft and pliable for quite a while. When all that fades the bubble blowing can begin, but by then I’ve lost interest and have to toss that piece in favor of a new one.

Since Wimbledon is around the corner I thought I’d include another more convincing faux sports ball gum that I got. This was a little Tennis Ball Bubble Gum. The gumball is the one on the left, the one on the right is an actual tennis ball. Even though it doesn’t have a coating of fluffy fuzz, the surface at first glance has that texture and a dead on match for the color. The Fini website shows that these are sold in tubs that look like something a Tennis Club would buy to feed the ball machine. I’m sure they’re also in bulk and seen in vending machines for a quarter.

Because the piece is so large at 1.25 inches in diameter, I couldn’t just pop it in my mouth and chew. It was more of a bite/gnaw in half and then chew item. The innards are not a goo (though that’s what their website shows), it’s a little pile of sour crystals. At first when I opened it, it was like a little confectionery geode.

The flavor is a mild lemon-lime, almost like a Mountain Dew but sometimes I thought it had a green apple note. The chew was fresh and soft, and it got even softer as I chewed it before the sugar dissipated and it became stiffer. The bubble blowing capabilities were okay, not the best I’ve ever had in a gumball, but passable. The flavor didn’t stick around very long, but my style of gum chewing is to discard it after the sugar is gone anyway.

These are adequate as gum, but probably more attractive as a novelty item. For less than a dollar I’d probably pick up the World Cup themed ones, just because they did seem like descent quality and a little special for the event. The tennis ones are just amazing to look at, and for decorative purposes alone they will get many customers.

Related Candies

1. Three Pink Bubble Gums
2. Plain and Fancy Laces
3. Bratz Candy Cosmetics
4. Gold Mine Gum
5. Terry’s Peppermint Orange
6. Sport Beans

Going to a wedding this month? Jordan Almonds used to be common as a wedding favor. These were pretty cheap ones I got at the drug store with thick shells (box here). They were very crunchy, more like chewing on rocks (which I enjoy).

Some treats are just a combination of existing treats. Take a pretzel stick, roll it in caramel and then dip it in chocolate & drizzle with more chocolate. These are Dip Sticks. (I never reviewed these because I ate them when I had a cold and can only comment on their texture, not the flavor.)

It’s National Candy Month, but it’s also summer. So what’s a candy lover to do when the weather turns against our sweet, sweet candy and melts it into sticky puddles?

There are a few summer-safe candies beyond the standard hard candy lollipop. Coconut bars are a great option because they provide a good bit of texture and flavor and a light tropical flavor that’s a change of pace from nuts.

The Blue Ribbon Neapolitan Coconut Bar is pretty simple. It’s a soft and moist coconut plank that comes in three flavors: strawberry, vanilla and chocolate. (Just like the ice cream.)

The bar is pretty big at 2.5 ounces and packs 320 calories, and being coconut that means that it has 75% of your daily allotment of saturated fat. That’s a lot of fat for a bar that doesn’t even have any dairy in it ... 150 calories from fat - and possibly vegan depending on how you feel about invert sugar.

The bar is pretty and easy to eat. The strips are neatly divided and the whole bar smells simply like sweet coconut.

The strawberry layer is lightly floral and strangely sweeter than the others. The pink coloring gives it a little weird metallic note, but I could ignore that as I rarely ate a bite of it without some of the adjacent vanilla.

The vanilla layer is just plain old coconut. It’s a little saltier than the center of a Mounds bar, not quite as moist, but not dry either.

The chocolate layer is kind of toasty with only a hint of cocoa flavor, kind of like chocolate graham crackers aren’t really very chocolatey. The salt here was really noticeable as well. It kept it from being too sweet, but I did have to note that there are 210 mg of sodium in the bar, more than I care for in a serving of my dessert or snack.

They travel very well, and even though it’s uncoated, it’s remarkably un-sticky and easy to eat. The instant boost of calories makes it a good meal replacement (though certainly not balanced). There are not fillers in there either (some bars have corn flakes in there). Not recommended for folks who don’t like coconut, of course.

Related Candies

1. Limited Edition M&Ms Coconut
2. Sunspire Coconut Bars
3. Atkinson’s Coconut Long Boys
4. Regional Flavors: Key Lime, Pina Colada & Huckleberries
5. K Chocolatier

Haribo makes dozens of kinds of candy usually in fanciful shapes. The Haribo Raspberries Gummi Candy are kind of the other end of the spectrum. They look just like the real thing. They’re the same size and approximate the shape and texture of real raspberries and blackberries very well.

The Raspberries are a popular item for wedding candy buffets because they’re elegant with their sharp red and black colors but also because they do well in summer heat.

Oddly enough, before buying this bag, I’d never had the Haribo version before. I’ve had the Jelly Belly Confections brand, but saw no reason to try anything else.

I picked up this “value bag” at Target. Value is mostly accurate, it’s a half a pound for $1.49 - which is pretty good for Haribo. This particular bag was made in Turkey, I know that Haribo varies depending on which of their global facilities the candies are made in.

They are cute and exquisitely formed. Each is made up of a soft clear gummi center covered with black or red large nonpareils. The nonpareils themselves aren’t particularly flavored, the pop is in the center.

I don’t think there’s supposed to be a difference between the two, but I sense one.

The Black Raspberries are lightly bitter, like smoke, on the tip of my tongue. The center is a mild and tangy raspberry jelly. It’s not really gummi but completely smooth with only a slight bouncy chew. It wasn’t a full-bodied jam flavor, just a light floral berry juice.

The Red Raspberries were actually more to my liking, though much sweeter. I wish the nonpareils weren’t quite so sweet or at least had a little more flavor to them. But at least the red ones didn’t taste weird to me. (Odd because the only food coloring mentioned on the package was Red 40, my nemesis, which I would have expected to ruin the red ones.)

Overall, they’re pretty and probably fun for decorating or display, but not enough pop for me to keep eating. I will note again that these were from Turkey, the ones made in the German factory may be much better.

Related Candies

1. Haribo Saure Dinosaurier
2. Heide Red Raspberry Dollars
3. Zachary Candy Corn & Jelly Pumpkins
4. Haribo Fizzy Cola
5. Jelly Belly - Full Line
6. Haribo Gummi Bears vs Trolli Gummi Bears