Hershey’s Miniatures were introduced in 1929. At that time the assortment was pretty much the same: Hershey’s Milk Chocolate, Krackel and Mr. Goodbar. (Though Hershey’s made a bar called Semi Sweet, the present iteration, a dark version didn’t find its way into the mix until the Special Dark came along.)

Hershey’s bills the mix as A little something for everyone (r).

I remember as a kid getting these in both my trick-or-treat haul and my Christmas stocking. They’re a great mix of candy because even though everyone has their favorites (and my rankings for them have changed over the years), even if you don’t like all of them it’s pretty easy to find someone to trade with.

Each piece is a nice size, two bites for those who prefer to savor or one big bite for those looking for a quick fix.

I wasn’t sure when I picked up the bag if they have a consistent mix, so I documented mine. It actually feels like a good proportion: 11 Hershey’s Milk Chocolate and 6 each of the Krackel, Mr. Goodbar and Special Dark.

This particular bag was 9.2 ounces, they’re available in a wide variety of sizes though and often in bulk bins at large grocery stores.

It’s hard to approach a Hershey’s Milk Chocolate bar without some sort of personal history. Those of us who have grown up on them know the flavor pretty well, though I don’t think most of us think much about it. Those who taste Hershey’s for the first time as adults though have expressed strong dislike for the taste and/or texture. All I can say is that it’s distinctive and they wouldn’t keep making it if someone didn’t like it well enough to keep buying it.

It has a sweet smell, a bit milky and dare I say, cheesy (feta) and milky. There are also notes of black pepper and caramel.

One of the nice things about the Miniatures is that the bar is thicker, so a bite (half the bar), is a nice mouthful that give more opportunity to revel in the flavors and textures. The milk chocolate is rather fudgy, not quite firm even a room temperature. It dents instead of chipping or flaking and is more likely to bend than snap. It’s a little grainy like a fudge, but the particle size is small. The flavors are strong, it’s sweet without burning the throat and has some mellow cocoa notes mixed with that inimitable tangy yogurt flavor of Hershey’s along with some toffee and maybe a touch of hazelnut.

I hate to sound like an old fart, but I think it was better before. I think something happened that it became grainier.

It sounds like I hate the stuff, but I don’t. I feel the same way about it as I do for things like Fritos, American cheese, grape soda and Fudgesicles. They’re really not that good, but I love them anyway.

All I can do is hope they don’t make it worse and give them a 6 out of 10.

The Special Dark bar was introduced in 1971. I always liked the packaging, but not the bar itself. It looked rich and sophisticated, which appealed to the part of me that yearned for status that could be bought for 20 cents at the corner shop. But to actually eat one as a child was akin to eating raw fish, I just didn’t have it in me. Yet.

Similar to the milk bar, this one also has a slightly soft snap.

It smells sweet, a little woodsy.

The texture is rather chalky and doesn’t melt into a creamy puddle in my mouth. Instead it just tastes sweet and more like hot cocoa made with water than real rich chocolate ... there’s a thin-ness to it all, probably because Hershey’s now uses milk fat.

There’s a dry finish with a slight metallic bite to it.

So while I’ve come to love and prefer dark chocolate, this is like eating cheap chocolate chips to me. A diversion while I wait for the better choice ... like those freshly baked chocolate chip cookies or a wonderful single origin Ocumare bar.

Rating: 4 out of 10

Mr. Goodbar was introduced in 1925. Later, during the depression, the bar was sold as “a tasty lunch” back when meal replacement bars were simply candy bars. (And it’s still not a bad idea if you get a really nutty bar.)

Even though the bars are smaller these days and don’t cost a nickel, it’s tempting to think that this bar is unchanged since Milton Hershey started producing it.

Sadly it’s not a war or a depression that’s change Mr. Goodbar. I can’t say what The Hershey Company is thinking these days but they’ve changed it. Mr. Goodbar is no longer a chocolate bar.

Instead he’s a silly oiled up shadow of what he used to be. The description of the bar was more recently peanuts in milk chocolate but is now just made with chocolate and peanuts.

The bar looks the same as ever. A milky, chocolatey sheen with little peanuts peeking through. It smells like deep roasted peanuts and sugar. (More like peanut brittle than a chocolate product.)

The flavor is overwhelmingly peanut. The peanuts are roasted dark too, so there’s a slight burnt taste to it that I think is meant to mask the nonexistent chocolate.

Yes, this mockolate is shallow and unimpressive. The texture isn’t all that different from the Milk Chocolate bar, but it has a different melt. It’s cool on the tongue. It’s actually salty (looking over the ingredients in the old recipe and the new, salt now appears).

For a mockolate bar, it’s quite passable. For a time tested icon it’s a travesty. I don’t care how depressed I am or the country might be, this is not a tasty lunch.

Rating: 4 out of 10.

Krackel, I’m told, is the last candy bar that Milton Hershey developed that still exists today.

It went through a few changes over the years, when introduced in 1938 it had nuts and crisped rice but by the late 40s it was a simple crisped rice and milk chocolate bar. (The packaging was also similar to the Mr. Goodbar, sporting a yellow stripe and brown instead of its present red.)

Today the bar is all but gone. The full size has been discontinued (2006), only the miniature remains. To add insult to injury, the bar isn’t crisped rice in milk chocolate, no, now it’s made with chocolate and crisped rice.

One of the things the Krackel bar has had going for it over the years, especially in the miniature size is the crisped rice. They’re big crisped rice pieces. Nestle Crunch has moved to some sort of BB-sized rice product that just doesn’t deliver the depth of crunch or the malty & salty taste.

The crisp is definitely there, the malty flavor peeks through. But the

mockolate, oh this isn’t even worthy of being wrapped up and called R.M. Palmer.

I’ve given away four of these little bars and asked people what they think to people who profess that the Krackel is their favorite in the miniatures assortment. I didn’t preface it with anything, yet they all recognized that this was terrible. Empty, vapid, lacking all chocolate flavor, no creamy component and no puddle of chocolate ooze melting so that all that’s left is the rice crisps.

I was curious how mock this mockolate was but I am simply unable to get the information out of Hershey’s. (Read more about that experience here.) It’s just disgusting that Hershey’s, the Great American Chocolate Bar company, is making this ... they should have just let this bar die a natural death than let it be zombified into this mess.

Rating: 1 out of 10

There is nothing to do but simply stop buying this deplorable product. 12 out of the 29 bars (41%) here are not even chocolate and yet I’m paying chocolate prices!

If you like the Hershey’s Milk Chocolate, I’d suggest getting just the snack sized bars, they’re a little bigger, but at least you don’t end up with any Krackels or Mr. Goodbars and you get more value for your money. (Unless you were looking for some individually wrapped & solidified cooking oils.)

Related Candies

1. Kissables (Reformulated)
2. American Value Chocolate Bars
3. The Shame of Some “Healthy” Candy
4. Whoppers Twosomes

Nestle made a big deal earlier this year with their American launch of their popular Mexican chocolate bar, Carlos V. The bar comes in two varieties, Milk Chocolate Style and Dark Chocolate Style.

I tried the Mexican import some years ago, back when it was just a milk chocolate bar and found it interesting, very milky and quite different from American or UK style chocolate.

What I found alarming about the new bars that Nestle’s is now selling in the US market is this nuevo dark chocolate style bar. Gotta wonder what the style of dark chocolate is. I’ve got to tip my hat to Nestle, dark chocolate style sounds much better than mockolate or chocolatey or chocolate flavored.

It reminds me of the Superfriends characters of Zan and Jayna when I was a kid. They’d activate their Wonder Twin Powers (tm), Zan would take the form of something made with water and Jayna would take the shape of an animal. See, they weren’t actually changing, Zan wouldn’t actually be a huge iceberg, he’d just be the shape of an iceberg with iceberg qualities but remain sentient and with the full power to change back. Same with Jayna, she’d become a sea eagle, but that wouldn’t mean that she’d suddenly lose her senses and eat Gleek.

So while I get that this is a bar that walks like a chocolate bar and talks like a chocolate bar, that doesn’t make it a chocolate bar.

The Nestle Carlos V Dark Knight is nicely packaged. The new version is full sized, 1.41 ounces instead of the old 3/4 of an ounce version. The bar is nicely domed and segmented.

The color is good though the snap is a bit soft.

As a chocolate style bar, it has a good amount of chocolate in it, the ingredients go like this:

Sugar, chocolate, cocoa butter, vegetable oils (palm, shea and/or illpe), lactose, milkfat and less than 1% soy lecithin, natural and artificial flavors.

So it’s not even vegan friendly (also it is made in a facility that processes peanuts and wheat products).

It smells like cocoa, sweet and kind of empty.

The taste is, well, similarly empty. It’s chocolatey, in the sense that it’s the flavor, but not much else qualifies it as such. It’s not creamy, it doesn’t really melt well though it is rather smooth once chewed up. But later there’s an aftertaste ... of vitamins. You know, those tasty large horsepills with a high B vitamin content. Oh, the aftertaste, kind of bitter and musty.

It has very little style, chocolate or otherwise, and it’s sad. The traditional Carlos V bar has also become milk chocolate style, Candy Snob reviewed the new version recently.

(No, I’m not even going to go into how cheesy I think naming the bar Dark Knight is.)

Related Candies

1. Kissables (Reformulated)
2. Bubu Lubu
3. Reese Hazelnut Creme
4. Palmer Hollow Chocolate Flavored Bunny
5. Sixlets & Limited Edition Dark Chocolate Flavored Sixlets
6. Peruvian Candies

After my stellar experience with the Look! bar last month, Christine suggested in the comments that it was like Charleston Chews.

Honestly, I’ve avoided Charleston Chews, mostly because they have the dreaded mockolate coating. I bought a bar once before and upon opening, it was apparent that it wasn’t fresh or maybe that’s the way they were supposed to look, so I opted not to review it.

However, at the Walgreen’s the other day they were having a sale on theater box candy. I really wanted some Good & Plenty, but the sale was 3 for $3.00 instead of $1.50 each, so I obviously bought three boxes of candy. (The other was Crows.)

Charleston Chews are named after the dance craze of the 20s. Introduced in 1922 by the Fox-Cross Candy Company they’ve changed hands a few times, manufactured by Warner-Lambert and then Nabisco before being picked up by the Tootsie company in the 90s. Tootsie understands a good taffy chew. The design of the box is classic, as are many Tootsie items. It conveys what to expect, some sort of small white bar of chew covered in a delicious chocolatey coating.

Though the box tells me that these are Vanilla, I know that the long bars come in other flavors including Chocolate and Strawberry. I’ve never seen those in the mini chew size. (Which is too bad, because I think it’d be fun to be able to buy a mixed box.)

This box was so much better than the first bar I had, so things were encouraging. First, it has a cellophane overwrap. Second, the Walgreen’s where I usually shop has pretty good control over their temperature. I’ve never been in there and found it to be sweltering (and there are plenty of other drug stores in Southern California that have that problem and I won’t buy chocolate candy there ... or even chocolatey candy.)

The mockolate coating is kind of chalky looking but I figured that was because of the friction of rattling around in the box. The coating is thin, but enough to usually contain the fluffed chew in the center.

They smell sweet, like vanilla candles. It’s soft enough to bite in half or simply chew up. It’s a smooth chew to the very end (not like Starbursts or Sugar Babies which both disintegrate into a grainy mess).

The flavor is pleasant, the fake chocolate contributes next to nothing here, not even a little cocoa pop. But the chew is enjoyable enough that I ate most of the box (but didn’t have access to much other candy as I’m traveling). As a movie treat, they’re easy to eat mindlessly.

However, having had the Look! bar, which is a chew covered in real chocolate, this is a silly waste of my time. But I still think I’ll try the Strawberry & Chocolate varieties at some point.

Rosa at ZOMG Candy also wasn’t thrilled with them.

These contain egg whites (and oodles of milk products) so are not suitable for vegans. Kosher.

Related Candies

1. Now & Later
2. Tootsie Rolls & Fruit Rolls
3. Bit-O-Honey
4. Eat-More
5. Doscher’s French Chew Taffy

Earlier this year I attended ExpoWest, a trade show which highlights natural products. It’s actually a great place to find candy, though most of the time the products were advocating what they put in them. There were candies with added vitamins, minerals others fortified with omega3 fatty acids, exotic gums & algae and still others made from completely raw ingredients or buying carbon offsets. Instead, Zootons are highlighting what they don’t put in them.

Zootons is a line of soft, chewy jelly candies that are organic and vegan. That’s it.

I know that many parents (and adult candy fans) can be frustrated with sweets that say they’re healthy but then fail to match the appeal of the unnatural counterparts that are so ubiquitous (and let’s face it, less expensive).

At first glance Zootons seem to narrow the gap. The packaging is kid friendly - black boxes that each have a different big-mouthed monster icon on them. They also have a little window that lets you see the candy. Inside the box are two sealed packages (50 grams each) which counts as a full serving.

While I hesitate to call them healthy, they’re certainly easy to add to a kids diet as a treat.

Organic Zootons Jellies

Cute little star shapes with a coating of coarse granulated sugar. They come in four flavors: strawberry (pink), pineapple (yellow), blackcurrant (dark red) and lemon (also yellow).

The distinction between the flavors wasn’t that significant. I was able to tell the pineapple and the blackcurrant from the others, but it all kind of blended together. They’re not terribly tangy, just sweet and fruity.

The texture is fun, the sugary coating gives them a little crunch and the smooth jelly center is moist.

Rating: 4 out of 10

Organic Zootons Sours

I was hoping the Sours would give me the pop that I was looking for in the Jellies.

The Sours come in strawberry, orange, raspberry and lemon. Again, not easy to tell apart visually.

These were much moister than the Jelly stars. The sour started with the sugary coating. Not super-tangy, just a little sizzle of flavor on the tongue.

The lemon was quite nice, not as zesty as I might have liked, but very authentic tasting, like a lemonade jelly. Strawberry was amazingly vivid, both fragrant and tangy, it was like an intense slice of strawberry jam. Raspberry felt very flavored and less like distilled fruits. But it was tingly-tart and satisfying.

These are quite a winner. They’re not too sour for littler kids, I think the only ones who would be disappointed are older kids who are obsessed with the tongue-blistering-super-dare sours.

Rating: 7 out of 10

Organic Zootons Gummies

This was where things went a little strange. I’m kind of a purist when it comes to using the word gummi. Gummis should have a jelling agent in them like gelatin or agar-agar. In this case, they do not have either of those. I was hoping there was some innovation or technique not evident in the ingredients that would give them that inimitable bouncy gummi texture that any child who has had the real thing will expect. Sadly, no. These are just fruit jellies.

The surface is a bit dry, but not covered in the granulated sugar like the other Jellies and Sours. They say they come in four flavors: pineapple, blackcurrant, orange and raspberry. Honestly, I had a hard time telling them apart visually. They were sweet and fruity, but not terribly tangy. Soft and quite moist once I bit into them, they did have a bit of a bounce. Of the set, I think they were my least favorite. Just not enough zip for me.

Rating: 4 out of 10

Organic Zootons Colas

This was the most exciting concept of the whole line. I’ve had organic jelly candies before (and have written about Surf Sweets). But so few companies - traditional or organic - make anything cola flavored. I just had to try these.

The little stars don’t look like much in the package, but take them out and they’re quite lovely. The dark amber is spot on correct for Cola.

The flavor is absolutely cola - it has that tangy, almost lemon flavor at first, then that ... whatever cola flavor is ... a bit of cinnamon a bit of rum and a bit of caramel. They’re not intense, none of the Zootons are, but they’re pleasant.

Rating: 6 out of 10

I’m not sure where these are being sold so far, but keep your eyes peeled if you have a picky kid or are trying to get only candies with natural colorings in them. They don’t wow me like some pate de fruits, but they’re not intended to ... it’s just a fun candy treat.

Candy Addict also did a taste test of these last month.

Related Candies

1. Fairhaven Candy Crumblz!
2. Super Sour Worms
3. Crispy Cat
4. St. Claire’s Organic Mints & Tarts
5. Pure Fun Candy Floss

You know what I love about Twizzlers? They call their licorice Twizzlers Licorice Twists. They don’t categorize it as a black licorice, which distinguishes it from the sad fruity red imitator. No, they just recognize that the word licorice is enough (and well, seeing the black twists in the package) to accurately describe this.

Twizzlers may not be innovative as a licorice twist product, but they’ve certainly been around for a while. Introduced in 1929, the Young & Smylie company was already around since 1849 making licorice flavored confections. Even as early as the 50s, licorice was considered a low-calorie alternative to other sugary treats. (Only about 30 calories per twist.)

Even if Twizzlers understands the classic appeal of licorice, it’s not that easy to find. I can find the Twizzlers Strawberry Twists in vending machines and convenience stores in a variety of sizes, including the bar of pull-apart twists. But the black stuff is hard to come by.

The twists are exceptionally shiny. They’re pliable, kind of like the plastic coating on copper wires, except of course that these bounce back.

The bite is pretty easy, and though they’re soft, they’re really not that easy to chew. They seem to get firmer as I tried to chew them up.

The flavor is only moderately licorice-y. It’s mellow and a bit woodsy, but lacks either a molasses & mineral complexity or even a pop of licorice or anise that lingers after swallowing.  It also leaves a filmy bit of stuff stuck to my molars. 

As drug store licorice goes, this is probably one of the least appealing I’ve had. I thought maybe I didn’t like it fresh, so I left the open bag out for a couple of days by a fan. It didn’t even get stale and it didn’t get better. It’s not horrible and I know it has its fans, but I’ve had this package for months and have actually had cravings for licorice but haven’t eaten it.

Related Candies

1. Black Licorice Twists & Snaps
2. Cinnamon Fire Twizzlers
3. Kookaburra Licorice
4. Twizzlers Rainbow Twists
5. Salted Licorices: Djungelvral and Dubbel Zout
6. Haribo Licorice Wheels

Now that I’ve covered the classic Twizzlers, the newish Rainbow Twizzlers and the fantastically hot Pull & Peel Cinnamon Fire Twizzlers, I thought I’d go off the beaten track and try the Twizzlers Chocolate Twists.

The package is actually pretty, a maroon colored background with a big window to peek in at the shiny brown ropes. A little logo splash advertises that they’re made with REAL Hershey’s Chocolate. Turning over the package, the ingredients do list both chocolate and two different kinds of cocoa.

I admit going into this that I have my doubts about how good these could possibly be.

They’re attractive. They’re also soft (and don’t get as stale as the regular Twizzlers when you leave the bag open next to a fan for several days as I did in the Candy Blog Labs over the weekend).

Instead of having pinched ends like Twizzlers, these are open ... perhaps with the addition of chocolate they’re not as pinchable?

They’re a much softer chew, less like a plastic dough than Twizzlers. More like a brownie batter.

But the chocolate flavor is watery, lacks any creamy component to buoy the fakeness of it.

The only thing these are good for ... actually they’re fantastic for ... is as straws. Chocolate milk, plain milk ... even soy milk! They don’t have the crimps in the end, so they’re ready to use, right out of the bag. They do get a little soggy if you leave them in the drink, but a little nibble off the end and you’re ready to go. (I tried them with coffee, actually, not as good.)

Think of the environment benefits! No more plastic drinking straws ... instead these are edible and probably biodegradable. (Though a lot more expensive, there were 14 straws in this package for $1.25 and $1.25 would probably get you a bag of 50-100 straws.)

So there you go, good for decorating (try clipping them with scissors to make little “cogs” to decorate cupcakes or maybe a really chocolatey cupcake basket.)

Related Candies

1. Twizzlers Chocolate Twists
2. Black Licorice Twists & Snaps
3. Whoppers Milkshake Strawberry
4. Kenny’s Licorice Pastels & Root Beer Twists
5. Tootsie Rolls & Fruit Rolls
6. Twerpz

Jelly Belly is always coming up with new flavors and themes. This spring it’s their new Ice Cream Parlor Mix inspired by Cold Stone Creamery. Cold Stone is known for their freezing plank of granite where they scoop & mix your custom mix of ingredients (or you can pick from their standard menu). An appropriate tie in with Jelly Belly that already produces an extensive list of “recipes” for combing beans.

As a mix, the list of flavors here is pretty short:

As a child (and young adult) I was known for being indecisive. So when presented with too many choices, I usually froze up and often opted for nothing at all, or worse, panicked and made a bad choice. I never had this problem at Baskin-Robbins, probably because even my less successful choices were still treats. (I think the worst flavor I ever had there was bubble gum, probably because frozen gum isn’t much fun ... and I ended up swallowing some.)

My favorite flavor was always Mint Chocolate Chip. The cool mint goes well with the smooth & chilly dairy fat and the little wafer bits of dark chocolate gave it an air of elegance. (My second favorite was Peanut Butter & Chocolate.)

While Baskin-Robbins has had a line of Smooth & Creamy Hard Candy made by Best Sweet for a while, I wasn’t terribly interested in some hard candies that approximated ice cream flavors, after all, there were very good candies that actually were many of those flavors. (A little too self-referential.) Enter their Soft Candy line.

The first thing that struck me when I opened the candy was how, well, packaged it was. Each end of the box has a “tamper evident” plastic seal.

Inside is a pink mylar pouch that holds the candy.

Inside that are the pieces, which are individually wrapped in folk.

I’m pretty sure one or more of those layers could be eliminated and still have a safe & fresh product.

The ingredients are pretty understandable: Sucrose, Corn Syrup, Coconut Oil, Corn Syrup Solids, Non-Dairy Dried Milk Powder, Glycerine, Natural and Artificial Flavors, Gum Arabic, Soy Lecithin, Flour, Salt, Blue #1 & Yellow #5.

The only curiosity on the list was Non-Dairy Dried Milk Powder and had to look it up ... it’s actually not milk, it’s some sort of other product, perhaps potato, perhaps rice, maybe soy. I’m guessing soy.

The little rectangles are wrapped in heavy foil. They’re about half the size of a Starburst fruit chew.

They smell like, well, creme de menthe soaked cardboard. It’s not that it’s an unappealing smell, though maybe I make it sound that way, it’s just that sometimes cocoa can smell a little musty.

The chew is soft, not terribly grainy but not as smooth as some others. It reminds me of Rolaids Soft Chews. The mint flavor is pretty strong, though lacking the creamy promise of ice cream. The cocoa comes in a bit later, and there are little bits in there, but it’s not quite the chocolate chips as promised. It starts to taste like stale cookies (Hydrox, not Oreos).

They’re not stellar. I don’t expect to finish the package. I’m still curious about the other flavor available - Strawberry, so I might pick those up when I see them in stores. I don’t know the retail price, but I’m guessing it won’t be more than $1.50. (The hard candies are often sold at dollar stores so these may end up there as well.)

Related Candies

1. Mint Crisp M&Ms (Indiana Jones)
2. Mentos Xtrm: Mint & Spearmint
3. 3 Musketeers Mint with Dark Chocolate
4. Skittles Fresh Mint
5. Necco Mint Julep
6. Chimes Ginger Chews