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7-11Tuesday, July 14, 2015
Tic Tac Mixers: Peach LemonadeEarlier this year Ferrero announced an innovation in the world of Tic Tac. They were creating layered flavors in a new line called Tic Tac Mixers and their first introductions would be Peach Lemonade and Cherry Cola. Because they’re beverages. I wasn’t able to find the Cherry Cola but did see the Peach Lemonade at several locations and picked mine up at 7-11. The press release described, “Peach Lemonade flavor Tic Tac Mixers: change from a peach flavor to the sweet flavor of lemonade.” But the reality is that peaches are sweet and lemonade is tangy. If you’ve ever eaten a Yankee Candle Mango Peach Salsa Candle and thought, “That was unsatisfying.” You may find that this Tic Tac experience is preferable, but only slightly because this is actually meant to be eaten. The initial flavor is definitely candle-like. It’s peachy in the most fragrant and least-food-like way. Unlike the candles, these don’t smell like anything in the package, the scent is only release in the mouth. The sweet peach layer gives way to a tangy layer that I think is supposed to be lemonade, but still has a strong peach note ... it’s tart and has a lot of zest but that combined with the lightly pine notes of the peach makes it all a bit caustic. The more I ate of these, the more my mouth burned like I might have been eating bits of lye. The innovation of layering was definitely there, but I’ve always felt like Tic Tacs have a little layering to them. The standard peppermint has a bit of a fennel or anise on the outside and then peppermint inside. So doing a completely different flavor is cool ... but these are not the flavors I’m looking for. Strawberry Lemonade might be more up my alley. I have to admit that the flavor did linger for a long time. I felt, for at least half an hour that I had “candle fresh breath.” That’s a thing. Tic Tac Mixers are made in Canada. Related Candies
POSTED BY Cybele AT 3:33 pm Candy • Review • Ferrero • Compressed Dextrose • 5-Pleasant • Canada • 7-11 • Wednesday, January 21, 2015
Skittles OrchardsIn the world of grouped things there are litters (kittens & puppies), packs (mules), troops (monkeys), prides (lions), passels (pigs), pods (whales & dolphins), scurries (squirrels), hives (bees) and orchards (fruit trees). So, Wrigley’s new variety mix is simply called Skittles Orchards since it contains Orange, Red Apple, Lime, Peach and Cherry flavors. Right off the bat, I knew this wouldn’t have anything berry or pineapple ... The package is a rich green color, so it was easy to spot on the shelf at the 7-11. Red Apple is different from the new green apple that appears in the Original Fruits variety. It’s not as sour and has a more juice and peel type flavor that you might get from cider instead of a Jolly Rancher candy. The Red Apple flavor is the lighter of the two red colors in this mix ...why they couldn’t make it some other shade of red, I’m not certain because I kept getting it confused with the cherry at first glance. Lime is, well, classic. It’s a little tart but mostly has the sweet and zesty notes of lime peel. I missed it. Orange is rather sedate. There are a lot of juice flavors but it lacks a more powerful zest note that the lime has. This was an opportunity for Wrigley’s to put in something like Mandarin Orange or Tangerine ... instead they just threw in a flavor they already make. Cherry is the darker red and I’m sure that lovers of the Starburst cherry are going to go nuts for this package of Skittles. I can’t tell if it’s actually different from the Wild Cherry that comes in the Wild Berry Skittles mix, but it is nice to see them putting Cherry into another mix. Peach is disappointing, though I actually liked it. It’s a little tangy and has an immediate sort of balsam note to it, but it lacks that peachness. There more like a vague tropical punch flavor, which isn’t a bad thing. As far as combining the flavors. Of course Orange and Lime went together, and Cherry and Lime went together. Peach and Orange were okay, but not stellar. And of course Red Apple was like the new Green Apple in the Fruits mix ... it just doesn’t combine well with anything but itself. There’s nothing innovative about this packet of Skittles, but then again, that’s not what folks want. If that’s what they wanted, varieties like Chocolate Mix and Fizzl’d Fruits would have survived. Instead this mix delivers solid contenders for “I enjoy this flavor” though nothing that would scream, “I love this flavor.” That’s probably enough in the Skittles world where it’s about the variety, it’s all about the rainbow, it’s never about one color. I don’t think this version will survive long, Wrigley’s will move on to another mix up of other tried and true flavors that it’s done before within 18 months. Just to clarify, there are at least 60 flavors that have been released in the US flavor mixes before. Here’s the list that I have (in alphabetical order): Banana Berry, Berry Punch, Blood Orange, Blue Raspberry-Lemon, Blueberry Tart, Brownie Batter, Bubble Gum, Candy Apple, Caramel Ripple, Cherry Tropicolada, Cherry-Lemonade, Chocolate, Chocolate Caramel, Chocolate Pudding, Cool Mint, Cotton Candy, Dark Berry, Forbidden Fruit, Grape, Green Apple, Green Slushy, Key Lime Pie, Kiwi Lime, Lemon, Lemon Berry, Lime, Mango Lemonade Freeze, Mango Tangelo, Mango-Peach, Melon Berry Burst, Midnight Lime, Mixed Berry, Orange, Orange Creme, Orange Mango, Peach Pear, Peppermint , Pineapple Passionfruit, Pomegranate, Punch, Raspberry, Raspberry Sorbet, Red Licorice, S’More, Sour Grape, Sour Green Apple, Sour Lemon, Sour Orange, Sour Strawberry, Spearmint, Strawberry, Strawberry Banana, Strawberry Lime Burst, Strawberry Milkshake, Strawberry Starfruit, Strawberry-Watermelon, Sweet Mint, Vanilla, Vanilla Swirl, Watermelon, Watermelon Green Apple Freeze, Wild Cherry, Wintergreen. Related Candies
POSTED BY Cybele AT 2:50 pm Candy • Review • Skittles • Mars • Wrigley's • Chews • 6-Tempting • United States • 7-11 • Tuesday, May 27, 2014
York Peppermint Pattie MinisHershey’s won the The Most Innovative New Product Award at the 2014 Sweets & Snacks Expo last week for their new York Peppermint Pattie Minis. This innovative new product innovatively reduced the size of a regular York Peppermint Pattie to the diameter of a penny. Hershey’s previously used this innovative innovation to shrink the size of their Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, KitKat and Rolo. It’s a stunning development in the world of confections ... duplicated only by the recent innovations by Mars (with their Bites format of Snickers, Milky Way, Simply Caramel, 3 Musketeers and Twix) and Wrigley’s (Starburst Minis). The morselization world is actually quite busy and crowded. It’s not Hershey’s fault that they were declared innovative (well, they probably entered the product in that category). The point is that there is an new, unwrapped version of York Peppermint Patties. The package is simple, though it’s King Size bag holding 2.5 ounces, it was still listed as 1 portion on the nutrition panel and had no front of package tally of the calories and serving. Even though it’s a massive amount of candy, because it’s almost all sugar, it’s pretty low in calories: 260. The pieces are really just tiny peppermint patties, a fraction of the size of the small snack sized versions, which are the preferred size for me. In the case of these, the ratios are particularly nice, as there’s just slightly more consistent distribution of chocolate in each bite ... because each piece is a bite. The chocolate is quite bitter, and though it’s not particularly creamy, it sets off the sweet and soft fondant well. It’s not innovative, but it is successful. The texture difference from Junior Mints is notable. Junior Mints have a runnier center, a thicker chocolate shell and a light waxy glaze that keeps it from melting right away. Like the other sizes of York Peppermint Patties, the Minis are made in Mexico. There is no notation on the traceability of the cacao for the coating. York Peppermint Patties contain egg whites, soy and milk. There’s nothing on the package about gluten or nuts/peanuts, but the AskHershey.com website specifically says that York Minis are not gluten free. Related Candies
Friday, March 21, 2014
3 Musketeers BitesWe’re almost through Mars complete morselization of their candy bar line. The latest release is the 3 Musketeers Unwrapped Bites (the final piece will be Twix later this year). The bites are exactly what you’d think from the name, unwrapped little cubes of 3 Musketeers nougat filling covered in milk chocolate and tossed in a bag. I’ve observed this with past reviews of the Bites line for Mars: I’m disappointed with the look of the products. It’s tough, because the packaging means that the pieces are tossed around for months and miles and get scuffed. I’m sure when they come off the line at the factory they’re exquisitely cute. But the chalky look is a bit of a turnoff for me, I don’t want to dump these in a bowl and admire then like I usually do with chocolates that come in little pieces. They’re quite consistent little cubes, with fewer cracking and oozing problems than the Milky Way Simple Caramel Unwrapped Bites. There were also more pieces in the package. There were about 16 Simply Caramel Bites while the 3 Musketeers Bites package had 24 ... that’s all because of the airy nature of the nougat filling. The bites smell malty, though also a little like plastic. They’re light, definitely not as dense as other candies would be for their size. I really liked the Milky Way Bites, so I had high hopes for the 3 Musketeers. The bite is soft, as the center is fluffy. The chocolate melts well, though doesn’t have much more than a vague cocoa flavor. The center is mostly a fake vanilla with a hint of salt. I didn’t get much in the way of malt from it though the texture is quite nice. There’s only a slight hint of grain from time to time. Overall, it’s just really sweet without much of a definitive flavor profile. Mars has gone back and forth on the 3 Musketeers filling flavor over the years, tweaking it here and there, to the point where I’m not sure which version this is, but I know I don’t care for it. These might be good when combined with something, or perhaps frozen. I’ll stick to the Snickers version. Related Candies
POSTED BY Cybele AT 1:46 pm Candy • Morselization • Review • Mars • Chocolate • Kosher • Nougat • 7-Worth It • United States • 7-11 • Wednesday, February 19, 2014
Milky Way Simply Caramel BitesMars has been morselizing its candy bar line over the past couple of years. The new Milky Way Simply Caramel Unwrapped Bites are in the latest in the introduction cycle. They’re just little unwrapped cube versions of the Milky Way Simply Caramel bar, served up in a bag for easy dispensing. I picked mine up at 7-11, which had a sale on their Mars Bites, the Sharing Size were 2 packages for $3.00. (I bought a Powerball for the Wednesday $400M drawing as well, bringing my tally to an exact $5. Yes, I’m aware that my odds are 1 in 175,223,510 of winning.) The bag holds 15 little cubes. That’s two servings, as this is a Sharing Size. So each serving is 7 or 8 cubes which comes to 190 calories. If you’re trying to moderate yourself, four would be 100 calories but trip up and eat the whole bag by accident, you’re looking at 380. Mars has always made beautiful candy bars. (See this photo for evidence.) The new bites line, though, suffers from the packaging style. The little candies are not sealed like panned candies so they get scuffed and dented in the bag together. The pieces are well formed, they’re cubes but most have little “feet” where the chocolate pooled. They’re rather milky smelling, it’s a sort of cereal and milk note. The chew is soft, the caramel is very smooth though it doesn’t have the taffy-like toughness that I enjoy in my caramel, it does have good toffee and toasted sugar notes. The chocolate is passable, it’s sweet and has a lot of dairy flavors, but it’s not exceptionally chocolatey. (A dark version of these someday might be nice, but if I want that, I’ll probably just have some Marich.) Overall, I was very pleased with these. They’re easily poppable, satisfying in the sense that the textures and flavors were better than I expected. I didn’t want to eat the whole bag in one sitting, but I did finish it in three days. I can imagine that the packaging won’t do well in the summer months, and forget it if these get smashed a bit, because you’d be in for a huge mess inside the bag. They’d be easy to mix in with other things (like a Chex Mix for a really sweet & salty combo) or as an ice cream topper. Related Candies
Wednesday, June 26, 2013
Airheads BitesIt seems like most of the new products I’ve been reviewing are new morsel versions of existing items. (I’m still trying to get the trademark of Morselization.) Today I have Airheads Bites from Perfetti Van Melle. The category of candy known as Airheads has always been a bit of a curiosity for me. If you’ve never had them, they’re small, flat bars of tangy chew. They’re not taffy or a chew in the same sense as Starburst or Mentos. One of the main constituents is dextrose, which is the same stuff you find in SweeTarts. They really are just soft, chewy SweeTarts. They come in watermelon, blue raspberry, cherry, orange, and lemon. The ingredients are interesting:
I had to wonder, after looking at them, what makes them different from Skittles or Starburst? Well, they just are. The pieces are rounded and rather flat, so they don’t roll around. The coating is shiny but more like a jelly bean’s grainy sugar coating that’s polished than the crunchy sugar shell of a Skittle. The real difference here is the center. It’s pure Airhead. The chew is stiff and grainy but immediately flavorful. Orange is sweet at first then very tangy and descends into a pleasant and consistent grain before dissolving quickly. Watermelon is green and quite vibrant. Again, it starts sweet and then gets tart and slightly more artificial. They all dissolve away very quickly. Blue Raspberry starts very floral and doesn’t get as sour as they others, but is more like a bubble gum flavor. Lemon is yellow and is weird at first, with a strong household cleaner note that then becomes a rather standard lemonade mix flavor. Cherry is quite normal and reminded me a lot of Life Savers. It reminded me that I’m getting to like cherry more than I did 10 years ago. Overall, they are tasty little bits and far easier to eat than the ordinary Airheads bars. I liked the flavor diversity in the single package. I found mine at 7-11, so they’re out in stores now. They come in another version called Airheads Bites Berry. I was sorry to see that these were not for vegetarians (gelatin). I was also a little surprised to see that they’re made in China, as the factory for Airheads is in Kentucky. Maybe they’re just trying out the product and will make them locally if they’re a hit. There was also no mention of allergens on the label, so I don’t know about gluten for those concerned. Related Candies
POSTED BY Cybele AT 2:02 pm Candy • Morselization • Review • Perfetti van Melle • Chews • 6-Tempting • China • 7-11 • Thursday, June 14, 2012
Starburst Sweet FiestaStarburst come in a myriad of flavor packs these days. I picked up a few of the less common flavors at some convenience stores recently. The Starburst Sweet Fiesta has been out for a few years. At first I thought it was a limited edition version, but it appears to be a regular item. The package contains four different flavors, each is a combo flavor all based on a sort of tropical and sub-tropical flavors. It has Cherry mango, peach guava, strawberry pineapple and melon berry, with three of each flavor in the 2.07 ounce pack. Strawberry Pineapple is pink and delightful. It’s sweet and tangy with floral notes that are close to honey and then something a little deeper and more heady. Melon Berry is bright green. It’s quite melon, a cross between watermelon and musk melon, but there’s a strong sort of papaya note to it. It’s too musky for me, to tropical. Peach Guava is peachy. It smells like coconut and has a peachy, apricot note at first. The guava is not terribly strong, which is fine with me because I’m not that keen on guava, it’s almost like passion fruit. Cherry Mango is red. It smelled like the regular Cherry Starburst at first, but the flavor is quite a bit better. It’s cherry, with all those woodsy flavors, but there’s a pine and peach note to it that’s quite good. I’m not usually a fan of cherry, but I like how Starburst does them for the most part, and this is a good example. Overall, this flavor set is different enough from the standard Starbust Fruits but I don’t feel like it completely breaks out of the show of the perfection of the original. If you’re the type of candy fan that hates citrus, this is a good mix, as it has none, which is pretty rare. I love the pineapple, but I’m not big on melon, so I’d probably give this a pass in the future as a whole pack, but if I can just pick out the Strawberry Pineapple and share the rest, it’s all systems go. Related Candies
POSTED BY Cybele AT 9:56 am Candy • Review • Mars • Wrigley's • Chews • Starburst • 7-Worth It • United States • 7-11 • Monday, January 9, 2012
Angry Birds Fruit GummiesAngry Birds Fruit Gummies were introduced late last year to tie into the popular video game of the same name. They’re made by a company called Healthy Food Brands which says on the front of the box that these are made with Real Fruit Juice, in addition to Natural and Artificial Flavors (plus a heaping helping of artificial colors). They come in a theater style box. There are four “collector editions” of the box, each themed for a different main character of the game: Red, Yellow, Green and the Blue, which I chose. The box is 7 inches long, 4.25 inches wide and .75 inches deep. The interior white packet is 5.5” long, 4 inches wide and the .33 inch thickness is that of the gummis themselves when they’re spread out (and don’t even fill the bag). So, it’s what I’d call a big box for a small amount of candy. There are 3.5 ounces in the box and I paid $1.69. Of course I bought them at 7-11, which is very expensive for candy. But still, it’s a poor value for sugar candy. Other sugar candy movie theater boxes give you at least 6 ounces for the same price (Dots, Mike and Ike, Hot Tamales, etc.). Chocolate candy is the only exception to that, but I expect there to be a price difference for nuts or chocolate, not licensed shapes. Each flavor is a different color and a different character. They’re bright and soft and bouncy. They’re not terribly greasy, but do have a little waxy coating to keep them from sticking. They’re rather small and mostly round - a little less than 3/4 of an inch in diameter. Cherry (red): The Red Bird - it’s cherry. It’s soft and has a strong chemical flavor to it, not very well rounded and has a slight apple juice note to it (but the fruit juice concentrate used is white grape). Basically, these are serviceable but hardly improve upon other gummies out there. They’re expensive with the only thing to really recommend them, aside from the nicely designed box is the fact that they’re gluten free and nut free (if those are things you’re interested in). They’re made in Mexico. My suggestion? Buy one box, you know, for the box, and then keep refilling it with something better. I suggest Albanese Gummi Bears, or any of the cute shapes they also come in like butterflies, army men, worms or flowers. Those are made in the USA, come in really great flavors and cost half as much. Check out Jess’ review on Foodette Reviews. Related Candies
POSTED BY Cybele AT 12:52 pm Candy • Review • Healthy Food Brands • Gummi Candy • 5-Pleasant • Mexico • 7-11 • |
Meticulously photographed and documented reviews of candy from around the world. And the occasional other sweet adventures. Open your mouth, expand your mind.
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