Jelly Belly is introducing a new product to their Confections line. Not quite a jelly bean and not quite a gummi bear, these are Licorice Bears. I previewed these little guys at the Fancy Food Show in January but it was nice to have more than three to give them a real taste drive.
These sassy, spicy and soft bears aren’t quite like black vine licorice either. The texture is rather like a smooth gumdrop. They’re made with corn syrup and a potato starch base, which makes them softer on the tongue and easier to dissolve than a wheat & molasses based vine. (All that ingredient talk really takes the magic out of it, doesn’t it?) The natural and artificially flavored bears are super sweet but have a nice woodsy and clear licorice/anise flavor to them.
The size and shape is rather close to the Haribo bears I’m so fond of.
I would find these irresistible in a bowl or jar in front of me. The bag I got as a preview sample from Jelly Belly is just about gone (and I just got it on Friday, which is saying a lot about my lack of control). I much prefer these to the black jelly beans, something about the consistent texture that I really like. Unlike Black Crows, they don’t stick to my teeth in the same way, either.
I’m not sure how easy these are going to be to find, I even had trouble finding them on the Jelly Belly site at first . But the price is decent enough, only a little more than Jelly Belly beans at $4.99 for the half pound bag. I’m rather fond of Licorice Pastels and I’m wondering if these could be panned with a crunchy candy shell ... that might be heavenly.
There’s no gelatin in this product, so it’s suitable for vegetarians (and I’m pretty sure they use American-grown beet sugar as well in all their products, so these would be okay even for vegans). There’s also no wheat in there.
(As a silly side note, I took that photo of the bag of Licorice Bears seen at the top. Later I went to the Jelly Belly site and found that while my photo looks lovely and professional, it also looks exactly like theirs which led me to wonder why I bothered taking mine. Oh well.)
UPDATE: It looks like Jelly Belly sent these samples out to a few places. Candy Addict’s Caitlin just posted her thoughts as well.
Name: |
Licorice Bears |
RATING:
- SUPERB
- YUMMY
- TASTY
- WORTH IT
- TEMPTING
- PLEASANT
- BENIGN
- UNAPPEALING
- APPALLING
- INEDIBLE
|
Brand: |
Jelly Belly |
Place Purchased: |
samples from Jelly Belly |
Price: |
retail $4.99 |
Size: |
8 ounces |
Calories per ounce: |
98 |
Categories: |
Licorice, United States, Jelly Belly, Kosher |
Yum! Gotta get my hands on some of these!
That just reminds me how much I miss Goelitz’ Honey Bears. Those were super tasty…
Now I want Black Crows. Darn it.
Lovely photo of the Black Bear Platoon, Cybele!
never had em
I love gummi bears and all but putting licorice on a gummi bear doesn’t sound particulary to tasty. Sounds really gross but I guess I’ll have to try them to see what all the hype is.
Im not a big fan of licorice but those sound good
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