ZOMG, Candy!

I’ve wanted to try Albanese Krunchy Bears ever since I read Cybele’s review of them. While they’re pretty cheap on the Albanese website, the shipping costs negate those savings (though now that I know they’re on Amazon, may add a bag or two to my next order, as they qualify for free shipping), so I just kept my eyes peeled, hoping to stumble across them in person someday.

I finally found them in the bulk bin of a candy store in Myrtle Beach and immediately snatched up a bag. I also learned that the deliciously and prodigiously flavored non-krunchy gummi bears of our campus convenience store were made by Albanese. Right before I was due to graduate and move away, of course.

These vibrant and whimsical bears are a treat for the eyes and the tongue. They come in six flavors of nonpareil-coated gummi bear. From left to right:

Pink is a lovely floral strawberry. I usually don’t care for red fruit candies, finding them blah, but this was refreshingly enjoyable.

Red is cherry, of the black cherry flavor persuasion. The deep tones of the super concentrated cherry flavor carry a slight medicinal tinge, but it’s still pleasant.

Orange is orange. It’s extremely bright and citrusy, with a zesty finish, placing it more on the tangerine end of the orange flavor spectrum.

Yellow is an even zestier lemon flavor. Acidic high notes give way to a tinge of bitter finish, making this a genuine, enjoyable citrus treat.

Green is a mellow apple. Instead of tasting like a sour green Granny Smith, I find this to be more apple juice/Fuji flavored.

Blue is either blue raspberry or blueberry. It tastes of berry, with round, mellow notes and no seediness. I’m leaning towards blue raspberry.

The texture of these bears is certainly unique. At first, it seems strangely gritty and chewy at the same time, and I wonder how necessary the nonpareils are. Maybe they serve some sort of flavor enhancing or trapping function? The Krunchy Bears, when compared to my memory of the regular Albanese bears, seem to have much stronger and much more concentrated fruity flavors, making the Krunchy bears much more flavorful.

The great density of flavor makes these much more satisfying as well. Instead of mindlessly chomping through them, I wanted to savor them, so a little went a long way. The citrus fruits get an OMG, while the others get an OM. I’d buy a mixed bag of them anyday, but if I saw them in a bulk bin, I’d disproportionately pick out the citrus flavors.

Europe had more varieties of Haribo than we get here in the states. There was a flier for a Haribo Factory in the tourism office of Avignon, but alas, you needed a car to get there, and we had none. Still, I managed to purchase/eat a variety of Haribo treats from grocery and convenience stores, including these Haribo Super Mini Frites.

My bag of Mini Frites was a mini bag with around a dozen or so frite gummies (French for fries). They’re sugar-coated rectangular fry shaped gummies with a sproingy chew that cleaves rather than sticks.  Each fry is about the size of the first two joints of my pinky nail, so they can be dispatched in one bite or two.

There are four flavors of frites: green is lime, orange is orange, yellow is lemon, and red is strawberry. Lime is zesty, orange is bright and citrusy, lemon is a rounder citrus flavor, with a light lemony finish, and strawberry is mellow in its fruitiness. They tasted like Sour Patch Kids, but brighter and more fun to chew (thanks to the sproinginess). If these were offered in the U.S., I’d go for them over Sour Patch Kids any day. An OMG.

I got these Life Savers Gummies as free samples from Wrigley (they came with the Orbit Mist). The Island Fruits lineup is new to the Life Savers Gummies family and features the following flavors: pineapple, fruit punch, strawberry kiwi, and mango melon.

I’ve always enjoyed Life Savers Gummies, but I rarely buy them. I guess it’s because I associate Life Savers with hard candy, and when I have gummi cravings, I think Haribo or Trolli. The rolls contain a lucky 13 ring-shaped gummies that are slightly greasy to the touch and that have a fairly stiff/sproingy chew.

Pineapple (bottom left) had a genuine fruit flavor with just a tinge of the essence of a pineapple’s core. Fruit punch (top right) was pretty basic, like Hawaiian punch in gummi form.

Strawberry kiwi (top left) was lightly flavored and reminded me of a Snapple juice drink. I wouldn’t have identified this flavor without knowing which flavors the assortment contained. Finally, mango melon (bottom right) was sweetly fruity with a round canteloupe finish. I didn’t pick up any mango notes, but I guess just calling it melon loses the alliterative effect.

Overall, these were rather enjoyable - I finished both sample rolls on my own - but I probably wouldn’t buy them again. I wish they had a little more oomph to them, so they get an O. Surf Sweet’s Super Sour Worms are still my go-to gummi for now, as their fruit flavors are far brighter and far more genuine.

Like Gummy Bears? Then check out what Vat19 sent me as a free sample:

That, dear readers, is a Giant Gummy Bear on a Stick that’s 88 times the size of a regular gummy bear (by the way, if you can’t tell, that’s Vat19’s photo, so those aren’t my man hands. I don’t have man hands). If you like regular gummy bears, would you like the Giant Gummy 88 times as much? Maybe not, but it’s still pretty neat.

The Giant Gummy Bears on Sticks come in three flavors, blue raspberry, green apple, and cherry. I requested the green apple, as it’s the only flavor out of the three that I normally like, so I can only comment on that one. Basically, it tasted just like your standard green apple gummy bear, nicely sweet and mellow. It’s a soft gummy, more Trolli than Haribo, but it still has a bite to it. And it’s ginormous. I’ve polished off most of the head, and I feel a bit ill/sugar overloaded. Now I have a headless Giant Gummy Bear on a Stick.

I’m a little uncertain how to rate this. It tastes just fine, but not exceptional, so it gets an O. But clearly, the attraction is the size. I definitely appreciate that the Giant Gummy Bear didn’t compromise taste or texture in blowing up the bear. I wouldn’t buy it for myself just to eat, but it’s a great gag gift. I also see centerpiece potential for candy themed parties or weddings or something. At $9.99 a bear, I think it’s worth it. After all, a bag of regular gummy bears will run you about $2-3, the Giant Gummy is equivalent to at least two or three bags, and the extra mark-up is for the novelty factor, yeah?

Today brings the anxiously awaited conclusion to my review of Surf Sweets‘ product line that I began on Wednesday. First up (or is it fourth up?), their Gummy Swirls.

The Gummy Swirls were little gumdrop shaped gummis about the size of the first joint of my pinky finger. They came in two versions, pink/white swirled and orange/white swirled. Pink/white was strawberry, I believe, and its flavor was of lightly muted “red” candy. I’m not sure if the muting came from the white swirl or from the all-natural ingredients. A bit of each, perhaps? My guess is that orange/white was orange-flavored, except I didn’t find it to taste very orangey. Instead, I got more of a pear profile. The gummy itself was fairly firm and sproingy, while the sugar coating added a bit of textural grain.

Surf Sweets’ Gummy Worms were absolutely gorgeous, proving that one doesn’t need artificial colorings to make something look tasty. They came in red and yellow and red and lighter yellow/clear. Cherry and pineapple, maybe? The flavors weren’t terribly distinct, but they were nice and fruity. Appearances aside, however, there wasn’t much to separate these gummy worms from their artificially-flavored (and much cheaper) counterparts.

While the Gummy Worms were fairly run of the mill, I found the Super Sour Worms to be truly exceptional. Like Wednesday’s Fruity Bears, these were more like a fruit pate or a fruit gem, which may be why their moniker leaves out the word “gummy”. The sour sugar coating on these is mostly sweet and only lightly tart, but it’s just right.

The red and yellow one tastes of cherry - as I’ve written many times, I have difficulty differentiating red-flavored candies, but this one had a bit of a bite to it, so I’m going with cherry - with a sour finish of lemon. The orange and white one tasted like a lovely sweet yet tart orange. Either the white part was also orange flavored, or it was too lightly flavored to compete against the brightness of the orange.

The Super Sour Worms were my favorite of the Surf Sweets bunch. I couldn’t stop eating them, so they get a ZOMG! The Gummy Swirls and Gummy Worms, while good, weren’t exceptional, and, as I said on Wednesday, I’m too poor to shell out extra for all natural and organic when artificial and full-of-pesticides tastes pretty much exactly the same, so they get Os. If you’re not poor like me and care about what you put into your body, or your kids’ bodies, then the whole Surf Sweet lineup is probably perfect for ya - they taste all-natural, but in a good way, and you or your kids won’t miss unnatural flavorings/colorings one whit.

One of the biggest perks of my candy blogging hobby is getting free samples from candy retailers. When Surf Sweets offered to send me samples of their all-natural and organic candies, I eagerly agreed. They sent me a generous box of their complete line-up. We’ll cover half today, and the other half on Friday.

First up, a classic: Gummy Bears. Surf Sweets’ gummy bears are extra sproingy and firm. They come in pineapple, lemon, orange, and cherry, I think. Why only I think? Because Surf Sweets are made with all-natural ingredients, their flavors aren’t as artificially strong as other gummis. They’re more mild, so they’re harder to differentiate. The gummy bears were good and seemed quite genuinely fruity, but tastewise, there’s really nothing to distinguish them from normal gummy bears.

Their Fruity Bears were more distinctive and more fun. On the surface, they look like the gummy bears, just covered in sugar, but they’re quite different. They’re not even a gummy, which surprised me when I bit into my first one. Instead, the bears are more of a fruit pate, with a soft give to them. These come in five flavors: pineapple, lemon, orange, strawberry, and cherry. I’m more sure of these flavors because they were stronger. The strawberry and cherry barely differed in color, but their flavors were distinctive, with more of a bite to the cherry.

And last but not least for today, their Jelly Beans. These also come in the same color and flavor palate of the Fruity Bears: pineapple, lemon, orange, strawberry, and cherry. Texturally, these are different from most jelly beans. They have a softer (but still crunchy) shell with softly sproingy insides. Pineapple was my favorite flavor of the bunch - it really captures the essence of pineapple flavor with it’s core-y taste. The other four flavors are pretty standard and unexceptional.

Paradoxically, I found Surf Sweets to be at once muted and bright. They’re muted because they don’t use artificial flavors or colors, yet they’re bright because they taste so genuinely fruity. Think about the difference between a can of orange soda, a carton of orange juice, and a glass of fresh-squeezed orange juice. Orange soda will be super bright but artificial, orange juice would be the most muted, and fresh-squeezed orange juice falls in between. Surf Sweets are the candy equivalent of fresh-squeezed juice.

The Gummy Bears get an O (because I’m too poor to really care about eating only organic and natural), the Fruity Bears get an OMG (I adore fruit pate), and the Jelly Beans get an OM. Tune in on Friday for the rest of their line-up!

I have no idea how long Starburst GummiBursts have been on the market. The bag says New!, but I bought it at a Big Lots. If you don’t know, Big Lots sells closeout goods of all kinds, including candy, making it a great place to go for random candy finds. For example, my neighborhood Big Lots still has giant bags of Limited Edition Indiana Jones Mint Crisp M&Ms available. I almost bought one (they’re pretty good), but this was at home, and the bag was too big and heavy to fly back to school. Anywho, on to the Starbursts.

Like regular Starbursts, the GummiBursts come in four flavors: strawberry, cherry, orange, and lemon. Unlike regular Starbursts, these are “liquid filled gummies” rather than candy chews.

They have the texture of a soft gummi (though not as soft as fruit gems) with just the right amount of springiness. The liquid inside is clear and oozy and gooey, similar to the goo inside Gushers, but less sticky. GummiBursts are much easier to eat than Gushers, as they don’t get stuck in your teeth, and the textural combination of the gummi and the goo makes them quite palatable.

The orange gummi had a muted citrus flavor, while the liquid inside was slightly more sour. Overall, it was pretty meh and not nearly as bright as orange Starburst chews. The lemon gummi was initially sweet. After a second or two, a nice lemon zestiness kicks in, and the whole thing has a good lemon-y finish. Here the goo doesn’t add much.

Strawberry was the pink/less red one (bottom right). It had a rotund berry flavor. Cherry, the darkest red, doesn’t taste like anything for a second or two. Then the cherriness comes in, and it has a nicely fruity finish.

As best as I could tell, the liquid part doesn’t add much in terms of specific flavor, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the same liquid filling was in the different flavors of gummi. Still, it was an important textural component, as it made eating the GummiBursts fun and addictive, making them OM-worthy.

I picked up these mini-boxes of random Heide candies on Halloween. I wasn’t trick-or-treating; I was party hopping, and these were placed out at Pierson College’s Inferno party. For one of Yale’s wealthier residential colleges, Pierson sure put out lousy candy. Then again, considering how many college students use Halloween as an excuse to drink themselves silly, maybe Pierson was just being prudent with its pennies.

The grape and wild cherry flavors looked pretty different on the boxes, but inside, they were the same shape, just different colors. Why cherries would be bumpy, I don’t know. Maybe they caught some sort of candy pox. And the red raspberry dollars looked nothing like the flat discs on the box. See for yourself (candies arranged in same position as their boxes):

The Heide candies were stiff gummi-ish chews that get stuck in your teeth like whoa. They were like Dots, but worse because they were stickier and because they didn’t taste as good as Dots do.

The cool grape tasted like a mild artificial grape popsicle. Wild cherry was pretty tame - it tasted faintly of artificial cherry and had a weird floral finish. The red raspberry dollars didn’t taste at all like raspberry. All I got was sugary sweetness. It’s rare that I throw away uneaten candy, as I usually share my leftovers with friends, but these guys were too horrible to inflict on others.

Thankfully, I don’t think you can buy these candies in large boxes. They must come in mixes with other candies. If you see them, run away. Or foist them on people you don’t like. Easily an O.

I got a set of five Meiji Mini Candies from my friend Michael, who is originally from Japan. I’m still looking for a place where I can buy them in the states.

Let’s go left to right and top to bottom, starting with the chocolate sugar-shelled candies (possibly called Marble Chocolate?). These were slightly thicker than M&Ms. Either the chocolate had a slightly fruity finish, or the shells were flavored. They were agreeable enough and get an OM.

The next three were variation on a theme, lemon, yogurt (?), and strawberry. I love the little character thingies in the corner. Japan does ridiculously cute so well! These were all little spheroids with sugar shells around a sugary flavored centers.

Strawberry was lightly pastel pink. It tasted bright, with a slightly sour strawberry preserve taste. It was so genuine that I wouldn’t be surprised if I found seeds inside. OM.

Lemon was yellow and tasted bright, tart, and effervescent, like a candy version of lemon zest. OMG.

Yogurt (I think) was white and had a little blue alien instead of a lemon or strawberry head. It had a sour tinge to it and reminds me of those little yogurt jugs you can get in Asia. The Chinese name for them literally translates into “sour milk”. Not for me, but a pretty genuine representation of what they were going for. O.

I was all sad that I had lost my Poifull notes. Then I realized that I didn’t lose them; I’d just already reviewed them here. If you’re too lazy to click over, they got an OMG.

I would buy the whole assortment just for the lemon sugar thingies and the Poifull. Of course, ideally I could just buy the lemon sugar thingies and the Poifull on their own, but hey, variety is the spice of life.

I bought this roll of Fruit Pastilles at the same time I bought a roll of Maynard’s Wine Gums. I wish I could report that these were better than the wine gums in roll form, but alas, I found them similarly uninspiring.

The Fruit Pastilles boasted 25% fruit juice. Now. I wonder what they used to use. Then again, probably best to not think about that. Fruit Pastilles area soft gummi covered in granulated sugar. They were softer than a springy Haribo and less rubbery but were still pretty stiff.

I had three flavors in my roll. Purple was blackcurrant, I think. Blackcurrant is a lovely flavor that I’m quite fond of. The British are fond of it too, but it hasn’t caught on here in the states. It’s sort of like raspberry and grape and blueberry all mixed together, but, in candy form, it doesn’t carry that nasty olfactory seedy aftertaste of raspberry that I can’t stand. Here it was okay, but other candies have done blackcurrant better.

I sometimes have a hard time tasting the difference between strawberry and cherry candies. They just meld into “red” in my mind. I’m pretty sure the red Fruit Pastille wasn’t cherry, so I guess it was strawberry, especially since there’s a strawberry on the wrapper. Clearly it wasn’t a very genuine fruit flavor. Meh.

Here’s where my tasting notes confuse me. I write about the yellow one - definitely lemon, a way too sweetly artificial lemon that had a weird aftertaste - but it looks orange in the picture. I guess that must have been a by-product of my amateur attempt to color correct the photos I took in unideal lighting in England. The purple almost looks black, and the red is nearly purple, so I’m going to trust my notes over the photo.

At any rate, these bored me. A O.