ZOMG, Candy!

Jelly Belly just debuted their 92nd flavor of jelly bean - a honey bean, infused with real wildflower honey. They’ve got a descriptive PR team working for them. Check out the press release:

“A comforting and soothing flavor, Honey Bean Jelly Belly bean is golden yellow and drenched in the taste of honey from the chewy center to the tender shell of the jelly bean… Savor it for the straight-from-the-hive flavor along with a cup of tea.”

The beans themselves are beautiful - shiny beads of amber that almost look translucent. I want to string them together and turn them into jewelry. They would make great drop earrings!

As usual, Jelly Belly has managed to be pretty spot on in their flavor capture. They taste just like little drops of honey - sweet and floral - but they have the gelatinous and slightly grainy texture of jelly beans.

As Cybele noted in her review, these aren’t a mindlessly-chomp-through-a-whole-bag candy. The inevitably saccharine nature of their flavor means that they get to be too much after a while. But they are nice in small doses, and they seem like they’d play well with other beans. An O.

I was just in Target this past weekend and saw that they already had an endcap of Easter candy on display. It’s still January! Ridiculous as that was, it at least served the purpose of reminding me that I’ve been sitting on some jelly bean tasting notes from last Easter-ish (ish because I bought them after Easter. I love post-holiday candy sales!)

There’s nothing on the packaging of Hawaiian Punch Jelly Beans to indicate that they’re holiday-specific. I think I caught them on sale post-Easter, though, so I’m not sure if these guys are available year-round. They’re made by Brach’s, and they boast of containing loads of vitamin C and real fruit juice.

I find the real fruit juice/pectin claim amusing, as they come in colors that are definitely not found in nature. “Hawaiian Punch” (dark red) has a deep artificial red candy flavor. I can’t remember what Hawaiian Punch the drink tastes like, but I imagine it’s similar to that.

“Fruity Juicy Red” (pinkish red, I think) just tastes generically of red hard candy, while “Green Berry Rush” (kiwi green in the back) tastes mutedly of green apple.

“Berry Blue Typhoon” (psychedelic blue) tastes of gnarly artificial blue raspberry flavors. “Lemon Berry Squeeze” (not pictured but probably yellow) had a sweet and tart lemon flavor with a cherry finish.

“Mango Passionfruit Squeeze”  (yellow-orange with orange speckles; the prettiest ones, I think) had a decently authentic mango finish to the flavor, with that slight seediness that you get as you eat closer to the pit. Finally, “Orange Ocean” (orange) just tasted sweetly of muted citrus.

While there was nothing wrong about these guys, per se, I found them generically sweet with flavors that were too weak to hold up in the strong Easter jelly bean market (check out a 2008 round-up from Candy Addict; Cybele from Candy Blog has also reviewed loads of them).

Hawaiian Punch Jelly Beans get an O, with the caveat that it looks like they may have been reformulated since I bought them - Candy Warehouse has a photo of them with far more speckles than mine had - so they may taste different now.

Bats!! I have an affinity for bats. They’re a special tourist attraction in my hometown of Austin, for starters. And last year, a bat once somehow made its way into my New Haven apartment on the last day of Thanksgiving break. My now boyfriend (then just a friend) made fun of me for completely freaking out about it giving me rabies.

Later that night, he got a call from home - his mother had found a dead bat in his bed, and he may or may not have been sleeping with it all Thanksgiving break. He ended up needing rabies shots, just in case. How’s that for karma?

Anywho, on to the candy! These Bat Dots are a Halloween special. They’re blood orange flavored (vampire bats!). I LOVE the little orange smiled, juice-dripping, winged Dot on the box.

Sadly, the actual candy isn’t nearly as adorable. But it is delicious! And it is as black as it looks on the box. I love the color. I can see parents totally taking advantage of this to not have to share with their kids by pretending that they’re licorice.

They’re soft and slightly sticky. Though they give instantly when bitten into, they have a nagging tendency to sometimes stick to the crannies of my teeth. But I should expect that; normal Dots do that too.

It’s sweet with a round citrus flavor. It’s wonderful, spot-on orange. There’s no citrus tang or tartness, but it’s still clear that it’s citrus. I found these super addictive and kept popping them. I wish these were available year-round, and I’ve got to buy these up before Halloween is over! The dilemma - to buy them now or hope they’re not sold out and go on sale after the holiday?

An OMG. You can check out Cybele and Sera’s take on these and the rest of Dots’ Halloween line.

I bought these Gummi Jellys (Jellies?) in Spain, but I’m 90% sure that I also saw them in France. Though the gummi part of the name conjures up thoughts of springy gummi candies, the jelly part is the more accurate moniker, as the Gummi Jelly is a soft fruit pate-like candy.

Each Gummi Jelly is individually wrapped. They’re about an inch in height and a centimeter in width and depth (yes I’m mixing my metric and customary). They’re quite soft, with a bit a grainy texture from their granulated sugar coating.

They come in four flavors: lime, orange, strawberry, and pineapple.

Lime (green) has a bitter bite of zest that tastes rather medicinal. For a sweet candy, it’s actually a tad unpleasant. Sad, as I usually love all things citrus flavored.

Orange (orange) has a big zesty bite, only in this case, it’s quite enjoyable. The orange flavor isn’t bright, but it is intense.

Strawberry (red) is floral and sweet, with a deeper than expected strawberry flavor. It’s the strongest one of the bunch.

Pineapple (yellow) is sweet and lightly acidic, with just a tinge of the flavor of pineapple cores. It could pass for a sweet and mellow lemon, but I’m pretty sure it’s pineapple because there’s a pineapple on the bag.

Overall, these are good and dangerously poppable. I like that the flavors are more concentrated than your average gummi candy, though they’re weaker than fruit pate. But hey, the mass produced candy is also much cheaper than fruit pate. An OM, though I could do without the lime ones.

I recently spent several days visiting my boyfriend’s home in Boston. While I was there, his mother was kind enough to take me on an excursion to Nichols Candies, a homegrown chocolate store in Gloucester, Massachusetts. It reminded me a lot of See’s and Haven’s: solid and tasty, if not frou-frou fancy, treats made with care and at a reasonable price (around $18 a pound at Nichols, if I remember correctly).

The store is filled with tables covered in trays and trays of a huge variety of chocolate treats. It was hard to pick just a few to try! I especially appreciated the creativity of their tulips, Brazil nuts wrapped in petals of caramel and dipped in chocolate. I didn’t actually buy any because I don’t particularly like Brazil nuts, but I thought I’d share the photo anyway.

Instead, I picked out a dark chocolate-covered ginger, a dark chocolate molasses chip, a dark chocolate-covered pineapple jelly, and a walnut whip (much lauded on their Yelp page). The molasses chip turned out to be an iteration of the dark sponge that I love so much (I was expecting something like See’s chocolate-covered toffee version). That disappeared into my belly before I got a chance to photograph it (oops), but I do have proper reviews of the rest!

The dark ginger is a disk of crystallized ginger covered in dark chocolate. The flavor of the ginger was pretty mild, making it enjoyable for a ginger novice like myself. It’s got a tad more bite than ginger ale but falls far short of the pickled ginger that comes with sushi. The ginger’s texture is firm but toothy. The coating was on the sweet side for dark chocolate. It had a cocoa-y tinge with a nice snap and a thin melt. An OM for the fine balance of ginger bite and chocolate melt.

I was excited to try the pineapple jelly. I guessed that it would be pineapple fruit pate covered in dark chocolate, and it was, but only sort of, thus falling short of my expectations. The jelly was smooth with just enough gelatin to give it some texture, which was nice, but it lacked the graininess of true fruit pate. The flavor was lacking as well. Good fruit pate is vibrant and bursting with flavor. In this, I got no pineapple flavor, just a generic sweetness, so it gets an O.

And finally, the much lauded walnut whip. It looked like a square of chocolate fudge with walnuts, but the texture was different. Instead of thick and grainy fudge, it was smooth, rich, creamy, fatty chocolate that melted thickly in the mouth. The chocolate had buttery caramel notes, and while the walnuts, being a mild nut, didn’t add much in terms of flavor, they did provide a bit of a textural contrast. I give it an OM, with the caveat that it’s too rich for frequent consumption. But that richness is what makes it so good!

Overall, Nichols is worth a visit if you’re passing by, and I’d happily stop there again to try more of their wide selection of chocolate goodies. And to stock up on their molasses chips (which get a biased ZOMG! because they’re one of my favorite candies).

We used to have a Cold Stone creamery by campus, but it recently went out of business. Fortunately, Jelly Belly has a new-ish line of Cold Stone creamery flavored jelly beans, dubbed their ice cream parlor mix. Unfortunately, the bag came with a coupon for ice cream that I can’t use because there’s no longer a Cold Stone within walking distance.

These come in five flavors named after Cold Stone ice creams:

Chocolate Devotion - chocolate ice cream, chocolate chips, brownie and fudge. This bean has a dark cocoa edge to it that’s quite reminiscent of brownies. It’s super chocolate-y, which I appreciate, but I’m not a big fan of the chocolate with the jelly bean texture.

Our Strawberry Blonde: strawberry ice cream, graham cracker pie crust, strawberries, caramel and whipped topping. The strawberry flavor is quite bright. You can almost taste the seeds. In fact, the seedy finish makes me think more raspberry than strawberry. I don’t get the caramel and graham cracker, though.

Birthday Cake Remix - cake batter ice cream, rainbow sprinkles, brownie and fudge. The bean is festive looking - pale cream with rainbow speckles. It tastes like vanilla cake, like the kind that comes out of a box of mix, with a slight hint of chocolate to the finish. That hint is so slight that I wonder if I’m imagining it because of the flavor description.

Mint Mint Chocolate Chocolate Chip - mint ice cream, chocolate chips, brownie and fudge. It tastes like mint chocolate chip ice cream with a refreshing finish. Like the chocolate, however, it’s just not a flavor I enjoy in jelly bean form.

Apple Pie A La Cold Stone - French vanilla ice cream, cinnamon, graham cracker pie crust, apple pie filling and caramel. Strong caramel and canned apple pie filling flavors make this thing too sweet. I’m not a fan.

Overall, the flavors are interesting, but they’re not for me. And they don’t mix well. I chased a mint with a chocolate and got a wave of bitter. Blech! An O from me, but an A for effort.

Finally a personal note - I’m playing in my last Yale Concert Band concert tonight, April 3, 7:30, in Woolsey Hall. We’re playing the Rite of Spring and the Artie Shaw Clarinet Concerto (with an amazing Yale School of Music professor of clarineting soloist), so it should be a good one - a great way to finish off my YCB career. Come listen if you happen to live near New Haven/Yale!

I can’t recall ever having worked with Jelly Belly before, so I was quite surprised to find a free sample tin of their new Sunkist Citrus Mix in my PO Box. I’m not exactly sure how they found me (probably via a PR company that I’ve worked with on another candy), or my address, but there are more frightening invasions of privacy than Jelly Belly knowing my PO Box address, especially if it means surprise deliveries of free Jelly Bellies.

I was immediately taken in by the beautiful tin that these beans came in. I’m used to eating my Jelly Bellies out of plastic branded bags since I buy them from bulk bins. The tin is slightly smaller than that of Altoid’s Sours. Its made of burnished metal, and its clear plastic lid is adorned with a Japanese-y drawing of a blossoming branch. It’s absolutely lovely and a total keeper. My only issue is that the script and font are a significant departure from the Jelly Belly logo and font, which confuses their brand image.

The flavors are Sunkist Lime, Sunkist Pink Grapefruit, Sunkist Orange, Sunkist Lemon, and Sunkist Tangerine. I wish I had easy access to a candy store that sells Jelly Bellies (being a carless out of state college student, I don’t) so that I could compare these to Jelly Belly’s usual Lime, Pink Grapefruit, Orange, Lemon, and Tangerine flavors. Even though the press release claims that they’re new, my guess is that they’re the same; Jelly Belly is just using the Sunkist name to push these beans, which are “made with real juices, purees, and citrus oils.”

The press release claims that the flavors are “so authentic that even the aroma of citrus peel comes through each bite.” As expected from Jelly Belly, the flavors are indeed authentic. Lime has that zesty astringency that makes caparinhas so tasty, while lemon has a sweeter, brighter tartness. Like Cybele did in her review, I didn’t realize that the mix contained both tangerine and orange. They look the same to me, so only one made it into the shot. While I can tell the tangerine and the orange apart by taste, I don’t know which is which. One is sweet and round while the other has more of an orange zest kick to it.

The pink grapefruit was my favorite, not because grapefruit is such a wondrous citrus flavor, though it is, but because Jelly Belly did such a great job of capturing the unique taste of grapefruit. The bean not only tasted like grapefruit but also tasted like grapefruit smells, if that makes any sense at all.

I thought this was a great mix. Then again, I expected to love it, as citrus flavors are my favorite fruit flavors. I polished off most of the tin in one go as I typed this review, and now my tongue has taken on a light tingle, from all the acidity, I guess. An OMG.

Considering how many different flavor blends that they make, I was surprised to realize that I’d never reviewed any Mike and Ike candies on this site. Today, I shall rectify that oversight by covering their Lemonde Blends.

I’m already annoyed at the name. Shouldn’t it be a lemonade blend, as in a blend of different types of lemonade flavored Mike and Ikes? I understand what they were going for, that the candies themselves are flavored like lemonade blends, but it still bothers me. I can’t be too annoyed though, since JustBorn (same people who make Peeps, by the way) does donate a portion of proceeds to Alex’s Lemonade Stand, a charity that fights childhood cancer. Plus they’re all citrusy, and I love citrus candies.

According to the JustBorn website, these come in five flavors (thanks, Cybele, for pointing me to the website in your review; the flavors aren’t actually listed on the packaging). Clockwise from the top in the below picture, they are lemonade, tangerine lemonade, strawberry lemonade, lime lemonade (back in Texas, we call that a limeade), and raspberry lemonade. Like all Mike and Ikes, these are basically bullet-shaped jelly beans, with a sugar shell and a chewy interior.

Straight lemonade is bright, tart, and lemony while avoiding any reminiscence of floor cleaner. Tangerine lemonade has a lemony finish and is similarly citrusy, but it tastes a bit more round than the plain lemonade. Strawberry lemonade has a mellow strawberry flavor that’s more genuine than most strawberry flavored candies. Lime lemonade has a great zesty lime tang to it, and raspberry lemonade has a seedy finish that I usually find unpleasant in raspberry candies but can tolerate better in this, thanks to the lemonade finish.

I’m convinced that I could tell these guys apart in a blind taste test. However, I’m not sure I would know to recognize them as lemonade blends, though they do all finish on a sweetly sour note, making me think that these all taste like Snapple-fied versions of Mike and Ikes. Despite their lemonade finishes (or perhaps because of them), these never felt heavy or overly sweet. I enjoyed them so much that I may buy them again next time I see them, despite my ever-growing queue of candies waiting to be reviewed. An OMG.

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!