I usually don’t finish the candy that I taste. Instead, I take a few bites and pass the rest on to friends, many of whom are happy to try my candy cast-offs even when my bite marks are on it. They’ll even polish off candy that I personally hated, so I almost never throw anything away. Note the “almost.” I found the Whitman’s Soho chocolates to be too terrible to inflict on my friends and tossed them after I tasted them. Individual, half-eaten chocolates aren’t that great for sharing in the first place, but I’ve done it before when the chocolates’ tastiness overrode the unappealing look of a chocolate with a bite missing. There was no redeeming the Soho line.
The “artist inspired” chocolates come in an attractive box, are prettily decorated, and have fancy sounding flavors: pear praline, sea salt caramel, madagascar vanilla brulee, pistachio nougat, cacao truffle, and raspberry ganache. Unfortunately, they all taste like blech.
The raspberry ganache, which I believe is the round dark chocolate one with the pretty gold swirls on top, had a creamy “ganache” that was way too sweet and tasted super artificial. I put ganache in quotation marks because the texture was that of a cream. I guess they called it a ganache because that sounds fancier.
The milk chocolate rectangle was pistachio nougat. It had absolutely no pistachio flavor, so I only managed to tell because it had little pieces of pistachio in it. A marvel of chocolate engineering. It just tasted generically sweet.
The milk chocolate square was the sea salt caramel, and the only one I managed to finish because it’s hard to make a terrible caramel. It is, however, easy to make a mediocre caramel, which was what this was: blandly sweet and chewy, with no saltiness, no butter or toffee notes, no anything.
I like my notes for the one with the white rounded top: “lemon – sharp acerbic lemon taste with horrific artificial aftertaste. Started out nice but EEK! Run away!” As you can see, there is no lemon flavored one, so I think it’s the pear praline.
The other flavor I was uncertain of was the dark chocolate rectangle. It was sweet and fruity with a slightly smoother, more flowy center than the others. I think it may be the Madagascar vanilla brulee. This one was okay, in that it was inoffensive.
And last but not least, the white, round chocolate with the flat top was the cacao truffle. Another inoffensively boring chocolate with a dry ganache and a slightly fruitiness to the filling that’s probably due to flavor mixing in the box.
I bought these for half off right after Valentine’s Day, and I still want a refund. I think we can extrapolate my notes from the pear praline and give the box a hearty EEK! Run away! They get an A+ for packing but an O (for offensive) for taste.
(Edit 10/25/09: Since my rating system’s changed, these now get a —. But then I lose the lame joke…)
I actually enjoyed these chocolates. Granted, I live in a very small town (LITERATLLY, the inspiration for Mayberry), so I don’t have access/money to buy nice chocolates, unless I venture to Target in the neighboring town. I will agree with you about the Pear flavored one – I also thought it was lemon until the aftertaste! I enjoyed the raspberry and vanilla ones. The caramel was indeed NOT a seasalt caramel. Overall, for the price, it wasn’t too bad, especially for people who eat nothing but chocolate candy bars. These chocolates seriously amazed my father, who isn’t very worldly. He thought I was CRAZY for paying the price!
I know you wrote this months ago BUT I just tried these and had to say that I agree 100% . I don’t really like Whitmans anyway, they used to be quite a nice simple chocolate but as of late they all taste way too sweet more so than chocolaty. I have never tried any chocolate anywhere that tasted so absolutely horrible. I have mine all set for the garbage and refuse to pass on my leftovers. Pretty much the whole box, GROSS!
For goodness sake! is there any truth in advertising anymore?!?!?!?!?! Well, one, i really enjoyed the the cocoa butter one with yellow swirls and i was exited because some one finaly gave recognition to banana with chocolate, but low. my little cloud of happiness was deflated quickly when i noticed the flavors of the various pieces. for sure banana was not even mentioned and i was appauld that i was unable to identify the seemingly inoccent morsel with any of the given flavors. so after the first little inccedent i placed a little more scrutiny upon the rest of the inposters. what the heck?!?!?! i couldnt identify one of them! not one! and i wonder who tasted these. the next one i ate was the rasberry i believe. another deception. as i was hesitantlty encroaching closer to the filling (i am very slow with my chocolate and actually lick it slowly like an ice cream cone, wierd i know.) i could have sworn it was going to give was to a cherry cordial filling. WHAT! nothing. as i trudged my way into the *uhg!* whatever that stuff was i kept thinking rasberry, rasberry, rasberry. NOTHING! it just got worse. And dont get me started on the chocolate.
In conclusion, and all in all.
THIS “CHOCOLATE” SUCKED!!!!!!!!!!!! WHY OH WHY DO THESE CRUEL COMPANIES TAKE SO MUCH PLEASURE IN WATCHING INNOCENT BYSTANDEREDS SQUIRM SO???????? i would really like to know who approves these. ={
i actually find the chocolates amazing. they did a great job on my part and the designs are beautiful. the Raspberry tasting one was my favorite, followed by the banana tasting one.
it does not matter that they misguided the titles, or that it was “overly sweet” ?
it’s chocolate, it’s supposed to be sweet.
they were melt in your mouth great.
:]and i hope i get plenty more
Where are you spoiled girls from?
Oh My Goodness, these are not only the prettiest
valentine candies I have ever recieved, but they are also the most tasty! Mhmmm, is right~ its chocolate and is susposed to be sweet and special.I come from the old school version of the pink,white and ? filling of the big pink bow box.Frankly I must say thank you to the Whitman family for putting a spark in our lives.
I took the box to some ladies in one of our offices and shared a little happiness with them and let me say they’re eyes glazed over and all I heard was MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM in harmony~
Cool! Meditation, Bliss and Chocolate all in one little bite.. Heavenly
I am so irritated by these chocolates!! I usually hate Whitman, but the box was so appealing, and the ingredient listing so enticing, I figured Oh, well, how bad can it be? I’ll give Whitman a chance.
YUCK!!! I cannot believe there are people in the comments who are NOT hopping mad about this swindle.
“Old school version” is right–these chocolates taste like something most girls would expect better than to receive from some junior high school crush, let alone to pay almost $1/chocolate for.
I will NEVER buy anything from this company ever again. I feel like a fool that I fell for it this time!
wow i just tried these. there is a local chocolate maker who creates wonderful chocolates which look simialr to these – so maybe my expectations were too high – but these were probably the grossest chocolates I have every had.
at least the oldschool dimestore chocolates usually contain a few good ones – not these every one was gross – I tossed them. wow I am so mad tha I spent my money on these – I wish I’d read this review first.
one more comment – to the ladies who say chocolate is supposed to be sweet: actually no, it is not. Pure chocolate is not sweet at all, but in modern times we’ve added loads of sugar to it. now don’t get me wrong -I like a little sugar in my chocolate – semi-sweet is best, but the too sweet to which reviewers are referring is the gross filling. the filing in these not only taste gross but it is the kind of sweet that hurts your teeth. I’ve had fillings in chocolates which complemented the chocolate flavor – but these did nothing of the sort. i love ALL chocolate smie-sweet best but also milk and white -yet the fillings managed to even ruin the chocolate coating for me. gross