Vidal Sour Rainbow Pencils

Vidal Candies had a colorful booth at Sweets and Snacks full of all kinds of non-chocolate treats. It looked like they carried candies that are more commonly seen abroad than in the U.S., like these Sour Rainbow Pencils that they gave me as free samples. I ate tons and tons of filled licorice pencils in…

Rips Bits

I was really excited when I got this bag of Rips Bits as a free sample via the National Confectioners’ Association. Could they finally be an easily, locally available version of my filled licorice? The bag did describe them as “filled bite-sized licorice pieces”, and they certainly looked the part! Survey says… yes! With the…

Jolly Rancher Awesome Twosome Chews

Could it be? Could Jolly Rancher have made an American version of the European filled licorice that I love so much with their Awesome Twosome Chews (received as free samples via the National Confectioners Association)? Not exactly. But they were still pretty good! They came in two flavor combinations: watermelon/green apple and cherry/orange. All of…

Darrell Lea’s Soft Eating Liquorice

I got these bags of Darrell Lea’s Soft Eating Liquorice as free samples via the manufacturer. According to their PR peeps, they’re Australia’s #1 soft eating liquorice. Wonder if that means there’s such thing as a hard eating liquorice? They come in four flavors – strawberry, green apple, mango, and original. I told them that…

Haribo Pico Balla

Haribo Pico-Balla [Review]

I got really excited when I saw this bag of Haribo Pico-Balla at the dollar store. They looked like my beloved European licorice pencils that have yet to catch on in the U.S. Could it be that they were hiding in the dollar store of the mall all along? They certainly looked the part –…

Recchiuti

Michael Recchuiti is an American chocolatier who creates elegantly sleek and beautiful truffles. I stopped by his shop (also elegant and sleek, with a predominantly brown and gold scheme and employees dressed all in black) in San Francisco’s Ferry Building. His confections and boxed chocolates are extremely pricey, so I only bought two truffles from…