On my recent (working) vacation I took the opportunity to visit a few candy stores in Cape Cod and stock up on goodies for the foreseeable future. While I was browsing, I noticed that they offered nearly identical licorice buttons in both regular and sugar-free varieties. I thought this might be a good chance to compare the flavors and see how they stacked up against one another.
On first impression, I was drawn more towards the regular variety. They were smooth and appeared soft, while the sugar-free looked to be rather sticky and messy. Once I opened the bag, initial impressions proved to be accurate: both were soft, but the sugar-free was very sticky to the touch.
I tried the regular first, to establish a baseline. They were very good, with plenty of sweetness and a mild but noticeable licorice flavor. They were extremely soft, and for the most part didn’t get stuck in my teeth (a perpetual bane of mine). The sugar-free were up next, and the results were actually not what I expected. To be honest, they tasted almost exactly alike! The flavor was sweet, but not overly so, and the texture was soft. The only difference was that the sugar-free was ever so slightly more sticky, but still not to the point of being annoying.
Overall, if it ever came down to it and I had to live a sugar-free lifestyle (perish the thought!), I really wouldn’t mind it too much if other sugar-free candies were as comparable to their full sugar counterparts as these are. With new advances in artificial sweeteners, I would hazard to say that there are plenty of other sugar-free candies out there deserving of more attention.
Hi Caitlin,
We offer both sugar-free and regular black licorice chews and our sugar-free chews are just as popular and the regular.
Elizabeth
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July 6th, 2010 at 12:38 am