Some of you may remember Kojak, the police detective television series that aired in the 1970s. The character of Kojak was played by actor Telly Savalas, and he often had a Tootsie Pop lollipop in his mouth. Kojak would smoothly deliver his signature phrase, “Who loves ya, baby?” with the Tootsie Pop stick dangling from his mouth. I always wondered what he did with the stick when it started to disintegrate, because that’s what the sticks would do on me – the paper would start to sort of ball up and fall off, sometimes in my mouth.

I’m not self-centered enough to believe that Tootsie developed Tootsie Pop Drops (“Tootsie Pops WITHOUT the Stick!”) just for me, but it’s a great idea, isn’t it? The drops are a nice little nugget, a bit smaller than a Tootsie Pop, but the perfect size to pop into your mouth. The Tootsie Pop Drops come in five flavors: chocolate, cherry, blue raspberry, orange, and grape. You would think they would taste identical to the Tootsie Pops, but I felt some of the flavors were slightly different. Maybe it has something to do with the round shape of the Tootsie Pops versus the more disc-like shape of the Drops? Hmmmm.

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I love the word “nutjob,” so when I learned there is a candy bar called NutJob, my hopes were high. NutJobs are manufactured by Bartons Candy, a candy company that was founded in 1898 in Vienna and then moved to the United States around 1938. The packaging of the NutJob chocolate bar is rather appealing and loud – there are some rock star cartoon peanut characters on the bright, metallic blue wrapper, and the text is pretty enticing as well: “Delicious double chocolate, creamy caramel … loaded with peanuts!” Doesn’t that sound tasty?

I was really hoping to like the NutJob bar, but it is far from delicious. When you hear the words “chocolate,” “peanuts,” and “caramel,” what springs to mind? For me, it’s a Snickers. This NutJob bar tastes nothing like a Snickers. First, the milk chocolate exterior is waxy and bland, with little resemblance to actual chocolate. The “loaded with peanuts” part? I could see peanuts, but I certainly couldn’t taste them. And the caramel? I could see that, too, but again, the whole bar tasted like it was somewhat rancid. It seemed to have nougat in it, but it was hard to tell, since everything was blended together. To me, the NutJob tasted like it was made with cheap, substandard ingredients.

So, I am clearly not a big fan of the NutJob, but as I was getting ready to throw it away, my husband asked if he could taste it. I advised him against it, but he decided he wanted to try it anyway, and guess what? He kind of liked it. Go figure.

• Bartons Candy Website

Hello, Dove chocolate. Where have you been all my life? Apparently Dove first hit the streets with the Dovebar ice cream treat in the 1950s. Since then Dove offerings have trickled onto supermarket shelves, and now there are cookies, chocolates, and ice cream (and speaking of Dove ice cream, you should really try it if you haven’t. The pints have a top layer of chocolate, so you break through the chocolate barrier to get to the ice cream. I cannot emphasize enough how incredible this is).

But, I digress. The matter at hand is some new chocolate from Dove, namely three flavors of the Silky Smooth Milk Chocolate line. The flavors are Roasted Hazelnut, Blueberry Almond, and Peanut Toffee Crunch. Each 3.53-ounce box holds three individually wrapped bars, which psychologically might be a good thing, since you can avoid feeling guilty if you eat just one of the wrapped packages.

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I fondly recall candy cigarettes, both the gum and the chocolate versions, but I now wonder if it was some sort of ploy by the cigarette manufacturers to attract future users. Well, no matter! That was then, and this is now, and NOW there are wacky bubble gum cigarettes in interesting flavors from Archie McPhee.

I received four packs to review: Roller Derby (cherry-flavored bubble gum cigarettes), Captain Black’s Pirate (citrus-flavored bubble gum cigarettes), Hobo (campfire coffee bubble gum cigarettes), and El Diablo (cinnamon-flavored bubble gum cigarillos). Each box contains 12 pieces. The boxes, as you can see, sport appealing and quirky designs.

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Chewy Sprees can do no wrong in my book, but I am a little suspicious of this new Mix’d Berry flavor. None of the flavors are identified on the package, so who knows what could be, you know, mix’d (yeah, the cutesy spelling kind of gets me). The package says, “It’s a kick in the mouth!” What does that mean? Are they going to be sour? Overpowering? What? I guess there is only one way to find out.

I open up the package, and I must say the colors are stunning. Bright and cheerful, these little candies are calling out to me, and it’s all I can do to keep myself from shoving them all into my mouth. There are four flavors in the Mix’d Berry Chewy Spree package: purple, pink, red, and turquoise. Wikipedia claims that the turquoise (okay, so they call it aqua) is blueberry. I am still confused as to whether Mix’d Berry means there is more than one berry flavor per color (you know, like cranberry-raspberry flavor) or if it just means there are four berry flavors in a package. I am not confident I will be able to determine this by tasting them, but I’ll give it a try!

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