I’m not a stranger to “healthy” candy, nor are my views on it anything but direct: there really isn’t such a thing. So if you’re looking for a candy that’s going to be something I recommend you add to your diet, you can stop reading now.

That said, I do believe there is a difference between candy and candy that is better for you. And with childhood obesity on the rise, more and more parents are looking for these sorts of confectionery avenues. Kids are always going to want to eat sweets, so you might as well buy them the ones that are not as hard on their bodies.

Recently, I have reviewed products from companies that share this vision for candy, namely from Surf Sweets and BrightSpot, so it’s not all that surprising to hear of more and more companies adopting this mantra. The latest comes from Yummy Earth, who proudly boast a tagline that their candy is “The best stuff on earth.” Hmm… Snapple anyone?

The idea for this company is steeped in genuine love of both candy and children; the founders are two fathers who teamed up develop a candy for their children that didn’t rely on all the additives, preservatives, etc. that are common in most American candy.

There are certain traits each of their products share, including all being certified USDA organic (the first of its kind for gummy bears or gummy worms), manufactured without corn syrup, and stamped with a variety of allergen-free ingredients. Note that the Parve (a specific designation of Kosher) certification displayed on their website applies only to their hard candy, as the gummies contain gelatin (presumably an un-Kosher gelatin), which is also why the hard candy is certified vegan and the gummies aren’t, so you’d do best check the specifics on each bag for the slight variances.

Organic Candy Drops: All these pieces were shaped at about a half-inch diameter. The bag I received came in fourish flavors, which all remind me of hard candy sticks in terms of flavor and smooth surface.

Wet-Face Watermelon: is the pink piece. It bears a refined watermelon taste with a slight burst of tartness. It’s not really watermelon, and as someone who dislikes watermelon in candy, I enjoyed that.

Mango Tango: this piece is half-orange, half-yellow. The citrus here is zestful, but more indicative of lime, lemon, and orange than mango. I am not sure what flavor is doing the tango with the mango, but it’s very confusing in a delicious and flavorful way. Not really mango, but tasty.

Cheeky Lemon: this piece is the full yellow drop. The lemon flavor is more tart than zestful, but in an understated manner that lets you appreciate the charm of a lemon. I don’t really notice the cherry notes hidden under the potency of the lemon flavor.

Pomegranate Pucker: is the deep-purple piece. I have to say I enjoyed the other flavors, but wasn’t bowled away until this one. Wow! The pomegranate juice notes are strong with an alcohol base flavor profile that is robust, complex, and deep like a woodsy wine. Notes of black currant and grape juice reveal themselves, and I am reminded of the black currant piece in Rowntree’s Fruit Pastilles, a product I lauded to no end. Of all the things the kind folks at Yummy Earth sent me, this was the best.

Organic Lollipops: come in eight different flavors, including three of the flavors found in the candy drops. Each lollipop is about an inch in diameter and labels its flavor on the wrapper (the candy drops did not do this, hence why I mentioned their colors).

In terms of the repeating flavors (Wet-Face Watermelon, Mango Tango, and Pomegranate Pucker), each resembles the flavor and smooth consistency found in the candy drops, except the pomegranate is not as bold here.

Strawberry Smash: like the watermelon, this is comprised of a muted strawberry flavor, relying on the taste of strawberry in an altered state, such as a jam or fruit leather. It too reminds me of the strawberry piece in Rowntree’s Wine Gums. This piece refrains from being to sweet and lets the flavor speak instead of sugar. Very delicious.

Sour Apple Tart: I believe this piece is more tart than it is sour, the way a Granny Smith apple isn’t really sour. The apple flavor is reminiscent of freshly squeezed juice and is spot on for what it is trying to convey to your taste buds.

Very Very Cherry: there are so many types of cherry flavors, and this one is more along the lines of a cherry juice or the tart quality found in sour cherry pie. Those who are fans of that sort of cherry will enjoy this.

Googly Grape: I’d wager that this is the most traditional of the flavors. The taste is approximately that of grape juice, but not nearly as sweet. It’s mild like a grape popsicle, but genuine in it’s flavor presentation.

Tooberry Blueberry: blueberry is a hard flavor to reproduce in a candy, and these guys do pretty well here for the most part. Like their other flavors, it tastes more like the fruit juice than the fruit itself. I am not quite sure what the white flavor swirling the blueberry is (cream perhaps?), but I would prefer this lollipop without it.

Gummy Worms: For those of you accustomed to eating gummy worms, please not that these are about half the size of a traditional worm. I would also say they look a little more snake-like than worm. Regardless of size or shape, they are highly fragrant and provide a 100% daily dose of vitamin C.

Sour Apple Tart: in gummy form, the sharpness of the apple flavor in the lollipop is muted—but this is a great thing. The taste is pure apple and works well with the firm, but easy to chew texture of the gummy. Best of the three flavors.

Pomegranate Pucker: oddly enough, this version of the pomegranate flavor differed from that of the candy drop and lollipop.

Tangy Tangerine: tangerine isn’t a popular gummy flavor, but I’m not sure why, since it works well here. The citrus component is far from subtle and has a great tangerine zest, but it does seem more like orange than tangerine.

Gummy Bears: these are akin to Haribo gummy bears in shape, but not as defined. Like the gummy worms, they too boast a 100% daily dose of vitamin C. I also noticed the gummy chew was a bit firmer in these, which is a nice contrast from your typical flabby gummy.

Sour Apple Tart: the gummy quality is definitely playing a role in reducing the same flavors that are in the hard candy. Even more so than the worms, these lost that tartness in the lollipops. I think the reduced intensity worked well in former example, but here it’s just too subtle.

Pomegranate Pucker: not really a surprise, but the pomegranate flavor here is completely different than any of its other manifestations reviewed so far. Had I not known these were pomegranate, I’d probably guess grape.

Strawberry Smash: this bear in particular stood out. More so than the others, the chew factor played out well. The strawberry flavor mirrors that of the green bear in the Haribo variety (yes, green is strawberry in Haribo land), but does so in a much more flavorful and natural way. Best in this bag.

Aside from offering a great array of flavors in some better-for-you ways, one thing I really enjoyed about these guys was that the hard candies came in resealable bags; not sure why the gummies didn’t as they would need it more, I would think.

For those of you who, like me, enjoy certain flavors more than others, you can purchase the majority of these in individual flavor bags, as opposed to the mixed variety I sampled.

All in all, I think these are actually tasty. I don’t say that in that “healthy candy” tasty way, but tasty for any type of candy. Certain pieces here are just spectacular, and I would easily purchase those on their own. In a testament to how good they are, I actually handed them out for Halloween and received a variety of compliments from my neighbors; in the better-for-you candy world, your toughest critics are kids, and Yummy Earth easily made them smile.

Candy Addict received this product as a sample from the manufacturer. No payment was received for this review and all opinions represent an unbiased view of the product.

• Yummy Earth Website

Gilliam Candy Company has been around since 1927 but it’s only been under the Quality Candy banner since 2003. Lucky for me Gilliam joined the Quality family because I got to try their Stick Candy.

I remember these hard candy sticks from when I was a kid. The tantalizing colors and stripes would glisten from the shelves and they all looked so luscious it was really hard to pick just one.

I’m afraid you may have the same problem with these sticks. I sat ogling my stick candy in gluttonous glee before I finally chose a few to sample. For those of you who don’t like trying to guess what flavor the stick will be, they’ve got the names of the flavors printed on the ends of the sticks. But if you want to go for the mystery and choose by color, just don’t read the wrapper!

You won’t have a shortage of colors and flavors to choose from – here’s the list of flavors I got a look at: banana, blackberry, blueberry, bubblegum, cherry, cherry cola, chocolate, cinnamon, clove, cotton candy, grape, horehound, island punch, lime, orange, orange pineapple, passion fruit, peaches & cream, peppermint, pina colada, pineapple, raspberry, root beer, rum & butter, sassafras, sour apple, spearmint, strawberry, tangerine, tutti frutti, watermelon, and wintergreen.

Obviously, it’d take me a month to try all these so I narrowed it down to five: bubblegum, horehound, rum & butter, sassafras, and sour apple.

I tried the bubblegum because just the thought of it made the kid in me giggle. This flavor tastes like bubblegum with some barley sugar and a little bit of fruitiness thrown in.

I tried the horehound because I didn’t know what “horehound” meant. Miriam Webster said it’s a kind of minty plant or a candy made out the plant, but this wasn’t minty at all. Mostly it tasted like barley sugar to me and I found it really mellow and pleasant to eat because it was just the right amount of sweet. I had trouble putting this one down.

I tried the sassafras because I think the name is fun. I know that many root beers say “sassafras” on them, but this tasted kind of like black licorice to me with some root beer in the finish.

I LOVE butterscotch so I couldn’t wait to try the rum & butter. This stick isn’t actually a butterscotch wannabe. It has its own, distinct sweet rum flavor with some buttery flavor sneaking in here and there. I found it light and enjoyable.

Finally, I tried the sour apple. While this definitely had a mild apple flavor, I wouldn’t call this sour. I prefer my sour apple flavor to be strong and quite tart, but if you like your apple flavor on the light and sweet side, you’ll enjoy this.

Overall, these were way fun to eat – the flavors were satisfying and the colors and shape evoked a sense of nostalgia that just added to the fun factor. As a bonus, they last a good long time so they should keep you occupied for quite awhile.

• Quality Candy Company Website

Get ready for a slew of Quality Candy Company goodness because I’m in possession of a treasure trove of quality goodness! First up: Choco-Crisps, a new release from Quality Candy.

I thought these were going to be some kind of chocolate wafer thingy, but I was surprised to discover they are nothing of the sort. These little guys are hard candies on the outside with chocolate in the middle. The “crisp” part comes in with the candy shell: it’s not as hard as it looks. Rather, it’s thin enough that you can easily bite through to get to the chocolate inside. I really enjoyed the texture of the candy shell. It’s not as thin as, say, an M&M shell, but it’s thin enough to make it fun rather than a lot of work. Plus, it doesn’t get all sharp and painful when you chomp it up – it just adds a crunch factor to the chocolate.

Speaking of the chocolate, that was a nice surprise too. It’s got this really creamy consistency that melts slowly so you can really savor it. The creaminess of the chocolate contrasts with the crunchiness of the candy shell so you get this mix of textures that’s dynamite.

At first, I thought the chocolate filling tasted kind of like a Tootsie Roll. But the more I chewed, the more chocolaty it got. As the chocolate flavor dominates the flavor from the shell, I got this constantly changing flavor combo that kept my tongue interested.

I tried three flavors of shells. The orange had an orange and cream flavor that reminded me of Dreamsicle. Now the pink flavor I was told was raspberry, but to me it tasted a lot like a strawberry Twizzler. Either way, I really enjoyed it. The peppermint, my favorite, had that great, classic peppermint candy cane flavor that makes your mouth tingle. After the chocolate faded I had this tingly, minty chocolate flavor lingering in my mouth that just rocked.

Like the rest of the Quality Candy offerings, the Choco-Crisps remind me of old-fashioned candies in a way that makes me smile. They may have an old-fashioned look but the great taste and texture sure do keep up with the here and now. The Choco-Crisps are coming out soon and I recommend you give them a whirl.

More Quality Candy Company reviews coming soon!

• Quality Candy Company Website

On the other hand, as I am sure I have mentioned a million times, I’m a sucker for mango. The idea of Curiously Strong Mango was something I couldn’t resist.

These are little bumpy round things, kind of like little sugar flowers, in a pale orange color. They don’t look like mangoes, and I am not absolutely sure they taste like mangoes. It’s clearly an artificial flavor, at most one that tastes more like mango than it tastes like another fruit. They’re not like the mango Hi-Chew I reviewed recently, for instance, where you taste them and aren’t surprised to read in the ingredients that there’s real mango in there somehow. They are more “Curiously Fruity,” like it says on the tin, than they are in-your-face MANGO.

But, they’re really good. They are more sour on the outside and get a little less interesting as you suck down to the inside, but that’s OK. As it is, the roof of my mouth hurts after eating a few, so I don’t think I need even more sour. Also, I might warn those of you who live in similar humid climates to mine – apparently the tin doesn’t seal tightly enough to keep them from getting sticky in August.

But, those are nitpicks. Taking these as a curiously sour fruity thing, I’m totally happy with them. I’m glad to see from their extremely annoying animated website that they offer other fruit flavors – the passionfruit sounds intriguing. There is a place in my life for a sour hard candy that has been sadly empty lately, and I would gladly buy these again.

• Altoids Website

Buy Mango Altoids Online:

• at Candy Favorites

The compressed dextrose candy has long been a staple item of childhood candy diets. Never heard of it? You probably know it better as SweeTarts, Runts, and dozens more – that hard, yet powdery, melt-in-your mouth candy with the tangy flavor and slight cooling effect.

With Pucker Pieces Gourmet Candy Tarts, Creative Concepts Inc. (best known for its Pucker Powder powdered candy dispensers) seems to be trying to do for the compressed dextrose candy what Jelly Belly did for the jelly bean: use unique flavors and creative marketing to “gourmet-ify” it, transforming it into something that will appeal to adults as well as kids. Like Jelly Bellies, Pucker Pieces are displayed in bulk dispensers, allowing for the creation of custom flavor mixes.

If you know how compressed dextrose candies are made, it seems like a total no-brainer for a company that specializes in a powdered dextrose candy like Pucker Powder to move to hard tabs: just like the name implies, a powder made from dextrose (a type of sugar) and other ingredients is pressed into molds at super-high pressure, forming it into hard, yet still powdery, candy treats. (Pills are made the same way.) It seems like it would be a very simple matter to press straight-up Pucker Powder (or something very similar) into a more portable, less messy version of Creative Concepts’ flagship product.

The sample I got at the All Candy Expo consists of a film canister-sized plastic container of what appears to be their Party Mix, containing both single-colored and “tie-dyed” multicolored pieces. They have a yummy fruity smell, like a box of Runts, only more complex with all the additional flavors in there.

They don’t come in as many flavors as Jelly Belly, but I can definitely see them branching out more if these prove to be popular. The container had a good sample of most of their twelve flavors (fourteen, if you count the two double-flavored pieces, Strawberry Banana and Strawberry Grape). My sample container was missing Sour White Apple (perhaps related to the blue raspberry) and Sour Pink Lemonade (which I would have been interested in comparing with the regular Sour Lemonade). But for the purposes of this review, twelve flavors is plenty. Let’s begin, shall we?

Sour Lemonade (yellow): All the tarts have a relatively soft texture – they’re less hard and crumble more easily than SweeTarts. This one’s a very sour lemon, heavy on the citric acid. The word “sour” gets thrown around so easily these days, but yeah, these are pretty sour.

Sour Green Apple (green): That familiar green apple flavor, mellowed with a cooling hint of what tastes like banana Runts (my favorite!). These taste sour on the outside, but they’re definitely not as sour as the lemonade.

Sweet Root Beer (brown): Mmm, mm – this reminds me of the root beer-flavored Bottle Caps candy, which was the best one. I actually liked the root beer Bottle Cap even better than real root beer, so eating this flavor made me happy.

Sour Peach (orange): Somehow I’m not getting any peach out of this, just generic sour with a vague fruity aftertaste.

Sour Fruit Punch (blue): I think blue fruit punch must be the new blue raspberry – what blue fruits do you associate with fruit punch? These are that generic “punch” flavor that doesn’t taste like any fruits in particular. Good thing I enjoy generic punch – I actually wish more things came in that flavor.

Sweet Strawberry (pinkish-purple): These were so close in color to Sour Wild Cherry that I had to really squint at the pictures on the website and hope my monitor wasn’t set to a wonky color setting. This tastes like strawberry Runts, only less tangy – like the apple, it has that mellow, sweet cooling effect.

Sour Wild Cherry (pinkish-red): Like cherry Runts (I think I’m sensing a pattern here), only with a mellower, fruitier flavor, almost like the Fruit Punch.

Sour Grape (purple): As advertised, it’s grape. And sour. It reminds me of the grape powder from Fun Dip.

Sour Watermelon (darker pinkish-purple): Again, like watermelon Runts, only sourer. This is a very sour sour flavor, like the lemon, with a kick in the tastebuds from the citric acid.

Sweet Banana (pale yellow): After tasting the other sweet flavors, I was expecting these to taste like my favorite Runts flavor of all, banana. And guess what? They totally did.

Strawberry Banana (Sweet Strawberry and Sweet Banana swirl): A very mellow combo of their respective flavors. I think this one’s my favorite so far.

Strawberry Grape (Sweet Strawberry and Sour Grape swirl): The sweet-sour combo was interesting – it made a nice bridge between their sweet and sour pieces. It would be interesting to try a few more flavors like that (or you could just eat two different flavored pieces together – y’know, whatever).

Overall, I liked some of the flavors a lot, and the others I was a bit “meh” about. I usually really enjoy sour things, but in this case I liked the mellow, cooling sweet flavors best.

Though I wouldn’t necessarily choose to purchase all of these flavors separately, that’s the beauty of this “pick and mix” style of candy. I’m hoping the dispensers pop up in my area eventually, as a big bag of Root Beer, Fruit Punch and Strawberry Banana would make me a very happy camper indeed.

• Pucker Pieces Website

Hard butterscotch candies may be almost as ubiquitous as fruit-flavored hard candies, but there’s always been something different about Werther’s Originals. Perhaps it’s their delicate balance of sweet and salt, or perhaps it’s the fact that they’re made with real cream and butter, but in a candy market filled with generic butterscotch candies, there’s only one Werther’s.

Until recently, that is. Like many other classic candies, Werther’s are now available in an array of different forms – from caramel-coffee to sugar-free to caramel-mint, and now, these Werther’s Originals Caramel Chocolates.

Werther’s was making a big deal out of these at the All Candy Expo – when you went through the main entrance, the first thing you saw was a white-hatted “chef” armed with a tray of these glittering, foil-wrapped chocolate discs. Of course, I allowed him to provide me with a few samples, in both Milk and Dark. (I realized later that I’d been scooped – we’d already posted a review of the dark chocolate Werther’s Originals all the way back in November. D’oh!)

I was initially very curious about what “caramel chocolates” would involve – these seemed a little thin to have any kind of a liquid center, so my guess was that they contained crushed Werther’s hard candy bits. It turned out I couldn’t have been more wrong.

Instead, the oblong discs of chocolate are swirled with what appears to be caramel-flavored (and colored) white chocolate. They’re actually quite striking, but how do they taste?

When they’re unwrapped, they give off a scent of butterscotch ice cream topping, giving me a major craving for a McDonalds ice cream sundae.

Flavor-wise, they’re a dead ringer for one of my favorite chocolate bars, the Caramilk, only with the caramel and chocolate swirled together. I don’t know if they outsourced the chocolate to a larger manufacturer (a pretty common practice), but it definitely tastes like a Cadbury product, like a Creme Egg, with the flavor but not the overwhelming sweetness of a gooey sugary filling. I don’t detect any flavor notes that scream “Werther’s,” but these are definitely better than I was expecting, if only because they taste like my childhood.

In all, I found these a pretty tasty item – and pretty to boot. These are definitely something different for Werther’s, but as we all know, different can be a good thing.

• Werther’s Originals Website

Buy Werther’s Originals Online:

• at Candy Crate
• at Candy Direct
• at Amazon.com

I had the pleasure of reviewing some of Lollipop Labs unusual lollipops this weekend. Given that they have flavors like “Dirty Martini” and “Earl Grey,” I would recommend these lollies more for the discerning Candy Addict than for, say, your five year old.

A couple of general notes: these lollipops don’t have a lot of scent when you open them, but don’t let that fool you. As soon as you lick them you get plenty of flavor. I thought one of the coolest things about them was the way the flavor nuances change as you eat them. Sometimes you’ll get more of one herb than another as you go, while still enjoying the overall main flavor of the lollipop. Neat! Plus, I love that I recognize and can pronounce every ingredient on the labels.

One more thing: if you don’t see a flavor below that appeals to you, Lollipop Labs will custom design the flavor and shape of their lollipops to your specifications. How cool is that?

Dirty Martini (aka: Dude There’s an Olive in My Lollipop!): Might as well start with the aforementioned Dirty Martini. I gotta tell you I was excited by the idea of this lollipop. In case you haven’t had one, a dirty martini is like a regular martini, but they add in a bunch of olive juice. So, I was envisioning something sweet and salty – a combo I really enjoy. This baby starts off with a sweet flavor that reminded me of the old-fashioned barley sugar lollies. Then, as I nibbled, I did get a little bit of salty, though not as much as I’d hoped. I could also taste the olive, but again it wasn’t the whomping olive flavor I associate with dirty martinis. However, when I got to the middle, I had a ring of olive to eat, just like the olives in the martini glass. This olive was quite chewy and a bit disconcerting. Overall, although this lollipop was ok, I found I liked the idea better than the actual pop. Still, I recommend trying it because it’s such an unusual experience.

Peppermint Tea Toddy: In contrast to the Dirty Martini flavor, I was not excited about the Peppermint. I figured, you’ve tasted one peppermint, you pretty much know what you’ll be getting with the rest. I mean, I enjoy a nice candy cane every now and then, but they can be kind of “ho hum.” Oh boy was I wrong! This wound up being one of my two favorite flavors! The Lollipop Lab geniuses decided to throw in some rum here and wow! The rum is subtle, but it does this little dance with the peppermint and boy is it good. There’s also just a hint of lime that plays in the background. Overall, a truly yummy pop that should make candy canes embarrassed!

Kaffir Lime Lemongrass: Unlike all the other lollipops I tried, the first taste you get with this pop is NOT sweet. It’s a bit startling. Have you ever bitten into the rind of a lime – or orange, or lemon? Well, that’s kind of how this lollipop tasted to me: like the zest from the rind of a lime. So instead of the tangy tartness I expected, the taste was a bit bitter, with a strong lime zest flavor, and only a touch of sourness. I like sour things so I wished this was more tart, more like the meat of the lime and less like the zest. I also didn’t get a lot of lemongrass in the flavor, which would have helped add some tanginess – the lime seemed particularly dominant. So, if you like a strong lime flavor, you should check this out.

Lavender Rose: I thought this was by far the prettiest of the lollipops, and I can see it making a really good gift (the photo doesn’t do the colors justice). You’ve got the heart shape, the purple color, and the pretty flecks of herbs – they all make for a nice package for some really good flavor. Out of all the lollipops I tasted, I found this pop to have the gentlest flavors. It started out with that sweet, barley sugar taste but then the rose flavor kicked in, with just a hint of lavender. Some licks had more lavender to them, some less, which just made the experience all the more interesting and enjoyable. If you want to go mellow and pretty with your pop, try this flavor.

Swine Flue Prevention: The pig shape certainly gives this lollipop a fun factor! I gotta tell you that this lollipop tasted medicinal to me. Given that it’s got ingredients that include echinacea, eucalyptus, and ginger, I can see why. But I have to say, sucking on this lollipop is way more fun than I usually have taking my vitamins. I can’t vouch for the efficacy of its prevention abilities, but in terms of boosting my immune system by boosting my mood, this sure works. See, the lollipop is too big to fit in my mouth. So that meant I had to spend time nibbling on the pig’s ears. Definitely good for the giggles.

Earl Grey: This was my other favorite flavor. If you like Earl Grey tea, this lollipop is for you! I don’t know how they managed it, but they got the perfect Earl Grey flavor with this pop. It’s like having a nice, sweet cup of tea without all the fuss. I got the sometimes sweet, sometimes peppery, sometimes spicy flavors I associate with excellent Earl Grey. This lollipop has a really bumpy texture but I have to say I didn’t mind it – it just added to the experience.

Overall, none of these flavors turned out to be what I expected, which was totally fun for me. If you like lollipops and unique flavor combos, I recommend giving these pops a whirl.

If you could design your own flavor, what would you choose?

• Lollipop Labs Website
• Lollipop Labs at Etsy

Altoids – the name frightens me. I immediately get an image of my head bursting into flames as a small white tablet of destruction sears the inside of my mouth and then wreaks its havoc on the rest of my body. My husband and my mother love Altoids. They laugh at me because I am afraid of them don’t care for them.

Of course I’m talking about the dreaded peppermint Altoids. Whoever created those things must have been a sadistic former Gulag prison guard. Imagine my inconsolable weeping hesitation when I received two packages of Altoids in the mail to review.

Fortunately, they were not of the peppermint variety. Instead I’ve been able to sample the wintergreen and cinnamon flavors from the new Altoids Smalls Sugar Free line.

Now these aren’t new flavors, but they are being sold in a new small size. The tin is about 3″ by 2″ which means it can fit nicely in your pocket or purse. The mints themselves are smaller too – about the size of a corn kernel as opposed to the normal lima bean size. (Yeah, as if you Candy Addicts ever eat lima beans.) These Altoids Smalls are sugar free, unlike their larger cousins. They’re sweetened with sorbitol and sucralose, and according to Wikipedia they contain a pork gelatin. You vegetarians will just have to resist.

The Wintergreen Altoids Smalls are a pretty blue color and, in my opinion, deliciously fresh. They have a nice typically wintergreen flavor and are not hot or overpowering like the peppermint Altoids. They have a bit of a “sting” in a pleasant sort of way. Their breath-freshening capacity is very good. Just one of the tiny mints left my mouth feeling as if I had just brushed with an expensive toothpaste and rinsed with a stinky brown mouthwash. (And I mean that in the best possible way.)

Because I live in a household of “non-returning borrowers,” I was not able to personally sample the Cinnamon Altoids Smalls. Of the two tins that arrived in my mail, my husband took one and my five-year-old took the other. Yes, my five-year-old. He prides himself on liking “the hot stuff.” I asked my husband for his opinion of the cinnamon flavor. He describes it this way: “There’s an intense burst of cinnamon flavor at first. It doesn’t overpower you with too much cinnamon or heat but has an excellent taste. Every time I ate one, it left me wanting another.” So there you have it, straight from the horse’s mouth. (Don’t tell him I said that.)

Why I ended the last two paragraphs with a sentence in parentheses, I do not know. Unusual prose aside, the new Altoids Smalls Sugar Free Mints are a delightful bit of tasty freshness that will slip into your pocket.

• Altoids Website

Buy Altoids Small Sugar Free Mints Online:

• at Amazon.com
• at Candy Direct
]]> http://candyaddict.com/blog/2009/05/11/candy-review-altoids-smalls-sugar-free-mints/feed/ 6 http://candyaddict.com/blog/2009/04/27/candy-review-wiseman-house-almond-toffee/ http://candyaddict.com/blog/2009/04/27/candy-review-wiseman-house-almond-toffee/#comments Mon, 27 Apr 2009 07:00:37 +0000 Robby http://candyaddict.com/blog/?p=5416

My awesome friend Greg from Houston and his friends are total foodies. What does this mean? That they are willing to drive 3.5 hours from Houston to attend the Austin Hill County Food and Wine Festival, even if it means driving through a hurricane to get there.

I am not a big fan of wine – with the exception of amazing New Zealand Sauvignon Blancs – but if there is gourmet food, then count me in! So we arrived at the festival Sunday afternoon, and as I was swishing my glass of overly sweet champagne in desperate need of a little O.J., I spot a chocolate booth.

Wiseman House Chocolates, a local Texas chocolatier, stood at the front of the main tent and just dared you not to stop by with their elegant display of product and fully uniformed workers. I sauntered as quickly as one can in 90ºF with a glass of champagne in hand, eager to pick at the lovely samples they were doling out.



The first was a bowl containing their Mocha Crunch. I didn’t reveal my credentials as a candy reviewer, so when one of the employees asked what I thought, she was taken back a bit by the fact I replied, “It’s too dry. There needs to be more cocoa butter to balance out the ground coffee beans.”

She seemed more impressed than disappointed that I was able to spot this. Note to self, it is perfectly acceptable to be a food snob at such a festival. Feeling let down, she handed me a complimentary truffle. I bit into it, and it was amazing, but I will extol the virtues of it in another review. She saved the best for last. A plain Almond Toffee.

Now, I have reviewed my fair share of toffees, including some gourmet products produced by LalaBoodle’s and The Choke Cherry Tree. How do these compare? They are so good that my awesome friend Greg became even awesomer (spelling intended) when he purchased a 13-dollar half-pound of these and a small package of truffles for $9.

So when we get home, Greg decides he no longer wants any of the candy and leaves it with me. I don’t do a very good job of feigning ambivalence. Instead, I decide to devour a piece.

The half-pound package contains five squarish (more like irregular rhombuses) that are about four square inches. The piece is also quite thick at about a quarter-inch. The squares are coated and dusted in various bit of almond that ranges in size from flake to chunk. I take a whiff and it smells more like fresh almonds than toffee.

That is because this piece is unlike regular toffee in several ways. First, it’s immensely fresh. The bite is firm, but not hard, with a soft crunch containing almonds embedded within the toffee for an enhanced textural contrast. Lovely, just lovely. No pieces stick in your teeth and the flavors permeate well.

It has a simplicity to it that I feel most other forms of toffee complicate. You taste the butter, which is rich, but not overwhelming, and it is never burdened with excess sugar. Just spot on for the perfect ratio of ingredients and cooking temperature.

The almond coating and the toffee center are separated by a Belgian chocolate layer. This is really where this piece of toffee distinguishes itself from other brands. Most of the time, the chocolate layer is relegated to one portion and is too minimal to be tasted with the bolder toffee component.

In this case, chocolate is listed as the main ingredient, and the whole piece is battered in the chocolate coat, which allows you to blend the almonds and toffee mellifluously with the milky and bittersweet tastes. All of this is further highlighted by an insightful adding of sea salt to balance out the various flavors.

To say I enjoyed this would be an understatement. It’s subtle and sophisticated, yet I can write about the intricacies of this product for days. The only real qualm about these, aside from their stiff price, is that they use corn syrup in addition to sugar. But hey, it’s a small sacrifice for something this delicious.

• Wiseman House Website
]]> http://candyaddict.com/blog/2009/04/27/candy-review-wiseman-house-almond-toffee/feed/ 1 http://candyaddict.com/blog/2009/04/22/candy-review-yogen-fruz-smoothies/ http://candyaddict.com/blog/2009/04/22/candy-review-yogen-fruz-smoothies/#comments Wed, 22 Apr 2009 09:00:04 +0000 Laurie http://candyaddict.com/blog/?p=5264

When it comes to candy packaging, I am a shallow, shallow person – particularly around mint-type candies. If it comes in an awesome tin, I am all over it, to the point where I have a pretty impressive collection of mint tins accumulating in my desk drawer at work. I am never in my entire life going to have enough tiny widgets and gewgaws to fill all those tins – and yet, again and again I find myself buying candy of questionable quality because it came in awesome and potentially reusable packaging.

Like the other day, when I was skimming the shelves at London Drugs looking for discounted Easter candy… and something else caught my eye: a rack of Yogen Früz Smoothies tins. The clean, modern design of the tin, its colors just evoking the blue and pink of the Yogen Früz logo… its use of the ü, which doubles as a happy face, as a design element… its paltry price of $1.79. Half-price chocolate bunnies aside, I knew I had to have one… quite possibly in every flavor they came in. I managed to settle for just Strawberry Banana.

Once I got home, the doubts started to set in. I enjoy a good frozen yogurt, but yogurt-flavored hard candy? It’s not like there isn’t decent yogurt-flavored candy in the world, but in my experience, all of it is soft. This product appears to be YF’s attempt to join Baskin Robbins and Cold Stone Creamery in the frozen-treats-with-spin-off-candies department. (Can I call them YF? Those umlauts are a bear to insert.) But while those other candies mimic the decadence of a full-fat ice cream cone, YF is going for the same market as its healthy, yet indulgent frozen treats with fruit and yogurt flavors, and even a healthy-sounding title of “Smoothies.”

The clean, spare packaging, while attractive, does somewhat resemble a diet product rather than a candy, and the tin is even sprinkled with buzz words like “all-natural” and “probiotic.” (Those bacteria are some hardy little guys if they can survive in the dry, acidic environment inside a SweeTART-like candy.) And with no fat and only three calories a candy, these were starting to look less and less like they were aimed at the day-after-Easter-candy crowd, and more and more like they were aimed at the yoga-antioxidant-goji-berry crowd. But hey, if they actually tasted good, they’d be as close to a guilt-free candy as you can get.

(I should probably mention that these are made in Canada, and so are possibly Canada-only – it’s not always easy to tell.)

The candies do indeed resemble SweeTARTS – they’re little round compressed-dextrose discs, in this case a very pale pinky-purple, embedded with the signature “ü.” Texture-wise, they’re not actually very much like SweeTARTS or other mints I’ve had – the texture is a lot softer, almost crumbly, quickly disintegrating into little gritty bits with a texture I’m really not crazy about.

Flavor-wise, they’ve definitely got a yogurty tang to them. They’re pretty sour, but not really in the good way. The strawberry banana flavor actually kind of unpleasant – it’s got that same so-sweet-it’s-sour aftertaste as some artificially sweetened things do, even though there’s only real sugar in them. Combined with the sour taste of the yogurt, it brings to mind underripe strawberries and that bitter white stuff inside a banana peel rather than the sweet, mellow interior.

In all, they don’t remind me of candy so much as they do some fruit-flavored chewable multivitamins I had as a kid – it’s like the fruit flavor’s only there to cover up the bad taste of the stuff that’s good for you, but the fruit taste only combines with the medicine taste for a new level of badness.

So I got my cute tin this time – but a whole lot of not-so-good candy to go along with it. Did I learn my lesson? Definitely… at least until the next shiny new thing comes along.

• Yogen Früz Website
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