There are just so many gums on the market right now that it’s hard to make any kind of decision on what you wanna chew. There must be at least 4 or 5 different mint flavors per brand from what I see in the checkout lines, not to mention all the fruit or combination flavors. I’ve even seen gum that’s supposed to taste like desserts. Now Stridehas come out with a new Wintermint gum sponsored by snowboarder Shaun White.

Unfortunately, this is just another one of those gimmicks. If you love snowboarding or you’re a Shaun White fan, Stride knows you’ll buy this gum. On the outside of the white package you can see there’s a partial face shot of Shaun White with his blazing red hair. On the inside of the package there’s all kinds of drawings of Shaun with comic book like talking “bubbles” along with some quotes from Shaun. Beyond that, this is just another mint gum.

The sticks are a decent size, as seems to be the standard with Stride gum and they are pure white. There’s nothing exciting or different about this “Wintermint” flavor. It really just tastes like peppermint. I’m a big fan of mint gum just because I’m always paranoid about my breath so that’s the flavor I’m always chewing. I tend to lean towards the softer mint flavored gums, that’s the mint I like. The really sharp mint gums just end up making me thirsty instead of feeling refreshed. This Wintermint is more of those sharper mint gums and even though it was a good strong flavor, it ended up making me thirsty.

As far as how long the flavor lasts, I’d say 30-45 minutes. That’s a decent amount of time, especially with a sugarless gum. And, we know Stride prides itself on its long lasting gum flavors. It does keep the breath fresh and I really didn’t have any stinky breath for awhile after throwing the gum out so it does have that going for it.

As for whether or not you should buy it, well I will leave it up to you. If you want to give it a try you’re welcome to it but I will warn you that this Shaun White gum will cost you more just because his face is on the package. I was at Wal-mart the other day and saw both regular Stride mint gum and the Shaun White Wintermint at the checkout line. The regular Stride flavors only cost 96 cents while the Shaun White Stride gum was $1.28. Must be more because Sean’s mug is on there, right?

• Stride Gum Website
• Shaun White’s Website
• Buy Stride Gum Online

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.

Nintendo continues to cash in on its classic video game character, the Italian plumber – Mario!. This time they’ve come up with sour and non-sour gummy candies called Super Mario 3-Dees. I tried the sour version because I love sour candy! The gimmick here is the fact that the gummy candies are actually three dimensional figures, like gummi bears. They come in four flavors and four shapes. The flavors are: orange, watermelon, strawberry and mixed berry. The shapes are: Mario, Yoshi, Diddy Kong and Donkey Kong. The shapes do not denote the flavor as some candies do, but rather you could get say 3 Mario shapes in your bag but they can be all different flavors.

The candies are all brightly colored with pretty much standard colors denoting the flavors (ie: blue for the mixed berry, orange for orange, etc.) The texture is that of a pretty standard gummy and of course they have the nice sour coating on top that gives a little crunch if you bite into it right away. As for the flavors, they are pretty much standard fruit flavors, there is nothing really outstanding about them.

It’s pretty obvious that these Nintendo candies will appeal more to kids who just love Nintendo games or the Nintendo collectors out there. The Super Mario 3-Dees really have two things going for them: one is the fact that these are three dimensional candies, not flat like Sour Patch Kids, and two that they are Super Mario characters. Otherwise, they don’t stand out as any better than other similar candies on the market today. If you’re buying them for the flavors, I think you’ll be disappointed but if you love Nintendo stuff or have kids that love Mario, these are great!

• 3-Dees Website
• Buy Nintendo Candy Online
• Huge list of Nintendo candy

Everybody knows the name Hershey and everyone out there has probably had a Hershey bar. After all, they aren’t called the “Great American Chocolate Bar” for nothing ya know. Now they’ve come out with this new chocolate bar called Hershey’s Air Delight. It’s essentially a regular Hershey bar full of air holes which is sort of like the Nestle Aero bars or even the Bubble Chocolate.

I’ve had the Aero bars and they have air pockets more like a honeycomb. The air holes are large and very noticeable. I was never impressed by that feature, it really never added or took away from the flavor, and it just added a weird texture. The Hershey’s Air Delight has really tiny air holes – it looks a lot like the middle of the bar got kind of melted and smooshed. You have to look really really close to even see the tiny air pockets.

The texture is just a softer version of a Hershey Bar. The air holes don’t really add anything except to make it feel softer inside, almost like there should be some sort of filling in it, but there isn’t any filling. As far as taste, it takes just like a regular Hershey bar, just with that soft texture on the inside. It seems to be a new gimmick that Hershey is trying out in their bars and their Kisses too, like they’re trying to dip their feet in the water. I like Hershey’s chocolate and it always brings back childhood memories, but this Air Delight is nothing phenomenal. I’ll eat it if you give me one but I’d be fine with just a plain good old regular Hershey bar.

• Hershey’s Website
• Buy Hershey’s Candy Online

Right before Father’s Day, I had posted about Beercandy and how it would make a great gift for Dads everywhere. I mentioned in that post that I was planning to order some of their products for my beer loving husband for Father’s Day. After all, what could be better for a beer-loving guy? Well, I spoke true and now I can tell you all about their Beer Taffy. I would have also reviewed the Beer Caramels, but sadly, since it was a Father’s Day gift after all, they were consumed before I could taste the. I had asked him for some details that I could include in the review but all he could tell me was that they were the best caramels he ever had.

If you are expecting that the Beer Taffy is going to be a sweet piece of chewy taffy with just a hint of beer flavor, like I did, then you’ll be in for a surprise. It’s nothing at all like I expected. If you like your taffy thick and chewy, then you’ll be very pleased. It literally took me 5 minutes to chew one of these. Your mouth will definitely get some exercise.

If you like the taste beer, then you’re going to love this candy. There are only two beers used to make the taffies, IPA and Stout. Both the IPA and the Stout taffy were equally strong in flavor, even though Stout is a normally a much stronger beer. There’s not much sweetness to this taffy, just enough to qualify them as candy, but the main flavor is beer. The best way I can describe this candy is “chewable beer”.

So, if you’re a beer lover and a taffy lover, you’ll really enjoy this candy. It’s a great combination of both handcrafted beers and candy. I like a good beer myself every now or then but to me it was strange to chew some beer rather than drinking it down. Then again, there’s no cans or bottles to worry about, you won’t need a beer cozy to keep it cool, and you sure don’t need a bottle opener!

• Beercandy Website

Skinny Cow ice cream has been around for a while and I think it’s pretty darn good so I was curious as to how their new line of candies would taste. The Skinny Cow candies are made by Nestle so I figure that I’d find some similarities in taste and quality to those Nestle candies I already like. The idea is that these are calorie-counted candies so that you know how much you are eating in one sitting.

Heavenly Crisp Bar: Milk Chocolate

The Heavenly Crisp Bar is a combination of crispy wafers and a chocolate crème covered in milk chocolate. It looks like a big Kit Kat Bar except that it’s a little crispier and the chocolate coating is much thinner than a Kit Kat. As far as taste goes, the milk chocolate is decent and the combination of the crisp wafers with the crème is pretty good. It’s a good chocolate candy but nothing really makes it stand out for me. Although, at 110 calories, it’s a pretty satisfying treat.

Dreamy Clusters

The Dreamy Clusters are a combination of crispy rice and caramel coated in milk chocolate. It’s basically like mixing a Nestle Crunch Bar with caramel. The caramel is thick and chewy and goes nice with the crisp texture of the rice. And of course, the chocolate rounds out the taste real well. You get about 4 crisps in each bag for 120 calories. For me, it’s just enough to get that craving taken care of.

If you’re watching your calories or are on Weight Watchers (they are Weight Watchers approved) then these are a pretty good way to satisfy your chocolate cravings and your sweet tooth. You get a decent amount of product for the amount of calories. However, as far as taste goes, these didn’t really stand out to me as anything different from what’s already on the market.

Editor’s note: I tried both also and thought both were very good, especially given the calorie count. I actually thought the Dreamy Clusters were delicious and would not have known they were low cal unless I was told (or read the label or saw they were called Skinny Cow).

• Skinny Cow Website

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.

I’m just going to come out and say it, Gimbal’s Sour Lovers Mix is the absolute BEST sour candy I have ever had! I’ve never had any Gimbal’s candy before and honestly I had never heard of them before I got this bag of goodness. I sure do know about Gimbal’s Candy now! They are so good that I let my husband have a few and from his reaction, I had to hide the bag in order to have enough for me to write this review. It was tough.

These sour gummy candies are shaped like hearts and come in 12 flavors: Meyer Lemon, Grapefruit, Pomegranate, Fuji Apple, Watermelon, Tangerine, Margarita, Blueberry, Mango, Strawberry Daiquiri, Mango, Bing cherry and Georgia Peach.

The best thing about these is not only the flavors (which are phenomenal), but the fact that they aren’t just sour on the outside; they are also sour on the inside. I noticed this when I sucked off the outer sour coating and figured out that the gummy in my mouth was still sour. It was confirmed when I visited the Gimbal’s website. They actually put the sour making ingredients into the gummy mixture and then coat the gummies in the sour mixture too.

The gummy is that good, tooth-sticking kind of gummy that makes the flavors linger for so long. You get such a good long chew with these and in combination with the incredible flavors and the double sour whammy… these are a phenomenal candy that is not to be missed. I hereby award them the coveted Candy Addict Awesomely Addictive Candy Award!

• Gimbal’s Candy Website
• Buy Gimbal’s Sour Candy Online

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.

Dentyne Pure

Dentyne Pure gum touts that it will “purify your breath” with natural botanical accents. The claim is that it “Neutralizes bad breath odors caused by bacteria and food.”

Mint with Melon Accents

The gum is a standard square shape, white with a harder candy coating over top of it. Upon the initial “chew”, the mint flavor is almost chemical in taste. This was almost a complete turn off from chewing it any more. But, as a Candy Addict, I must persevere. The candy shell breaks easily and the gum underneath is a good soft, but not too soft gum. The mint flavor is very sharp at first but does mellow off into a more natural mint flavor as I chewed. As for the “Melon Accents”, I never found them. Once in a while there might have been a hint of something other than mint but it disappeared just as fast as it came on. As for purifying my breath, it only did that so long as I was chewing the gum. Once I finished the piece, there really wasn’t any long-lasting effect.

Mint with Herbal Accents

This one was almost identical to the Mint with Melon Accents. Honestly, whatever herbal accents are in this gum, I have no idea what they are. There is really no other flavors to this gum other than mint. This time, I chewed the gum after lunch. I had some of my homemade bruschetta which is full of tomatoes, red onion and garlic. I thought it was a good challenge for this breath purifying gum. I would say that about 80% of my bad lunch breath was neutralized. However, after I threw the gum away, my breath crept back. So, yes the gum does neutralize bad breath, but truly only while you’re chewing the gum. Once you’re done with chewing it, you’re on your own breath-wise.

Stride Spark Gum

This new gum from Stride boasts B6 and B12 vitamins to give you a boost of energy. Based on the amount of time I chewed this gum, I can say no boost of energy was experienced.

Stride Spark Kinetic Mint

The stick of gum was colored a brilliant blue and is a skinny rectangle in shape. I was actually grossed out by the initial flavor of this gum. It was obvious that there was some sort of vitamin in the gum. The flavor was so off it was offensive. However, after giving it a couple of minutes, that funky taste goes away and you’re left with this awesome mint flavor. It’s not super-sharp like some mint gums get, but rather a softer and sweeter mint. I rather enjoyed chewing this gum after that initial yuck factor. The flavor lasted longer than a half hour and gave my mouth that cool mint feeling (you know when you breathe in through your mouth and you get that cooling sensation).

Stride Spark Kinetic Fruit

The Kinetic Fruit gum was the same size and shape as the mint but colored a bright orange. As with its mint counterpart, the Kinetic Fruit gum does have that “vitamin” taste to it. However, it fares much better with this fruity flavor than with the mint. I could still taste it, but not nearly as much as that initial chew with the mint. The fruit flavor is pretty generic and is not much different from the other fruit-flavored gums out there. The flavor disappeared much too quickly. I would say after about 10 minutes of chewing it the flavor went bye-bye. I was more impressed with the mint and definitely would not bother with the Kinetic Fruit flavor again.

If I was to choose one winner from these four gums, I would have to pick the Stride Spark Kinetic Mint. Even though it had that initial yuck factor, the flavor ended up to be great and it lasted a long time. The gums only kept my breath clean and fresh while the gum was being chewed and not after. The energy boost from the vitamins in the Stride Spark just wasn’t happening for me. So, even though both these gums tout some great new feature and ability, I honestly didn’t find that to be true for me. I know I could find another gum that I’d enjoy more and spend less on it.

• Dentyne Pure Website
• Stride Gum Website
• Buy Dentyne Gum Online
• Buy Stride Gum Online

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.

If you’ve seen the overtly sexual Magnum (“for pleasure seekers”) commercial on TV or seen the Magnum boxes in your grocer’s freezer and wondered if they were any good and/or worth the extra money, I can tell you quickly… yes and yes. The Belgian chocolate is delicious and the ice cream inside is really good, high quality ice cream. This is not ice cream you buy for your kids. If you’re looking for an adult ice cream indulgence, this is the ice cream for you. They coat the ice cream in a softer Belgian milk chocolate then they coat it in the chocolatey shell. Trust me, it’s delicious. Everything about these bars is heavenly.

The maker says “The super-premium ice cream bars are delicately crafted from only the finest ingredients, combining silky vanilla bean or rich chocolate ice cream with thick, crackling Belgian chocolate” and I wouldn’t dispute a word of it. I only tried Classic, Almond, and Double Chocolate but it’s also available in Double Caramel, White, and Dark.

• Magnum Ice Cream website

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.

Palmer’s Chow Down Mix is one of those concoctions that really look like they threw a bunch of leftovers together. It honestly looked really unappetizing to me. You can see from the photo that it’s a mix of mini pretzels, some candy-coated chocolate pieces and a bunch of white candy-coated items. The white candy-coated items are more mini pretzels, a wheat circle (reminds me of a certain cereal) and wheat squares (reminds me of yet another cereal).

I’ve never been a huge fan of anything claiming to be “yogurt covered” or covered in today’s candy makers’ fake white chocolate. So, knowing this about me, you can understand that I thought it was a candy I was not going to like. Upon opening the container, a huge aroma of vanilla bursts out of the tub. It wasn’t overpowering, but it let you know it was there. Once I ate some of the Chow Down Mix, I was actually surprised that the flavors work together nicely. We all know salty pretzels work well with anything sweet but the combination with the white candy coating and the candy-coated chocolate pieces was actually pretty good.

The only downside is that there’s just too much white candy coating in this tub. It’s overwhelming. It’s almost like it really needs either more regular chocolate or just something else in there besides the vanilla (which isn’t even real vanilla but vanillin which always disappoints me). There just needs to be some balance in the tub. The way it is, I can only eat so much in one sitting before getting sick of it.

In short controlled bursts, the Palmer’s Chow Down Mix is actually pretty decent. If Palmer’s would just add something to balance out that vanilla flavor, then their Chow Down Mix would go from being “not too bad actually” to “pretty darn good”.

• Palmer’s Candy Website

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.

As I am not the second coming of Betty Crocker, I’m thankful for baking enthusiasts out there who concoct new ways to get baked goodies and heavenly desserts into my belly. Even better? Using candy as a vehicle to further encourage consumption of said goodies (not that you need extra motivation). For example: cake pops. Haven’t heard of them? It’s exactly as it sounds — cake on a stick, like a blow pop, but instead of a gum-based center, you get a moist mouthful of cake.

Made popular by blogger Bakerella, other bakers have hopped on the cake pop train and have even made a business out of selling them, like this 15-year-old from Kansas did. Apparently, even Starbucks sells them — and if Starbucks is hocking them, you know they’re going to be big.

If you’re thinking of making some yourself, all you have to do is bake a cake (any flavor: chocolate, yellow, strawberry, even funfetti), crumble and mix it with your frosting of choice by rolling into balls, chill in the fridge and then dip in candy melt or even chocolate (but you’ll have to chill them again).

You don’t have to stop there either; Bakerella’s got tons of decorating ideas: teddy bears, robots, snowmen. The possibilities are endless — if you’ve got the patience. I’m not sure I could wait much longer than getting the cake ball onto a stick before scarfing it down.

• Bakerella cake pops articles