Just in time for Halloween, the Twilight film franchise has released New Moon themed Halloween candies. The folks at the National Confectioners’ Association sent me three flavors to try.

Do you remember Sky Bars? For those of you who have never had the pleasure, a Sky Bar is a chocolate bar made of different sections, each of which contain a different filling. So in one chocolate bar, you got caramel, vanilla, peanut butter, and fudge fillings. Awesome.

Well this classic candy is getting a modern makeover. Instead of putting all the fillings in one bar, now some of the segments have their own, individually-wrapped candy bar with different Twilight New Moon characters on different flavors. I tried the Edward caramel and the Bella creme. Edward’s chocolate is etched with a family crest and says “Cullen.” Bella’s is shaped like a heart and says “Bella.” Both are good-sized chocolates.

It’s been a while since I’ve had a Sky Bar, so I can’t compare these to the originals. But I can say: yummy! The caramel flavor is loaded with a soft, sweet caramel that’s more liquid than chewy. The creme has almost the same consistency and the flavor reminds me of a Cadbury creme egg – really sweet but I somehow love it anyway.

Between the packaging, the cool shapes of the candies, the generous size of the chocolates, and the taste, I’d say these would be a huge hit with Twilight-loving Trick-or-Treaters.

I also tried the Twilight Sweethearts “Forbidden Fruits” conversation hearts. My box said “2 of 3″ and featured Edward. They are a bit glittery, and say things like “Soul Mate,” “With You,” “Live 4 Ever,” and my personal favorite, “Bite Me.”

For me, conversation hearts have always been more about having fun with what they say than how they taste, and this box was no exception. These still have the same chalky consistency I remember, but the flavors are much stronger. Flavors include orange obsession, tempting apple, passion fruit, and secret strawberry. They all tasted very sweet, very artificial, and, oddly enough, vaguely medicinal to me. I can’t say I enjoyed how these tasted. Fun to play with, yes. Fun to eat, not so much.

Since these come in a big box, they are not really suitable for handing out at the door on Halloween. But they’d be a lot of fun in a candy dish at work or at a party.

Given a choice, I definitely would choose the Sky Bars over the Sweethearts. Either way, enjoy your Twilight New Moon Halloween goodies!

Necco makes both the Sky Bar treats and the Sweethearts.

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

• Necco’s Website

I’ve been on hiatus from the candy world ever since I relocated to Montana for graduate school. My days seem to be riddled with homework and the correcting of grammatical mistakes made by the students in the freshmen composition course that I teach. Have you ever tried reading 24 essays for split infinitives, misuse of appositives, and the lack of proper semicolon use? Let’s just say it makes for a very draining experience.

Luckily, the kind folks over at Bubble Chocolate knew just how to perk up my day by mailing me a sample of their chocolate. In what world is free chocolate not a good thing?

I had never heard of this company, which makes sense considering they are new and based on the East Coast. But I have heard of and consumed similar products. Aerated chocolate, the candy term for such a confection, is something I first discovered in New Zealand with Nestle’s Aero, but have seen in many forms since.

For those of you not familiar with aerated chocolate, my best equivalent is to compare crème fraiche to meringue: they are both similar in consistency and appearance, but the latter is much lighter. Bubble Chocolate comes in two varieties: milk and dark chocolate.

Milk Chocolate: The chocolate bars are smartly wrapped in 3″x6″ box designed to appeal to a playful quality, but still retaining an air of elegance. Unwrapping this one, my bar had been broken in a dozen places, most likely due to shipping and handling. Aside from this minor defect, the chocolate looked beautiful.

Once broken or bitten into, a cross-section reveals a sponge hidden beneath the full chocolate shell. The “bubbles” are half-bubbles since once you see them it’s only because you have eaten the other half of it.

As for the chocolate itself, it was highly fragrant, denoting fruit essences. The taste is reminiscent of dairy milk bars by Cadbury and other European confectioners that avoid sour milk, oils, and corn syrup in their production, *cough*Hershey*cough*. Despite the fact that the bar broke in transit, the chocolate is far from flimsy with a firm, but not hard snap. The ingredients are simple: sugar powder, cocoa butter, whole milk powder, cocoa mass, and vanilla.

Unlike other aerated bars I’ve consumed, this one doesn’t really carry all the trademark textures. You can’t really taste the pockets directly, most likely because the bubbles are pretty small and densely packed. Their presence evokes a somewhat grainy consistency, almost as if you were eating a moist slice of cake; however, the bubbles make the piece incredibly light on the tongue in terms of fullness and in turn easy on the throat, which is a smart move because this milk chocolate is a bit richer than your average bar.

Dark Chocolate: Coffee, cherry, and rum notes waft from this bar, which set up a hard-to-fulfill expectation of how it should taste. Like the last bar, this one was damaged in transit. I have made my affinities for dark chocolate over milk chocolate known, but every once in a while I find a product where the balance of flavor favors milk chocolate; this was such an instance.

The dark chocolate piece was a lot chalkier, with a bitter taste carrying that coffee essence, but no fruit or alcohol traits that would have complemented it. The taste was very filling in a robust way, but the texture didn’t quite mesh with the velvety or crisp expectation I have for dark chocolate. Clearly, some milk aids in the smoothing out of the aeration quality.

Overall, I think these are two fine products, but it’s the milk chocolate bar that really steals the show. It offers a delicious and novel twist on a classic candy, and it will pleasantly surprise you with the textures and tastes contained within, most likely due to the fine list of ingredients and quality it is made with. All-in-all, much better than the standard Aero bar.

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.

• Bubble Chocolate 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

I love gummi candies so I said “yes please!” when I was asked to try a gummi snake. You should have heard the whoop I let out when this thing arrived: it’s almost THREE FEET long. To put it in perspective, for anyone under 6 feet (like me) that’s, like, half our height in gummi goodness. Now, I love me my gummies, but even I couldn’t eat this thing in one sitting – not that you’re supposed to, the serving size says there’s 4 servings per container. Still, my inner child was giggling with glee at the thought of downing this monster.

The candy offers quite the visual beyond its length. The blue raspberry flavor that I tried was composed of opaque white and yellow patches, and transparent blue patches. You even get green bits where the blue drips onto the yellow. And get this: when you bite into the snake you find out that blue part also runs all the way through the middle of the snake from tip to tail. Since it’s a gummi candy, it wiggles and jiggles, giving it an “ooh” factor… or an “eww” factor, if you’re feeling particularly squeamish. Personally, I loved it and I can see sassy little kids going mental over this.

Ah, but how does it taste? In a word: good. My snake had a good, consistent blue raspberry flavor. It leaned toward the sweet side, but in a good way that didn’t annoy me or overwhelm the blue raspberry flavor. The texture reminded me a bit of a really firm marshmallow – spongier than some gummies I’ve tried, yet still with enough firm chewiness to make it fun.

Since I’m a big kid, I like to play with my food, so I gotta tell you I had a ball pulling and twisting my snake – it’s a bit like taffy in that it’s malleable and the more you play with it, the stickier it gets. Also, I found it extra fun to bite the head off the snake!

Bonus: it turned my tongue blue!

All in all, this is a yummy, fun gummi candy that pays off in taste, texture, and sheer size.

• Taste of Nature Website

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

With the popularity of yoga and its associated clothing, mats and other accessories, I guess it was only a matter of time until the popular fitness/relaxation stretching regime got its own signature candy – Classy Karma Candy Healthy Yoga Treats. Not that it isn’t a bit illogical – what makes less sense than having a post-workout candy treat to gain back all those lost calories?

Ah, but this is a healthy treat – or so the promotional material I received at the All Candy Expo claims. It’s “12 TIMES MORE POTENT than synthetic vitamin C,” contains “ALL NUTURAL (sic) ANTI AGING properties from powerful antioxidants,” and is made with “all-natural berries and spices with no processed sugar.” (The ingredients, however, say otherwise – the first two ingredients are sugar and glucose, which don’t just pop out of the sugarcane without SOME level of processing.)

These are made by the Classy Candy Company, a new company – as far as I could tell, the candies are only available for sale on Classy Candy’s website (which was clearly written by a non-native English speaker – I found its enthusiastic, if slightly fractured, copy kind of charming).

The star ingredient of these treats is the Indian gooseberry, a fruit used in Ayurvedic medicine. Some research has shown that the Indian gooseberry may have medical benefits for those with rheumatoid arthritis, osteoporosis, diabetes and even cancer. In its raw state, the fruit is very sour and astringent, and it’s usually pickled to make it more palatable. (I guess that’s what all the sugar is for.)

The candies themselves are wax paper-wrapped logs, like elongated pieces of saltwater taffy. They’re a light brown, speckled color. My samples came in a plastic sleeve containing three pinky-length pieces.

Despite containing aromatic spices like cloves, ginger, pepper and cinnamon, they have no smell whatsoever. At first bite, they aren’t terribly sweet and don’t taste like much of anything at all. But after a few chews, I started to get the flavor of the aromatic spices, mainly the cinnamon, and, oddly enough, a tangy taste of raisins. I’m not sure what I was expecting these to taste like, but that definitely wasn’t it. After a few bites, however, they started to grow on me. It’s like eating a cinnamon roll or a good bowl of porridge, only in candy form.

The Karma Candies initially have a firm, taffy-like texture, but if you chew them down to nothing, you get a lot of little gritty bits with a hint of a tea-like tannic flavor – from the gooseberries, I guess. Textural issues aside, I found myself enjoying these more than I thought I would, and if I was (still) in yoga, I would definitely enjoy having one of these tasty and (relatively) guilt-free chews awaiting me at the end of a strenuous session.

• Classy Yoga Candy Website

Chews Better has the following motto appearing on its packages and website: “The candy healthy people chews!” What? Aside from the hopeful claim about which candy healthy people chew, it sure looks like a grammatical boner. But have I misread the motto? Perhaps the motto’s last word isn’t a mis-conjugated verb, but a plural noun? If that’s so, then we’d have to read “candy healthy people” as an adjectival phrase to modify those “chews.” Does that work? What kind of chews would “candy healthy people” chews be? Beats the hell out of me. Thus I return to grammar police hypothesis number one: Chews Better has a screwed up motto. If they can’t edit, can they make candy?

Chews Better sent me two flavors: Pomegranate Blueberry Acai, and Strawberry Lemonade. And as the motto tried to communicate, these candies are meant to be healthy for you. They’re described as “All-Natural Chewy Candies with Vitamins and Fiber.” Surely this is making you nervous about the taste, right? Well, keep your beanie on straight.

Chews Better Pomegranate Blueberry Acai is a small, 26g (.9 oz) package. Each has five individually wrapped candies, and this flavor has 100% Vitamin C, 50% Vitamins B3, B5, B6, and B12, 3g of Fiber, and only 100 calories. Each chew is wrapped in silver and looks from the outside like a beef bullion cube. But it smells like a strong fruit medley upon unwrapping, and my nose finds this promising. Time for a bite.

What a good texture! It’s a little softer than a Starburst, and a bit more granular than Mamba. And it doesn’t stick to your teeth at all. As for the taste, it’s rather unusual. I guess it’s what a chew candy would taste like if it were made up of pomegranate (a tinge of tartness), blueberry (a “deep” flavor), and acai (an intense dark berry) – with some cane sugar thrown in. I happen to like it. You might not, but it won’t be from the lack of excellent, all-natural ingredients.

Let’s turn now to the Strawberry Lemonade flavor. These candies don’t have all the vitamins of the previous chews, but again have 3g of fiber and – a surprise – 250mg of Omega-3 (DHA & EPA). Now, you probably know that neither strawberries nor lemons have Omega-3. So can you guess what’s been added to these candies? Yup. Fish oil. Mmm, can’t wait to taste lemonade and strawberries with the anchovy and sardine oil listed on the package.

And yet, I like this flavor even more. Chews Better Strawberry Lemonade chewy candies have the same great texture as the Pomegranate Blueberry Acai, and make a lighter touch on the palate. I also like how I can clearly distinguish the strawberry and lemon flavor. And if you’ve ever had strawberry lemonade made with actual lemons and strawberries, you know that it’s a very tasty combination. Although there’s a little ineffable flavor halo around these two fruits, I’d never know there were fish oils in there if you didn’t tell me.

For me, the success of Chews Better candy rests on flavor, not health benefits, and that flavor stands squarely upon the natural ingredients of these high-quality chews. There’s not a fake plastic flavor or color to be found. I count the minuscule health benefits to be a bonus. Overall, bravo! Very much recommended.

Now all they need to do is fix that motto, and we healthy candy people will chew these chews contentedly.

• Chews Better Website

Lindt chocolate is what I consider a higher quality chocolate, definitely better-tasting, more “sophisticated,” if you will, than Hershey or M&Ms chocolate. Of course, if you put the words “Swiss made” on anything, I get a little dreamy eyed. To make things even better, Lindt chocolates are available at common stores like Wal-Mart and Target. That means when I go grocery shopping I can buy whole wheat bread for my health and premium chocolate for my happiness. Lindt is like the best of both worlds – high quality and affordable.

When I found out Lindt would be sending me a milk chocolate bar to review, I was excited but then promptly forgot about it. (Just like I forget to put the clothes in the dryer when they’re finished washing…) When the bar arrived, I was surprised and a little apprehensive to see that they’d sent me their new Raisin & Nuts Classic Recipe bar. I, uh, don’t like raisins… but I do like nuts! I can handle this.

Upon unwrapping, the rich smell of chocolate wafted toward me, mmmm. I don’t know anyone who can smell that aroma and not take a bite. The Raisin & Nuts bar itself is pretty large, as far as chocolate bars go, weighing in at 4.4 ounces. It’s thinner than a Hershey bar and is divided into 30 rectangular break-off pieces. Each piece has the word Lindt pressed into it in the pretty script of the Lindt logo – a nice touch. About 1″ by 2″, the pieces are small enough to pop a whole one into your mouth if you’re so inclined but large enough to take two or even three small bites, if you prefer to savor. The pieces break apart very easily, even when the bar is cold, which is an excellent trait in my opinion.

I must admit that I examined each side of my first piece checking for raisins. (Don’t make fun of me!) I could see a few, but they were very small (no more than half the size of boxed raisins), and there were many more visible nuts. I figured I could handle tiny raisins, so I took a bite.

The chocolate is smooth, sweet, and full of chocolaty flavor. It’s just what I’ve come to expect from Lindt. The nuts – which are gently roasted, chopped hazelnuts and almonds – provide a significant crunch that is present throughout most of the pieces, though I did find one piece that didn’t seem to have any nuts at all. I’d say that, on average, the nuts make up close to 50% of the bar, which is good. The smooth chocolate and crunchy nuts are very balanced and make for an enjoyable texture combination.

I can’t really say that the flavor of the nuts is very strong, however. The crunch is there, but I can’t detect any specific almond or hazelnut flavor. Maybe the chocolate flavor overpowers them. Whatever the case, the lack of nutty flavor didn’t take away from my enjoyment.

The raisins, I can’t taste at all most of the time, and when I do taste them, it’s only a spot of extra sweet flavor – nothing strong enough to make me run away screaming… which is what I do if someone offers me a box of raisins. Like I said before, the raisins are very small, which means I couldn’t detect their texture much either. A couple times, I did notice a moment of chewiness, but nothing major.

If you’re looking for a chocolate bar with lots of nutty and raisin flavor, I don’t think this is the place to look. But if you like chocolate with crunchy nuts, here you go. Even if you don’t normally eat raisins, don’t be afraid to try this one – I’ve enjoyed it quite a bit, and I console myself with the thought that I’m actually getting a little extra nutrition. Fruit in your chocolate bar, anyone?

• Lindt Website

Yogurt-covered dried fruits have been around forever, and with the recent interest in probiotics, it looks like yogurt-flavored candies are making a comeback. Unfortunately, the dirty little secret is that modern science can’t yet convert pure, wholesome yogurt into a form that can be used to coat things. What you’re really getting with 99% of yogurt-flavored candies is white mockolate with a touch of yogurt powder for flavor – and no matter how many live bacteria you cram in there, there’s no getting around the fact that the stuff is more likely to kill you than make you live longer.

(Anyone else out there remember the days when people actually AVOIDED food that might contain live bacteria instead of considering it a selling feature? Crazy, weren’t we? *bites into undercooked chicken breast*)

Anyway, here’s a new product from a company known for making healthy things like grape juice – Welch’s Fruit and Yogurt Snacks. (This All Candy Expo sample is cherry, but I believe they had other flavors on offer as well.) Welch’s original fruit snacks had a steady presence in my school lunch bags in days gone by – they had a relatively high concentration of fruit and were tasty enough, if I recall correctly.

Despite the dubious nature of the yogurt portion of the product, these are pretty good, nutrition-wise. The 90-calorie pack has 10% of your daily recommended dose of calcium, 25% of vitamins A and D, and 100% of vitamin C, though it does also contain 8% of your daily allowance of saturated fat. The bag also contains “Live & Active Bacterial Cultures.” I was glad to hear that the bacteria are both live AND active, because I have no room for lazy bacteria in my large intestine – they gotta be hard-working, motivated, eager to get out there and do… um… whatever all this probiotic stuff is supposed to accomplish.

Like so many other things, these look a LOT nicer on the package than they do in real life. Rather than being neat little white balls with bits of gummy showing through, they’re kind of lumpy and misshapen, and a rather unattractive, uneven pinkish color from the gummy portion showing through the “yogurt” coating. They look like wads of chewed gum that some patient person has managed to roll into vaguely spherical shapes. The coating also seems rather dry and crumbly, in some cases flaking right off the gummy at the center.

The coating has a vague creamy white chocolate flavor over a surprisingly sour cherry center – kind of like a sour cherry Twizzler. The coating doesn’t melt in your mouth like chocolate – it has a very dry, almost flaky, doughy texture, with the coating on a few pieces crumbling away into grainy, gritty bits in your mouth. Eaten by themselves, the gummies have a weird doughy texture too, closer to cookie dough than licorice.

In fact, that’s a pretty good overall description of these – like lumps of slightly chewy, very sour cookie dough. If that’s your thing, more power to you I guess – but when it comes to healthy yet tasty snacking, I’d choose a bag of regular fruit snacks and a bowl of real yogurt any day.

• Welch’s Website

Buy Welch’s Fruit Snacks Online:

• at Blair Candy
• at Candy Favorites

Rasinets are a candy that is completely lost to me. That’s not to say I don’t love chocolate-covered raisins, because I do, but rather that I don’t like to spend my money on them. I get plenty as gifts, and for some reason my Jewish family always has them in bowls for the plucking when we gather for the holidays. I consume enough of them without having to pay for them.

So when I was a kid and all my friends bought Rasinets at the movies, I went for the Sour Patch Kids and never really ventured past that comfort candy. I can easily claim I have more fingers than the number of Rasinets I have eaten in my lifetime.

Flash-forward to this year’s All Candy Expo, and lo and behold Nestle is debuting a new product – Cranberry Raisinets. Well, my first thought is it would be far catchier and there’d be fewer syllables if they were called “Craisinets.” My second thought is that these might actually be worth trying.

Though I haven’t eaten many Raisinets in my life, these certainly look like them. Each piece has a fresh aroma of milk chocolate, which, after checking the ingredients list on the back, is actually real chocolate (Nestle is infamous for mockolate).

The chocolate isn’t overly sweet, and it blends well with the dried cranberry center. As opposed to the raisin counterparts, these have a surprising burst of tanginess indicative of cranberries. The texture is a little mushy, but the taste is great.

These are very simple, but that’s why I feel they succeed. Just milk chocolate over dried cranberries. The flavors work well, the product is made well, and you’re not disappointed into hoping for more when in fact you’re surprised by how good this seemingly average candy tastes.

• Nestle Raisinets Website