It’s almost time for Halloween again and that means yummy treats for everyone.

The folks at the National Confectioners’ Association were kind enough to send me some treats to try, so I’m sharing them with you. I figured we’d start with the healthier treats, in case any of you want to add something healthy to your Halloween splurge.

First up,the bag of Florida Natural Au’Some Fruit Healthy Treats, which contain a mix of sour strings, nuggets, and stiks. I actually enjoy them all. All three styles come in orange, strawberry, and grape flavors and I like the strawberry the best. Since I love sour stuff, I particularly enjoy the sour strings, although I should warn you that they aren’t terribly sour. I was surprised at how much I enjoyed the stiks – they are really tangy and nicely chewy without sticking to your teeth. The nuggets are fun, too, but I thought the orange flavor, in particular, could have a wee bit of vitamin taste to it.

Given that the nuggets and strings are only 50 calories a pack, and the sticks are only 35, these are a guilt-free treat, surprisingly tasty and satisfying. As a bonus, each candy has vitamin C and other vitamins and minerals, so these actually have a health benefit! Since these come in nifty little packets, you can hand them out to your Trick-or-Treaters, or take ‘em to work yourself.

While I was delving into the fruity, chewy goodness, I decided to try Welch’s Island Flavor Fruit Snacks. One serving boasts 100% of your vitamin C DV, and 25% of your A and E. And, at 130 calories per serving, this definitely qualifies for my “healthier Halloween” motif. I’m sorry to say I didn’t enjoy these nearly as much as the Au’some Fruit treats. The flavors were much more bland and had a weird, waxy taste to them. And the texture was odd: not very chewy and kind of powdery. Plus, my sample came in a bag that was too big to share with Trick-or-Treaters, although you could just eat ‘em yourself. If you’re into tropical punch flavors, maybe you’ll dig this, but it wasn’t really my thing.

Last on the list, Candy Coated Sunny Seed Drops by the Sunflower Food & Spice Co, Ltd. Back in June, Nico reviewed the regular Sunny Seed Drops Chocolate Sunflower Seeds, but mine came in Halloween colors with a Halloween-themed tube. Same flavor, but seasonal packaging. How do these stand up to other Halloween treats? Well, I love chocolate and I love sunflower seeds so these made me do the happy dance. The only bad thing I can say about these is that I had a hard time not eating the entire tube. The brightly colored candy shells are incredibly inviting, just begging you to have another handful. These are a little like sunflower M&Ms. I will say the chocolate is quite sweet, but somehow it works with the sunflower seeds. Oh yum! How did I go my whole life so far without having these?

According to the package, sunflower seeds are an excellent source of a number of vitamins, minerals, protein, and fiber – healthy! There are 130 calories per serving – if you can manage to stop at the serving size, which is 2 tablespoons. Since this came in a good-sized tube, I’m not sure if you’d want to get enough tubes to share with Trick-or-Treaters or not. But I sure do recommend treating yourself because these rocked.

Overall, if you’re looking for a healthier Halloween but don’t want to make your Trick-or-Treaters or yourself feel deprived, I recommend you try either the Au’some Fruits or the Sunny Seed Drops. Yum!

• Au’some Treats Website
• Welch’s Website
• Sunflower Food & Spice Company’s Website

Perhaps unusually for a sour-head like myself, I’ve never actually tried Nuclear Warheads. If the name is anything to go by, they should be about the sourest candy you can get in North America, but somehow I’ve just never tried them.

I guess that makes me pretty unsuited to review Warheads’ spin-off candy, Sour QBZ, described unenlighteningly on the package as “chewy fruity cubes.” Still, sour is sour, and I know what I like, so let’s get tasting!

My sample-sized bag of QBZ contained six soft, opaque cubes, each about the size of a dice and with a coating of sour sugar. They didn’t look like gummies, more like the soft pectin jelly of lunchbox fruit snacks. (They have both pectin and gelatin in the ingredients.) I received three red QBZ, and one each of pink, blue and green.

As expected from the ingredients, they have a texture that’s somewhere between a fruit snack and a gummy, with a little crunch from the sour sugar coating – but unfortunately, next to no sourness at all. Red is strawberry, quite mild and not all that sweet or sour. Green is green apple, a flavor that always tastes better in very sour form. Unfortunately, it’s not that sour either. Blue raspberry is the standard blue raspberry flavor, and it’s the least sour so far. Pink is watermelon, and it’s also not sour, though its tanginess is pleasant.

With the jelly texture and the crunch of sour sugar, these are actually a whole lot like cube-shaped Sour Patch Kids. They’re tasty in the way Sour Patch Kids are tasty – chewy, tangy, addicting even, just not sour, darn it!

Once again, my hopes of finding a truly sour candy have been dashed. All the sour candies that are actually sour are either hard or gum, and it seems like that’s not about to change any time soon.

• Nuclear Warheads Website

Buy Warheads Candies Online:

• at Blair Candy
• at Candy Favorites

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

I previously reviewed all of the products from Surf Sweets, the gummi candy company that produces an assortment of organic, “healthier” candies that are also vegetarian and vegan friendly. At least, I thought I had reviewed everything they produce.

At the All Candy Expo, I approached the Surf Sweets booth and began chatting with the people there. It wasn’t long before they spotted my expo badge, clearly stating who I was and the publication I worked for. Being a writer for Candy Addict is like being a character on Saved By The Bell… some people will recognize Dustin Diamond and be amazed, but there are also a lot of people who will ask you to repeat exactly what’s the big deal.

Thankfully, the Surf Sweets people viewed me as the former. They put two and two together and realized I was the Robby who had reviewed all their products. Though it can be awkward interacting with people when you’ve written a negative review, I actually really enjoyed their products, and so it was a friendly chat.

Somewhere in our conversation, the mention of a new product came up. “A new what?” I asked to confirm I heard correctly. Yes, apparently between the time I had reviewed them and the ACE, they had released Sour Berry Bears. Because I could no longer claim I had eaten and reviewed everything they manufactured, I felt it essential to get my hands on some, which in reality was fairly easy since they gave me a complementary bag.

When I opened the bag, a strong fragrance of fruit greeted me. I couldn’t distinguish the smells to select a specific fruit, and much like my prior review, these bears share the same negative trait of being difficult to identify by color… there was red, pink/red, and red/pink.

The first piece I tasted was strawberry. It was very understated in sweetness, but beautiful in its flavor presentation, similar to a jar of strawberry preserves in that it had a concentrated burst of flavor in a very small serving.

The next flavor was cranberry, which I completely did not expect. It had a wonderful tartness, rounding out the sweetness with a complex flavor of juice and acid. I don’t believe I’ve ever eaten a cranberry gummi before, but it was delicious and my favorite.

The third flavor I am guessing is raspberry, but I am definitely not confident in that guess. It was very floral, but didn’t retain any significant flavor quality to accurately suggest which fruit it resembled.

None of these were sour, just like my complaint of Surf Sweets’ other “sour” products, but they were still tasty. I still believe it would do them a world of good to clearly indicate flavors by vastly different colors and a corresponding flavor panel on the packaging. Nonetheless, I’ll still gladly continue to eat anything they make.

• Surf Sweets Website

Courtesy of the All Candy Expo, I was able to try two of the Nuclear Sludge Chew Bars from Toxic Waste: the blue raspberry and the sour apple.

Blue Raspberry: I’m a Candy Addict who loves sour things and I’m telling you woohoo is this sour! The blue raspberry flavor started out really sour and just got more sour as I chewed. By the time I’d chewed enough to swallow, my eyes were watering. The flavor reminds me of a sour version of those blue Popsicles. Unfortunately, the first chew ended with a bit of a bitter taste and subsequent bites got progressively more bitter. I’d have liked it more if it just stuck with the sour. The texture was moderately chewy, taking a long time to chew any given bite.

Sour Apple: The sour apple flavor was more consistently sour than the blue raspberry – it didn’t make my eyes water by the time I finished chewing, but overall the strong sourness was more constant. Although it wasn’t bitter, it did have a weird aftertaste. The texture was different from the blue raspberry, too. I found the sour apple took a lot of work to chew.

Overall, these are not for the faint-hearted or anyone who likes their candy just a bit tart. If you’re looking for a major pucker experience and you like chewy candy, you might want to try these.

• Toxic Waste Website

Buy Toxic Waste Candies Online:

• Amazon.com
• Candy Direct

The last few Twizzler spin-offs haven’t really been anything special for me. Despite the popularity of the cinnamon variety, they just weren’t my thing. The same holds true for the less popular Rainbow Twizzlers. Actually, I don’t really care for any Twizzlers that aren’t the strawberry or cherry flavors.

At the All Candy Expo, I was given a complimentary tote bag to lug around all the goodies I would be receiving, and it happened to be already filled by an assortment of products, including those donated by Hershey’s. I guess they were trying really hard to make sure no one in press missed any of their new products.

It wasn’t until I began cataloging my hoard that I even noticed the red and yellow Twizzlers in my bag. “New Twizzlers Sweet and Sour Filled Twists” the wrapper advertised. I wouldn’t have every picked these up at a store, but since I was given them it couldn’t hurt to try them.

The strips are a bright neon yellow and red/pink color combination, holding a great deal of fragrance that’s released when you tear the plastic wrapper. The packaging lists the two flavors as Cherry Kick and Citrus Punch, so it seemed fairly evident which color corresponded to which flavor.

Cherry Kick: These were sticky, but not in the sense that the candy is sticky, but rather it just likes to stick to other pieces of the candy. The strip is a little more bloated than your average Twizzler, but that appears to be a result of the gel center inserted within the hollow cavity.

The texture is rubbery like all Twizzlers, but these are soft compared to the hard rubber variety of the classic flavors. My first bite revealed a floral punch flavor, almost Hawaiian in nature. Like the wrapper advertised, the inside definitely provided a great snap of flavor with the tanginess of the gel.

Cherry is the most dominate flavor in the piece, but I detected notes of pineapple and some other citrus and berry flavors. The texture of eating one of these is odd. At times they’re grainy, then soft, and finally liquid-y. It was kind of like eating gum.

Citrus Punch: These had a sharp citrus zest to them, with lemon being the dominate flavor of the citrus. They too were tasty, but retained the odd texture that the first piece possessed.

I was pleasantly surprised. The flavors are most delightful without being overpowering on the sweet or sour side; they strike the perfect balance. They even complement each other well if you’re game to eat one of each flavor together. Normally, I advise people to stay away from new Twizzler products, but these are certainly something I think people should try.

• Twizzlers Website

Buy Twizzlers Online:

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

I was pretty excited to snag a sample pack of these new Sour Patch Chillerz at the All Candy Expo. Excited – yet conflicted.

You see, while Sour Patch Kids are one of my most favorite candies ever, and the thought of a new flavor variety fills me with joy, these ones promise a “cooling effect.” That usually means the presence of menthol, which is definitely one of my least favorite flavors. It never fails to make me think of cough drops, especially when combined with any kind of fruit flavor. “Burning throat pain” is just not a sense association I want attached to my candy, thankyouverymuch (unless that candy is an Atomic Fireball, of course).

But nothing ventured, nothing gained – I tore open my pouch of Chillerz (is that “z” really still cool?) and was greeted with a nice fruity scent – with only a very faint whiff of menthol. In this low of a concentration, it was actually – pleasant.

When I popped one into my mouth, I couldn’t taste the menthol at all at first, just the usual sweet-sour Sour Patch goodness. But as I chewed, the minty flavor gradually started to come out. You have to give them a pretty good chew to get the maximum mint flavor, but then the mintiness hangs around in the back of your throat for a bit, providing a nice mild cooling sensation – not cough-droppy at all.

These come in four colors (or that’s what was in my sample pack, anyway):

Purple – a light grape soda flavor, augmented with that hint of mint.

Blue – a light, tart berry or fruit punch – for some reason, I didn’t get any mint out of this one at all, but it was tasty nonetheless.

Red – tastes a little different than the usual red Sour Patch Kids – I think it’s a little strawberry-er than I remember. The menthol comes out good and strong in these – unfortunately, I think this is the flavor it goes the least well with.

Yellow – As far as I can tell, the same lemon as the original. It tastes, frankly, like lemon Halls, only more on the lemon and less on the menthol side.

Up until now, my dislike of menthol-flavored things was based on cough drops and some extremely mentholated fruit-flavored gum that was popular when I was in junior high. This nice mellow coolness, however, seems to complement the fruit flavors rather than competing with them. So even if you don’t like fruity-minty things, give these a try – you may be as pleasantly surprised as I was.

• Sour Patch Kids Website

Buy Sour Patch Kids Online:

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

The first thing I noticed about these jelly beans was the texture. They’re a lot softer than other jelly beans I’ve tried and they aren’t as chewy. Not that this is bad, it’s just different. Overall, the flavors reminded me of regular SweeTarts, but with some variation in the intensity of either the sweetness or tartness.

Color: Pink, Flavor: Cherry – These little guys made me do the happy dance because they taste just like the hard, pink SweeTarts. I love the SweeTart cherry flavor particularly because the tartness mitigates the sweetness. A few of these made me pucker and I love that!

Color: Yellow, Flavor: Lemon – Surprisingly, I didn’t find the lemon as tart as some other flavors. They still taste lemony, but without the pucker power of the cherry or the orange. I prefer the lemon flavor of the Giant Chewy SweeTart candies to these jelly beans.

Color: Orange, Flavor: Orange – I know the bag says that the orange jelly beans are orange flavored, but I gotta tell you that with the tartness, they remind more of a really good tangerine flavor. Either way, these rock. I like these way more than I usually like orange-flavored candies.

Color: Green, Flavor: Green Apple – Like the lemon jelly beans, I found the green apple jelly beans to be sort of lacking. They tend to be more sweet than tart and I prefer a little sour pour in my green apple. If you like a sweet green apple experience, you may really dig these, but I was kinda bummed.

Color: Purple, Flavor: Grape – While not super tart, these grape jelly beans were pretty good. They have that light, fake grape flavor I associate with grape candies but weren’t too overwhelmingly sweet.

Color: Blue, Flavor: Blue Punch – When I tried these I thought, “Aha! Now that’s what I’m talking about!” The blue ones have some lovely pucker power. I really enjoyed eating these. The flavor reminded me of a more sour version of those blue Popsicles. I really enjoyed these.

Overall, I like the SweeTarts jelly beans. The flavors are fun and pack quite a wallop for such little candies.

• Wonka Website

For our third entry in our Spring Jelly Bean Hunt, today we bring you original and sour flavor Starburst jelly beans!

Original Flavor
These jelly beans are a bit on the sweet side, but they’ve got enough flavor that you know what you’re eating. Both the original and sour flavors have a bit of a sugary shell – not as thick as the Necco Jelly Beans, but thicker than the Jolly Rancher Jelly Beans. Both have a good texture but be forewarned that for some reason they stick to your teeth a bit.

Color: Purple, Flavor: Grape – Ok, I know these say “original” flavor, but I think they must mean original as opposed to sour, because there is no grape original-flavored Starburst. Regardless, I did enjoy this grape flavor, particularly the balance between sweet and tart.

Color: Red, Flavor: Cherry – I know these are Starbursts, but this cherry flavor reminds me of wild cherry LifeSavers for some reason, particularly on the finish. And, like a cherry LifeSaver, the flavor really lingers after you eat the Starburst jelly bean.

Color: Yellow, Flavor: Lemon – The lemon jelly beans have a really strong lemon flavor but I found it a little too artificial and too sweet for my tastes. Plus, it left a funky aftertaste. I liked the sour version of these way better (see below).

Color: Pink, Flavor: Strawberry – I really love the strawberry Starburst chews. So I was really disappointed when this jelly bean totally failed to live up to its cousin. The jelly bean starts off with a light strawberry flavor then quickly loses it. By the end, all I could taste was a kind of bland sweet flavor. Bummer.

Color: Green, Flavor: Apple – The apple flavor was my favorite in the bag. These jelly beans have a great, strong apple flavor. The flavor faded out a bit on the finish, but enough apple remained to make it tasty. These are on the sweet side, so if you like your apple flavor tart, check out the sour review below. I liked these best when I ate more than one at a time.

Color: Orange, Flavor: Orange – Well, the orange flavor is really strong but it’s also tastes really fake. I found these off-putting because they left a really weird aftertaste that was really hard to get rid of. This was my least favorite original flavor.

Overall, the original flavor jelly beans are pretty good as individual flavors. However, for me, I found that mixing the flavors vastly improved them and made them much more fun to eat.

Sour Flavor
While I liked these jelly beans, I think calling them “sour” is a bit of an overstatement. “Tart” would be closer to the truth. Still, they are definitely more sour than the original flavor.

Color: Blue, Flavor: Blue Raspberry – While these do have a typical blue raspberry flavor, it isn’t very strong. Plus, they aren’t very sour. They do start out sort of tart, but then the flavor turns sweet. I recommend eating at least two of these at a time.

Color: Yellow, Flavor: Lemon – Yeah! Now this is what I’m talking about when I want a good lemon-flavored candy. Like the blue raspberry, the lemon flavor is more tart than sour and finishes sweet. But unlike the blue raspberry, I found the balance of tart and sweet here was just right – like a good glass of lemonade.

Color: Orange, Flavor: Tangerine – Out of all the Starburst jelly beans I ate – both original and sour – the tangerine was my favorite, hands down. First of all, hats off to Starburst for having an orange-colored candy that doesn’t have an orange flavor. The tangerine is a delightful surprise! And it’s really good – the flavor is a strong, tart-then-sweet, full-bodied tangerine. Again, this flavor inexplicably reminded me of a LifeSaver.

Color: Red, Flavor: Cherry – This was the one jelly bean that actually reminded me of a Starburst fruit chew. The cherry flavor is reminiscent of the Starburst cherry fruit chew, but it’s more sugary and, since it’s a jelly bean and not a chew, the texture is very different. Still, it was nice to eat a jelly bean that reminded me how much I like the regular Starbursts.

Color: Green, Flavor: Green Apple – I’m not sure why in the original flavor the green jelly beans are called “apple” but in the sour they’re “green apple.” They both have the apple flavor I expected. However, the sour version is way more tart. It manages to stay tart all the way through the finish, even though the tartness loses some of its intensity. I found I needed to eat at least two to get the full tartness.

Color: Pink, Flavor: Watermelon – The watermelon flavor in these jelly beans reminded me of the watermelon Jolly Ranchers jelly beans, particularly if I ate two or more at a time. Eating just one of these for some reason made them taste kind of plastic-y, but eating two made them tasty and fun. Go figure.

Overall, I really prefer the sour to the original flavor, but I admittedly like my candy on the tart side. Both flavors were fun to eat and I’d have them again.

• Starburst Website

Orbit Mist is a new line of gum from The Wrigley Company. It’s touted as a premium gum and contains little crystals – called Micro-Bursts – that the Orbit website says will “deliver a hydrating sensation to consumers.”

Now I can only assume that it means “to consumers who purchase and chew Orbit Mist.” When I first read the description, I had a vision of Orbit Mist boxes shooting “hydrating sensation beams” at random consumers in the grocery store. “Hello, ma’am, welcome to Food Land. How are you?”

“I’m good, tha-” (*Hydrating sensation beam fires.*) “Ohhh, I suddenly feel so… moistly healthy…”

Oh, ah-hem, I’m supposed to be writing a review. Sorry…

Wrigley has graciously sent me the three new flavors of the Orbit Mist line to try. Two fruity flavors – Watermelon Spring and Mango Surf – and one mint flavor – Peppermint Spray.

Watermelon Spring – With the first chew, this lime green gum gives a very strong watermelon flavor – followed by a flood of sourness so strong that I was squinting my eye like Popeye the Sailor Man. I’m no fan of sour candies so I was happy when the sour flavor faded in less than a minute. Tiny crystals in the gum must be tiny sour factories, though, because every time I crunched one, a little more sourness came out. Besides that, the main flavor is a sweet, mild watermelon. It’s a nice, pleasant flavor – not overly strong. Reminiscent of kids’ watermelon-flavored gums (like Hubba Bubba) but nowhere near as overpowering. Lasting factor is good – I chewed for over an hour.

Mango Surf – I was a bit hesitant to try this flavor since I don’t particularly care for mango (natural or artificial). As a dedicated Candy Addict, I pressed through my fears and popped a piece in my mouth. I was expecting a rush of sour flavor similar to what I’d experienced with Watermelon Spring. While the Mango Surf crystals did release sour bursts for the first minute or two, the pucker-factor of this orangish-yellow gum wasn’t nearly so intense. The sweet flavor that lasted for about an hour was typically mango and happily mild. I never felt assaulted by the mango-ness of it. A pretty good flavor.

Peppermint Spray – Mint gums are my forte… what can be better than a quick, tasty way to freshen breath after a meal loaded with garlic, onions, and oregano? Okay, so I don’t eat onions. I do prefer spearmint, but this Peppermint Spray from Orbit Mist was quite enjoyable. It had less heat than the new Wrigley’s Spearmint while retaining a strong peppermint flavor. It’s actually inspired me to want to chew more peppermint gum. (Please don’t tell my package of Stride Spearmint.) Like the other Orbit Mist gums, the flavor lasted a long time before I was ready to spit it out.

• Orbit Website

Buy Orbit Mist Online:

• at Amazon.com
• at Candy Direct