The Atkinson Candy Company is quickly becoming my favorite candy company. My love affair began with Chick-o-Sticks, then Peanut Butter Bars, and moved on to Long Boys. While I can think of many other manufacturers out there who produce great products, none come to mind who consistently create candy I love regardless of what it is.

So with their awesome track record on the line, I purchased a square of Peco Brittle from a local convenience store. I gotta say, Texans love them some brittle! Peanut, cashew, pecan… everywhere I go I see tons of brittle out here. Do I have a problem with that? I honestly don’t know since I can’t remember ever eating any sort of brittle as kid.

Well, if I were ever going to start eating it, Atkinson seemed to be the best place for such a journey to commence from. The name behind this candy reveals the type of brittle it is: Peco is a portmanteau of peanuts and coconut. Now, Atkinson does produce a regular peanut brittle, but I couldn’t find it. Luckily, I didn’t mind so much, as this whole “coconut can go into anything” craze I have discovered in Texas is starting to grow on me.

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There are candies that beg you to buy them as you walk down the grocery checkout line, and some that don’t even make you flinch. Caramels – those cubed, hard, sticky creatures – never made me even look twice.

But after having my entire world of what caramels should taste like turned upside-down upon sampling those fine morsels from The Choke Cherry Tree, I began to look at this candy with renewed interest. Could there be more caramel candies out there that I had mistakenly neglected because of my preconceptions?

Being über-impressed with Atkinson’s Chick-o-Stick and Peanut Putter Bars, when I spotted Long Boys in the bulk candy aisle, I couldn’t really refuse. After all, my thought process was very complex: Caramel + Atkinson’s = Oh My Bob!

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The words “Texas” and “candy” were not two associations I considered before I moved to the Lone Star state. I mean, what in Texas could possibly scream candy? To my surprise, a lot.

Texas happens to be the home of many candy companies, and what is even more interesting is that they are smitten with flavors particular to the proclivities of the Southwest. Not being a native, I found it refreshing getting a taste of pecans (south), coconut (west), and peanut butter (south again) in many local candies, all flavors I now consider indigenous to the area.

The most storied of these companies is easily Atkinson’s Candy Co., best known for their most popular product, the Chick-o-Stick. While the Chick-o-Stick is stocked in candy aisles across the country, and despite the majority of their other products existing from the 1940s and on, they are regional in their distribution, and I never encountered the company until my move.

When I started asking people what candy I should try out here, one name kept popping up: Atkinson’s Peanut Butter Bars. I have nothing against peanut butter, but an entire bar of it? Luckily, it’s more than just peanut butter. Complementing the peanut butter in this candy is a honeycomb center and hard candy jacket. So the next time I was at a gas station, I bought a handful of them from a penny candy jar.

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Butterfingers are gross. There, I said it. They stick to your teeth, they somehow make even peanut butter taste fake, and those orange shards of brittle blah are covered with cheap chocolate that I wouldn’t feed to a trapped miner.

I mention this candy nemesis of mine because today I’m reviewing Chick-O-Stick, a candy that might remind some people of Butterfingers (since both contain peanuts and sugar, both are partly orange, and both have an unusual texture). But I want you to rest assured that I have nothing against peanutty orange candy per se. Just awful peanutty orange candy.

In contrast, Chick-O-Stick is strangely toothsome. They have a chewy peanut-butter-esque thing going on inside, and a quite pleasing toasted coconut-coated exterior.

But what’s with the name?

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