I am a big believer in the idea that candy should, above all things, be fun. And there is perhaps no candy on earth as fun as the candy with Fun right in its name - the legendary Lik-M-Aid itself: Fun Dip.

If you’ve never had Fun Dip before, you are missing out on one of the greatest candy experiences of all time. There’s nothing particularly fancy or high class about Fun Dip; it’s the kind of candy you fall in love with when you’re in elementary school and never quite grow out of, the kind of candy that is both simple and wonderfully ridiculous, the kind of candy that makes dentists cringe and kids flip out with sugar-induced happiness. Fun Dip is candy at its best: sour, sweet sugar that tastes great and is super fun to eat.

The taste of Fun Dip is extremely similar in taste and texture to that of Pixy Stix. In fact, eating a packet of Fun Dip is a bit like eating a bowl of Pixy Stix sugar, which, I must say, is pretty awesome.

Fun Dip currently comes in three flavors: RazzApple Magic, Cherry-Yum-Diddly, and Grape-Yumptious:

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The following guest review was written by a reader named Meredith. Thanks, Meredith!

These Jolly Ranchers are something new altogether. First of all, awesome name - I just know it’s gonna be a party. And then, they’re opaque instead of clear like regular Jolly Ranchers, and they’re way less sticky, and the inside is hollow, filled with a powder of a different flavor from the exterior. They come in four flavors - mangolemin (mango candy and lemon powder), chorange (cherry candy and orange powder), raspilime (blue razzberry candy and lime powder) and strawapple (strawberry candy and sour apple powder). Consider these the Jolly Rancher version of Zotz.

The candy looks solid but as soon as you put it in your mouth, the ends collapse and the second flavor emerges. The powder has an ingredient I’ve learned is called erythritol - it’s a sugar alcohol and so it has a cooling effect inside your mouth. It’s weird but a nice contrast to the hard candy.

Mangolemin - The mango flavor is overpowering, but as soon as the lemon powder comes out, it mixes with the mango and becomes way less strong and more ambiguous - kind of a citrus fruit punch. This is definitely my least favorite upon first putting it into my mouth, but as soon as the second flavor comes out, it gets a lot better. Just wait a few seconds past the icky mango… it will be worth it.

Chorange - The initial cherry flavor is very strong, almost like a candied cherry. As soon as the orange powder comes out, the flavors mix and the cherry takes on a slightly tangy, almost sour taste. You can barely taste the orange flavor, but once it’s mixed with the cherry it is a lot less intense. It again takes on a kind of a cherry punch flavor, and finishes out being much milder than it started.

Raspilime - The blue razzberry has almost no taste at all - the lime powder comes out and immediately overwhelms the blue razzberry… but that’s not a bad thing. The combination of the two ends up tasting like a Lime Rickey. It has a very slight tartness - much like eating a lime with sugar sprinkled on it - and by the end of the candy you can pretty much only taste the blue razzberry. And it’s very subtle - though you do end up with a blue tongue, so not so subtle there.

Strawapple - This is definitely the best one by far. The initial strawberry taste is really delicious - kind of like a Blow Pop (which is the Blow Pop flavor people always steal from me). As the sour apple powder comes out, it gives a slightly sour apple taste in the back of your tongue, but more than anything it now tastes like a tart strawberry. It’s really good - the strawberry is not overly sweet, just nice and subtle, and the sour apple isn’t too sour. And once the sour apple is gone the strawberry taste is the one that emerges victorious.

These are all really interesting - it’s almost like getting to eat eight different candies - the four initial flavors, and the four flavors that are formed after the powder emerges. The only one that leaves a slightly unpleasant aftertaste is the mango. The strawberry is the best at the end. The textures of the candies change several times, due to the emergence of the powder and the cooling of the tongue and the candy being hollow. It’s not often that eating a piece of candy is interesting all the way through the experience. The flavors of these candies are constantly changing, which created a whole new (awesome) candy eating experience for me.

P.S. It’s funny to give these to somebody without telling them there’s a second flavor inside. I gave one to my co-worker, who was lying on the couch in my office, and all of a sudden she sat up and gasped like something had bitten her. She HAD been bitten… by a Double Blast.

• Hershey’s Jolly Rancher Double Blasts page

Buy Jolly Racher Double Blasts online:

• at Amazon.com

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It’s not easy to find innovation in mints nowadays. How many different round mints in rectangular tins can the market sustain, really? That’s why I was so pleased to stumble on the “Great Bite” product line. They have some of the coolest packaging and product shapes I’ve come across in a while. The tins, the round sour packs, the Tic-Tac-like packs - all have a “bite” taken out of them and so do the candies themselves.

The mint tins are your typical Altoids tin shape and size, but the top left portion of the tin is bitten off. Each mint inside is about the size of a Life Saver (with no hole) and a portion of the mint is bitten off too. This theme continues across the whole product line. The mints (and tins) come in peppermint, spearmint, and orange and all taste great except the peppermint - it has a strong licorice taste to it that even my seven year old daughter picked up on (which isn’t good if you dislike the flavor of licorice). The orange was especially tasty and hits you immediately with a strong orange kick.

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Superman. Superglue. Supersize. Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious. When you throw the word “super” onto the front end of an otherwise unassuming word you’re really setting a high standard for whatever follows. It goes without saying that had better be an exceptional male, unparalleled adhesive, mammoth girth, and phenomenal califragilisticexpiali – well, you get my drift. So, understandably, I had some pretty high expectations for the descriptively named Emily’s Super Sour No Belly Sugar Free Jelly Beans.

Now, I’m not an insanely crazy sour fanatic. I’m more of a middle-of-the-road sour fan. I like red and orange Sour Patch Kids, for example, but not really green, and definitely not yellow. So when my sour-dusted shipment of No Belly Jelly Beans arrived directly from Can You Imagine That! Confections/The Sandy Candy Factory I was fearful that these self-proclaimed Super Sours might even be too much for my tender palate. I was mightily surprised then, when I opened the bag and was not greeted by an overwhelming sour aroma. Not even a hint of that citric Sour Patch scent that induces uncontrollable face-puckering and Pavlovian salivating.

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I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but there is a plethora of jellybean offerings on the Easter candy shelves this year. I say the more, the merrier, but not all jellybeans are created equal. I like sour candies, so I tried to determine which package of jellybeans might be the most sour. I decided upon the Starburst Sour Jellybeans because a) it clearly states SOUR on the package, and b) Starburst reliably delivers what I consider to be some tasty candies.

I was not disappointed! There are six fruity flavors in Starburst Sour Jellybeans: green apple, lemon, watermelon, tangerine, cherry, and blue raspberry (why is this flavor everywhere? I for one have never seen a blue raspberry, but maybe I am sheltered). The beans are a nice, compact size, and each is bursting with ample flavor. The exterior has a satisfying crunch, and the inner jellybean is dense and chewy. You also get a lot of jellybeans in a package, so they are a good value.

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Most sour candies aren’t nearly sour enough for me. I am one of those weird people who will quite happily eat a fresh lemon wedge without flinching. When I happened upon this bag of Zours, which shows two aliens suffering from a serious case of Sour Eye*, I had to give these a try!

The Zours come in four flavors - sour blue raspberry, sour green apple, sour tangerine, and sour watermelon. Without even opening the packet I knew I was going to love these little babies.

A product from the Just Born company (makers of other treasures such as Peeps and Hot Tamales), Zours take almost a week to produce and over 100,000 of them are produced every single day. With that much sour power in one factory and such a rich candy pedigree, these little jelly delights were bound to be good.

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