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

I don’t like gummies. I don’t even remember why, it’s been so long since I tasted any. So why did I buy these? Because I can’t resist anything animal-shaped. And I couldn’t resist the peculiar appeal of an animal-shaped candy with a gut full of liquid.

To be honest, I didn’t really expect these to be good to eat. I expected that I would order an Avenging Narwhal Playset from Archie McPhee and then instead of having the narwhal spear the little plastic penguin through the belly, I’d use these. And they’d OOZE GUTS. And I’d take pictures. What could be better?

But I never got to do that, for a surprising reason: They all got eaten!

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As I discovered while doing my Great Chocolate Experiments, there are very few candies that aren’t improved by a good coating of chocolate. (Other food products, however, are a different story.) Chocolate-covered marshmallows are my sentimental favorite, but I’m also fond of chocolate-covered gummies – sometimes it’s nice to have a denser, more substantial texture to contrast with the crisp chocolate coating.

Unfortunately, chocolate-coated gummies are a lot harder to find than chocolate-coated marshmallows – I can name Muddy Bears, the chocolate-coated jellies in Bridge Mixture, and Canada’s Big Turk bar. And now, I can add Joyva Jell Rings to that short list.

Manufactured by Brooklyn’s Joyva Corp., these raspberry-flavored, chocolate-covered jelly rings appear to be completely vegan – they’re thickened with agar-agar, a seaweed derivative, rather than the more usual gelatin, and the dark chocolate coating contains no dairy products.

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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.

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Perhaps it’s the attitude of people; relaxed, fun-loving and carefree. It could also be the weather; warm sun, long days, blooming flora, etc. More than likely it’s a combination of both. Whatever the cause, something about summer really gets me in the mood for fruity candy. Soft, hard, sticky, ooey, gooey, gummi – fruit flavored sweets tend to be a personal favorite during the long warm days.

This summer, I’ve been particularly interested in gummi fruit candy. Living in Munich, Germany fruit is always on my mind as I walk by the open-air fruit stands scattered abundantly throughout the city. Of course, I pass on the natural fruit – equally great in flavor and nutrition – and I head straight (bee line, really) for sugar… processed.

One candy I’ve become quite fond of is Storck’s Nimm2 Lach Gummi, a fruit flavored gummi treat with various gummi flavors to choose from – all nice for a warm summer sugar rush. Available for consumption are Joghurt (Yogurt), Frucht & Joghurt (Fruit & Yogurt), Frucht (Fruit), and Sauer (Sour).

Nimm2 Lach Gummi is a well known candy producer headquartered in Berlin. A product of August Storck KG, Nimm2 has been producing fruit flavored candy since 1962.

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