When I was a kid, my candy preferences consisted of the longest-lasting candies I could afford on my meager candy allowance. But when I felt like splurging, that splurge was often Bridge Mixture.

To my childhood self, there was something sophisticated about Bridge Mixture – the mixture of dark and milk chocolate coatings, the way that you never quite knew which filling you were going to get, just like in a “grown-up” box of chocolates, the fact that it was named after a complicated grown-up card game at a time when I only knew how to play Old Maid and Crazy Eights.

Bridge Mixture seems to evoke a love-it-or-hate-it response in people, so I vowed to track down the elusive candy and see if it lived up to my childhood memories. But first, a little background info. Bridge Mixture, for those of you who don’t know, is nothing more than an assortment of chocolate-coated centers – caramel, a selection of fondants, peanuts and raisins, and two flavors of what the Internet calls “Turkish Delight,” but has always seemed to me like a pretty standard jelly. (Note that they have no relation to the Licorice Bridge Mix we’ve previously reviewed.)

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Wrigley’s recent purchase by Mars is just the most recent instance of a candy company being “congloberrated” by a larger one. Though you might not realize it, many of your favorite candies were once manufactured independently of the big names that now produce them. Jolly Ranchers is just one popular example.

This also helps to explain one of the most annoying naming blunders in the history of candy. I am talking about Hershey’s and Reese’s. To the untrained eye, there doesn’t seem to be anything wrong about this, but Reese’s is owned by Hershey’s. Maybe I am also a grammar addict, but I don’t like having to say Hershey’s Reese’s products.

But there is more to my rant, including a valid point. You see, as Reese’s operated on its own merits for so many years, its original products were not supposed to match Hershey’s line, as they were two different entities. Reese’s was the peanut butter candy company that carved a niche for itself with its unique flavor.

When purchased by Hershey’s in 1957, Hershey’s did not change the brand names because Reese’s was already associated with such a popular product that it would be bad marketing to make people start buying Hershey’s Peanut Cutter Cups or Hershey’s Pieces (it just doesn’t have the same ring to it, does it?).

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We all have our guilty secrets when it comes to candy. Some of us will eat it, even it has fallen to the floor. Some of us will show no hesitation in “sampling” from an opened candy bag in a drugstore aisle. For me, I will eat candy that has long since been removed from the market.

I know, I know… but I can’t help it! With so many limited edition candy products out there, it isn’t always easy to find them all when they’re in season. This past weekend when I was browsing at the Dollar Store, I came across a cornucopia of limited edition candy that had escaped my tasting.

One such product was Hershey’s Special Dark Chocolate: Raspberry Flavored with Macadamia pieces. I scoured Los Angeles when I moved back to the United States a year ago to try these, but they never presented themselves in the California area. You can imagine my joy to see these after all this time in Texas of all places.

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I enjoy the limited edition Hershey’s Kisses so much that I bestowed the silver medal to them on my Top 10 Best Spinoff Candy list. The varieties they release aren’t always amazing, but when they are, they are.

Lately, there haven’t been very many releases since the 100th Anniversary passed, but every now and then I see a new flavor on the market that I eagerly purchase. For Halloween, they have reissued Candy Corn Kisses (no!), Caramel Apple Kisses (I haven’t been able to find these), and Pumpkin Spice Kisses (on sale this week at Target for two dollars a bag).

Oddly enough, the same day I came across the Pumpkin Spice Kisses, I happened to spot Raspberry Special Dark Kisses at Walgreens. There was nothing Halloween or Autumnal about this bag to indicate why it was being released at this time, but one should not question gifts from the candy gods.

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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