When slathering food with hot sauce or freshly ground chiles no longer delivers a sustained stream of endorphins to fire breathing humanoids like myself, additional sources of that highly addictive, recreational burn are frequently sought out.

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In case you haven’t heard, after a 72-year relationship, Mike & Ike have split. Yes, a candy-coated PR stunt similar to that of the great Barbie & Ken divorce of 2004.

Hoping to capture the attention of teenagers, Just Born (the candy company who makes Mike & Ike) made the split well known across multiple social media platforms, Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr, earlier this month.

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At the All Candy Expo, Mike and Ike shared some of their new flavors of 2009. For those of you who are Mike and Ike fans, you might be wondering why I’m reviewing the Berry Blast flavor as new when we already reviewed it in 2007. Well, Mike and Ike have updated the Berry Blast to include some new goodies. You get the same Mike and Ike consistency and texture, just a different mix of flavors.

Blueberry: This dark blue candy has an artificial blueberry flavor that lacks the mixed sweet-tartness of a more genuine blueberry experience. Instead, the emphasis here is on sweetness.

Blue Raspberry: Not to be confused with the darker blue Mike and Ikes, the light blue candies are a blue raspberry flavor. These were the strongest flavor in the bunch – as soon as I put one in my mouth I could taste the blue raspberry before I even started chewing. The flavor here wasn’t as sweet as the blueberry, offering a little more complexity.

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Three years ago, I found myself working as a “Mad Scientist” for a similarly-named company. Donning a white lab coat, goggles and a goofy pseudonym, I traveled far and wide to spread scientific curiosity and slime to as many schools and birthday parties as possible. These “Mad Science” programs had all sorts of themes. They were all interactive, and messy.

One of our most popular themes was “Taste and Smell,” and it wasn’t hard to see why – the “class” involved scented slime and a taste test. The blind, nose plugged taste test was supposed to demonstrate that what we call “taste” is really 80% smell. We used generic jelly beans. The results were undeniable – without their distinctive hues and scents, the flavors couldn’t be distinguished. Grape was identical to lemon!

While taste may be mostly smell (and I’ll admit the two are linked, but I’m skeptical of the 80% figure!), the part that’s not smell makes quite a difference. Especially when it comes to jelly beans. Consider Jelly Belly – even with your nose plugged, there’s no way you’d ever confuse the warmth and mildly salty tone of their Buttered Popcorn flavor with the rich fruitiness of their Strawberry Daquiri. As far as I’m concerned, the beloved little beans have nothing in common with the blandly syrup-flavored variety utilized by Mad Science.

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I can be a vulture when it comes to candy. I have a predetermined list of stores I scout out weekly and gaze upon their candy sections. Supermarkets, drugstores, gas stations, etc…. I usually do this to see if there happens to be a sale on candy, or even if I know there is a new product debuting that I should keep an eye out for. You can imagine my surprise whenever I discover a new candy product that I wasn’t expecting.

Yes, this is a rarity, but it happened this past week at a Walgreens. As if it was supposed to be stocked with all the other theater-sized box candy, a new version of Mike and Ike stood among its cousins of Tangy Twister and Jolly Joes: Italian Ice. I knew to expect the release of Lemonade Blends a few months back, but nowhere had I heard about Italian Ice debuting. In fact, it isn’t even listed on their website.

Quickly, I purchased the box along with a box of the new and original Tropical Typhoon, which boasted an assortment of new flavors, as advertised on its box.

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