Traditional licorice candy isn’t everybody’s cup of tea, but it certainly has an enduring presence whether tucked inside the nightstand of a grandparent or happily gobbled up by boisterous teens in the back of a dark movie theater.

Read More »

Remember the giddy excitement that welled up inside the pit of your stomach when, upon completing a marathon Trick-or-Treating run, it was finally time to dump the contents of your bloated pillowcase all over the floor?

Amid random carpet crumbs and tufts of dog fur, the next crucial step would then be to sort, categorize, and ultimately pawn off all candy rejects upon easily swayed siblings and casual acquaintances who failed to grasp the unspoken yet inarguable confection hierarchy that still exists to this very day.

In my post-Halloween candy sorting circle, anyone with a shred of sugar sense knew that scoring willing Good & Plenty adoptees was an exercise in sheer futility.

Read More »

Mary Janes are one of those candies I heard about growing up, but never ate. They were, like most Necco products, something that I saw in stores, but never gave much thought to when it came to buying. I never watched any of my friends eat Mary Janes, and reasoned it was probably a candy better left to my imagination.

But after so many years of having Twix, KitKats, and other candy items I routinely buy at the store, I find myself bored. I still love me some Twix, but a guy needs to mix things up every now and then!

Whenever this feeling overtakes me, I head on over to the part of the candy aisle I usually neglect. Often, it’s full of candy from another generation, including Circus Peanuts, Wax Bottles, and Candy Buttons. On this trip, I snatched up a bag of Mary Janes.

Read More »

Hey everybody, Look! It’s the second candy bar in my four-bar round-up of some oddly named candy that includes Oh Henry!, 5th Avenue, and U-No.

Look! candy bars are made by the Annabelle Candy Company, a San Francisco bay-area concern founded in 1917 by Russian immigrant Sam Altshuler, and named after his daughter (the company, not the bar. His daughter’s name was not “Look!”). (And yes, you’re right, there was a spot of bother that year in Russia.)

Annabelle candy bars are best-sellers in western states, and include the Rocky Road, Big Hunk, Abba-Zabba and U-No bars. Today’s item, Look!, was invented in the 1950’s by the Golden Nugget Candy Co., which Annabelle acquired in 1972. I doubt you’ve ever had a candy bar quite like this. And there may be a good reason.

Here’s how Annabelle describes these bars: “Thick chewy nougat sweetened with molasses,” with “roasted peanuts covered with mouth watering rich dark chocolate.”

We’ll see.

Read More »