Julie’s Corner Store in Lacon, Illinois isn’t your typical candy shop. In fact, it’s not a candy shop at all. In addition to fudge, the store sells everything from antiques to reproduction tin toys to tools (I saw sandpaper for sale!). You can bet the fudge is just as interesting as the store.

Julie’s uses fresh ingredients and real butter and cream. I got a nice review pack from them with a variety of flavors: chocolate peanut butter, chocolate, vanilla praline, orange creme, and chocolate mint. The box reminded me of something you’d get at a beachfront candy store, the kind of place that has hand-pulled taffy and seafoam candy.

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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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In my Candy Addict staff profile, I joke that I adhere to a strict organic, vegan diet to balance my rabid candy consumption. Though that’s not entirely true, if it were I could find sweet organic, vegan refuge in Zootons. What are Zootons, you ask? Well Zootons are beings hailing from Zootopia, of course! And they are here to save Earthling children and adults alike from bad candy.

And how do they do that, you ask? Why, by generously sharing their homeland’s chemical-free, fertilizer-free, gelatin-free, organic, vegan candy with “out of this world taste” of the same name. Naturally! And in the spirit of promoting healthy habits and practicing what they preach, Zootons also donate a percentage of their profits to Healthy Child, Healthy World, a non-profit organization campaigning for healthy environments for children.

And while these are all excellent reasons for both vegan and omnivorous Addicts to give Zootons a try, we all know that when it comes to candy it really just comes down to taste (I mean, if it tastes like organic dirt it still tastes like dirt, right?), so let’s get to the important stuff. Zootons come in four varieties: Gummies, Colas, Jellies, and Sours. And here’s my breakdown:

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I am not going to lie to you: I am not a big gummi person. Unless gummi bears or their squirmy gummi worm cousins are coated in a thick layer of sour sugar, I’m usually not interested. So when I heard about Loud Truck Energy Gummies at the All Candy Expo, I was hesitant to try one, until someone on the floor said the magic words: “It’s like eating a bag of Red Bull.”

To some people, that statement would be terrifying. To me, it was a starter pistol that sent me racing over to the Loud Truck Energy booth to sample these mystical bears of energy and goodness. I love Red Bull, and most energy-fueled treats, so I was hoping that Loud Truck gummies would provide a new (and possibly cheaper) alternative to my beloved Red Bull fix. I instantly fell in love with them at the All Candy Expo, and couldn’t wait to review them once I returned home.

This morning at 8:00 am, I ripped open a new pack of Loud Truck Energy Gummies to start the day. Taste-wise, the gummies are quite good. The bears are firm but soft, with a nice chewy texture that doesn’t stick to the teeth. They have a subtle citrus flavor that gets stronger as the bear is chewed - a nice bite toward the end of the chewing process brings to mind a sip of Red Bull - a fizzy citrus taste that lingers after the bear is gone.

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The Jolly Rancher Passion Mix bag is going to make some of you very, very happy - because while it does not contain the Holy Grail of Jolly Rancherness (that would be the lemon flavor), it does contain the second best flavor: peach! In my earlier post about the Classic Mix of Jolly Rancher flavors, several comments lamented the demise of the peach flavor. Good news, Candy Addicts, it’s here in all its artificial peachy delicious goodness!

The Passion Mix bag is comprised of five flavors:

Fruit Punch: A strong, delicious flavor of the fruit punch drinks we had as a kid and wish we could justify as an adult. The color is exactly right, too - not as red as a cherry flavor nor as pink as a strawberry, it’s got that beautiful dark pink color we’ve all grown to associate with fruit punch.

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What is old is new again, and this couldn’t be truer in regard to the recent resurrection of the classic candy Good & Fruity. Many of you may be familiar with this one already, and if you are, I’m very jealous! I’m too young to have enjoyed the original Good & Fruity (or Good ‘n Fruity as far as the original goes) back in its days of glory. I was hoping that the fact that Hershey’s was bringing it back would make me feel like a more “complete” candy lover; like how a modern gamer would feel finding an original Nintendo Entertainment System to play or a wine connoisseur discovering a long lost vintage. A chance to take a step back in time and taste something that “once was.”

Although, like Zombies brought back from the dead, things just aren’t as good the second time around. The original Good ‘n Fruity were pastilles with a bland jelly center and the actual fruit favoring came from the colored candy shells. As the legend goes, the formula was changed in 1988 to enhance the flavor by making the jelly centers fruity to match the candy coating. After that there’s no word on how Good ‘n Fruity slipped out of favor with the candy eating public and ended up discontinued.

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I have a crush. I can’t stop thinking about it. I’ll be driving my car or typing away at work or sweating in the middle of a Pilates class when suddenly, wham! I’ll picture the object of my affection and my eyes will glaze over a bit. I smile just enough that one would assume I’m daydreaming about Clive Owen again. But sorry, Clive. You’ve got some competition and the name is Damla.

Damla, a Turkish import, is a taffy-like fruit flavored candy with a delicate gel center. Each piece comes individually wrapped and the flavors - apple, cherry, orange, peach and strawberry - are clearly labeled with darling little illustrations on their wrappers. The candy has a bit of a chew, but nothing that will destroy a filling. Actually, it takes on a lovely melty consistency after a bit of chomping.

And oh, the health benefits! The candy touts its fat-free status and at less than 20 calories per piece, I can easily justify eating five at a time for my daily empty calorie snack.

Is it worth it, you ask? Am I blinded by candy lust? Here’s the flavor breakdown:

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“Yummy, yummy, yummy, I’ve got gummi in my tummy” is going to be my new mantra! I recently had the privilege of tasting the new liquid-filled gummies, Starburst GummiBursts. I’m a big fan of Starburst products, and it’s always nice to see new candies from them, since they are pretty consistently tasty.

The GummiBursts have a very satisfying texture - nice and chewy and gummi. The liquid center is just a teeny viscous dollop and not overpowering or even very noticeable, which could be considered a negative by some. The packaging claims that these Gummi Bursts contain real fruit juice, but the ingredients reveal the only real fruit juice is apple juice from concentrate. The GummiBursts come in four flavors: strawberry, cherry, orange, and lemon. Let’s examine those in more detail!

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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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Here is a guest review by Julie…

When I was about 8, our family moved to a remote part of Connecticut that was easily five miles from any main commercial shopping areas. The only place we could get candy was the neighborhood gas station, complete with a grungy, grumpy old mechanic guy who, though a bit scary, stocked some awesome candy in his little 2-bay garage; I have since wondered if he was a Candy Addict himself. Of all the candies that he had on display (and though I bought others, too), it was the Seven Up bar that got a sizable chunk of my allowance money every time.

Discontinued sometime in the 70’s, the Seven Up bar began its seven-sectioned life in the 1930s, before the 7-Up Bottling Company began making its soft drink. Eventually the 7-Up company bought the bar and retired it, so they had the exclusive use of the name whichever way it was spelled: Seven Up or 7-Up. None of that mattered a whit to me, as I was only interested in one thing: those seven sections of chocolate-covered different candy centers, meaning I was getting seven big pieces of candy in one regular-sized bar. Quite a bargain to me back then for my hard-saved pennies and nickels (shoot, I’d pay just about anything for one today)!

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