Q: What do you get when you cross one sour-loving Candy Addict with a whole sleeve of sour power gumballs?

A: One very happy customer with a very sore jaw.

I wasn’t all that excited to get these gumballs, since I’ve had a particularly long run of not-really-sour sour candies to eat lately. The package also said “made in Mexico” and we all know how I felt about those Mexican candies. Gum is one of those things which is difficult to get a good sour flavor with, unless of course you fill it with some sort of lethal mix of citric acid and scary chemicals. Even then I find that sour gum products are sour for about 2.35 milliseconds before they just end up being a chewy, grainy, sweet mess. There was a definite audible sigh as I busted open this sleeve.

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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

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(image from CandyDirect)

This guest review comes from John Klassa…

I first encountered Cry Baby gum after coming in second place in a contest I entered with my young son. First prize was a huge bag of Cry Baby gum. Second prize was, well, nothing at all. Fortunately for us, the first-place winners were kind enough to share a big ol’ handful with us. They came in sleeves of five or six, and I liked them so much that I wound up chewing whole sleeves at a time.

The taste that “had me at hello” was back in spades in the review samples I received recently. This time, though, I got the regular round variety, and some samples of a “Double Bubble” variety.

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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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Here at Candy Addict, we’ve already determined that when it comes to sour candy, there is sour, and then there is sour. I had pretty much given up my search for anything which would satisfy my sour-deprived taste buds, until I came across X-Treme Sour Candy. It had the picture of someone’s head being blown up, the “Caution: X-Tremely Sour” warning and it even came in a cute little rocket-shaped container.

The thing which made me buy it was actually the health warning, in small print, on the label: “CAUTION: Eating multiple pieces at the same time or within a short time of each other may cause an irritation to sensitive tongues and mouth. This may vary from a slight irritation to a severe reaction depending on the individual.” Yippee! Candy eating as an extreme sport? I’m in! As you can imagine, I wasted no time on these, especially as the flavor mix included cola, strawberry, apple, and blue raspberry.

The candies are individually wrapped, with the color of wrapper relevant to the flavor inside. Each candy is about the size of a nickel - so fairly substantial, really. The first sensation you get is of extreme sourness (similar to a WarHead) - the kind which makes your tongue curl and your hair straighten.

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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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Occasionally when I’m skulking around the candy section of a convenience store, a particular package will catch my eye. Often, what draws me is the flash of a brightly colored wrapper. Sometimes, it is because the candy is brand new to the familiar landscape of the aisle (like my newest obsession - the Indiana Jones’ Mint Chocolate Crisp M&Ms). But occasionally, I attribute my attraction to what can only be referred to as The Profound Gravitational Pull of Candy. This is how I discovered the Rip Roll.

Here’s the thing about The Profound Gravitational Pull of Candy. It doesn’t always mean true love. Am I pledging myself eternally to the Rip Roll? Certainly not. Do I understand why whatever higher power (or sugar craving) created and marketed this candy? Absolutely.

Rip Rolls come individually wrapped and are available in four flavors: strawberry, green apple, watermelon and blue raspberry. When I pulled off the exterior wrapper of my first Rip Roll, which was strawberry flavored, I was greeted with a single Rip Roll resting in a small plastic tray. I assume the purpose of this piece of plastic is to uphold the shape and integrity of the roll. It works. I placed the Rip Roll in the palm of my hand and I felt as though I had been presented with the most exquisite piece of candy on the planet. It looked magical. Were I five years old and opening this candy, you would be hard-pressed to convince me that it wasn’t invented by a unicorn, dragon, or Rapunzel. The pink whorl positively sparkles with sugar coating and this sugar is not just on the outside of the roll. Instead, it meticulously covers every inch of the advertised “forty inches of fun.”

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I am a creature of habit. There are certain things I have to have when I go certain places. At baseball games, I have to get a giant pretzel. At family parties, I have to have my sister’s chocolate chip cookies. At the shore, I have to grab a box of salt water taffy. And at the movies, it is absolutely imperative that I get my hands on a bag of Sour Patch Kids.

As weird as this sounds, I am not a gummy person. I hate gummi bears. Gummy worms give me the creeps. Gumdrops are on my (very short) DO. NOT. WANT. candy list. Yet despite all this, I love Sour Patch Kids with the fire of a thousand Atomic Fireballs.

Sour Patch Kids are small gummy treats that come in various fruit flavors, including cherry, orange, lemon, and lime. Each Sour Patch Kid is about the size of a regular gummy bear. Tiny granules of sour sugar coat each gummy Kid, giving them a grainy texture and a knockout sour punch.

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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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