While perusing my local big blue box store’s chocolate aisle, I noticed several bars of chocolate in intriguing-sounding flavors, like this one: a bar called “Firecracker.” Candy Addict is no stranger to Chuao Chocolatiers, the gourmet chocolate company that uses Venezuelan cacao and exciting flavor combinations that impress and delight fans of chocolate. Speaking of exciting, if you have one of those big blue boxes (aka Wal-mart), you now have easy access to some fancy chocolate! Read on to see just how exciting this chocolate is.

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When you think of dark chocolate additives, spicy chocolate isn’t so far-fetched. Cranberries with chocolate is not uncommon, but chocolate+chili+cranberries is definitely unique. Jersey Devil Chocolates boast a 54% cacao dark chocolate bar that includes dried cranberries and chipotle chili. Why cranberries? Because New Jersey (where the company is based) is the 2nd highest producer of the fruit, and the legendary Jersey Devil reportedly lurks in the South Jersey Pine Barrens where the cranberries are grown.

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Certain candy flavor combinations seem to go well together. Peanut butter and chocolate. Kiwi fruit and strawberry. But the one that caught my attention at my local H.E.B. was a melding of watermelon and tamarind.

For all you Candy Addicts up to date with your regional candy flavor geography, this mixture should only spell out one origin: Mexico. Tamarind, though originally a Middle Eastern fruit, is typically used as a confectionery flavor in Mexican candy.

This particular candy is called Tiliko Mix, manufactured by the Zumba Pica company. Aside from an awesome name, I can’t really tell you much more about the history of the company, as their whole website is in Spanish, and, well… the Spanish words for “one” through “ten” don’t form complete sentences.

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World Market sells stuff from, you know, the world. It’s a cool store (formerly called Cost Plus) with food, furniture, housewares, body care, art, and lots of unusual candy, especially stuff from, you know, the world. They now also have house brands of various things, including chocolate.

At $1.99 for a 3oz (85g) bar, they’re quite a good value for genuine chocolate, with dark chocolate of various intensities and flavor combinations. This review covers what they call Milk Chocolate (at a very healthy 42% cacao content), and 72%, 82%, and a tongue-boggling 99% cacao dark chocolate bar. I’ll also try a 64% dark chocolate bar with sea salt, and another 64% bar with pomegranate.

Let’s start with the clear winner.

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One of the advantages to being the only Candy Addict writer outside of North America is that people send me cool stuff to try – stuff which I would never find here in Australia. In this case an Arizona-based Candy Addict sent me a bunch of weird and wonderful Mexican candy to taste test. Having grown up in Southern California, I’m no stranger to the common flavors of Mexico – tamarind, chili, mango and so on – but this is my first experience with those flavors from a confectionery perspective.

Made by de la Rosa, Pulparindo is described as a “hot and salted tamarind pulp candy” and, to my palette, it was only mildly hot and not really salty. It’s basically a pressed rectangle of tamarind, mixed with some sugar and chili. The first listed ingredient is sugar, which is pretty obvious from a textural point of view. It’s a pretty sandy thing to eat – you can hear it grinding against your teeth as you chew. Flavor-wise it’s pretty nice – but you would definitely need to be a tamarind fan in the first place! Appearance wise it’s not all that appealing, but if you’ve eaten raw tamarind before then you’re no stranger to brown patties!

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