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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I have a special place in my heart tastebuds for Atomic Fireballs. When I was a kid I would buy them by the box (160 in a box for $3.20). So, when I saw the new Chewy Atomic Fireballs at the All Candy Expo, I nearly did a backflip. Could chewy Fireballs be as good (or dare I say, better) than the Atomic Fireballs I have grown to know and love?

The Chewy Atomic Fireballs come in small 1 oz. boxes like Lemonheads do (and they now make Chewy Lemonheads too – review on the way) and retail for $0.25. The box is red and colorful and even has a small warning label that says “Caution: Extreme Heat!” The Chewy Fireballs themselves are about the size of a Lemonhead. They’re also exactly like jellybeans in that they have a sugary/grainy outer coating around a jelly-like ball.

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Atomic Fireballs … who can forget them? Red, round, and wrapped individually in cellophane or a bunch of mini ones in a little yellow box, and HOT! HOT! HOT! These were medieval torture devices when I was little.

When I was 6 years old, my 10 year-old brother offered me one of these deceptive red balls from his Halloween stash. I, innocently, let him place it on my tongue and started to suck on it. Sweet was the first sensation… followed by cinnamon and then the immediate BURN. I spat the devil ball across the room and gasped for air. My brother laughed and called me a wimp. That was one of many brotherly scars on my delicate young psyche.

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