Mockolate products have an awful reputation, but it isn’t as if it’s not deserved. Despite what the candy companies are spouting in an attempt to appease/brainwash their constituents, there is a noticeable difference between a real piece of chocolate and mockolate.

But to immediately write off all mockolate products would be a disservice to a handful of candies out there. You see, mockolate can work well under certain circumstances. The most successful mockolate products I have encountered were always candies that weren’t considered chocolate, but wanted a chocolate flavor.

To me, no product accomplishes this as well as Tootsie’s namesake product, the Tootsie Roll. Having been doled out since the late nineteenth century, these babies hold a niche in the candy universe.

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After my success with the Pineapple Now and Later, I promised myself that I would approach other Now and Later varieties with an open mind. So spotting a whole display of flavors at a gas station, I was, as Homer Simpson so eloquently stated, “like a kid in some kind of a store.”

Scanning the flavors, I was torn between several, but it soon became obvious which would be the one to try. Peach Smash. Why? First, I love peaches. Second, there are so very few peach-flavored things in the world aside from peaches. Third, I have no idea what a “Smash” tastes like, but if there are peaches involved, count me in!

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Continuing from where I left off, here is my next tasting of Brach’s penny candy products. This review focuses on the the fruit-flavored items they manufacture.

Brach’s Fruit Chews
Made with real juice for a fun, fruity flavor.

These are similar to a Tootsie Roll Midgee, in terms of size and shape.

Orange is reminiscent of sherbet. It has an incredibly soft chew, like biting into a marshmallow. The piece isn’t sticky, but the flavor is muted, missing the zest a true orange flavor packs.

Strawberry aims for the smell of ripe strawberries – it hits the mark spot on. The piece is chewier than the orange, but sill soft. Unfortunately, the strawberry flavor is not as evocative as the smell, further exacerbated by a waxy aftertaste.

Grape makes my nose think of grape Bubble Tape when I unwrap it. The piece is the chewiest of them all, but still soft comparatively to other chews, like a really soft Starburst. The grape flavor is artificial, tasting exactly like the grape Bubble Tape. In fact, I completely forgot these were fruit chews and not gum until I noticed the pieces had dissolved in my mouth.

My overall impression of these is that they are harmless, but avoiding providing any real substance; if there were a dish of these at a waiting room, people would only take a few.

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As a kid, whenever my friends and I had a loose tooth that we wanted to fall out so we could get a visit from the tooth fairy, we would eat Now and Laters. Those hard now, but soft later taffy squares were just the perfect thing to stick to your tooth and yank it right out when you chewed.

Maybe it’s because my youngest memories of these candies involved blood pouring from a crevice in mouth, but I never ate them too frequently. I didn’t mind them, but the standard three-flavor pack so bored me with the same regimen over and over that I found myself only consuming them once a year or so.

Every now and then, whenever I pop into a gas station, I can find individual packets of flavors not included in the larger size. I have always wondered about these flavors. Could the reason why these flavors never found themselves in the regular Now and Later lineup be that they’re just not very good? Amongst an assortment of possible candidates, I chose pineapple as the flavor best to conduct my research with.

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As I strolled down the River Walk of San Antonio, I had some unexpected surprises. It began when I bumped into a teacher from my high school days, an oddity since we are both Californians. The second was a surprise of the tastier variety.

Popping into one of the candy shops along the river, I found a collection of Schooner Pete’s Salt Water Taffy. Like my former American Government teacher, this taffy was a rare find in Texas, much less San Antonio, since it’s manufactured in Oregon, and I don’t usually find stores that stock it outside that region.

Because it was around Christmas when this all occurred, I purchased a bag of the peppermint taffy. I figured I hadn’t gotten around to consuming all that much peppermint this time of year in my attempt to try out different types of candy canes.

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