It’s finally October, fellow Candy Addicts, and we all know what that means! Halloween, the best holiday ever, will soon be upon us. Halloween not only marks the opening of “candy season” here in the U.S. but it also allows the shelves of our favorite stores to be filled up with treats to tie us over in the meantime.
I went out in search of some of these early Halloween candies and rounded up a few to share with you here. Isn’t it nice of me to do all the foot work for you? I certainly plan on putting this knowledge to good use: making sure I greet Halloween properly with a sugar-induced coma!
Halloween Pumpkin Pocky
This Pocky flavor is released in October for Halloween. Even though the Japanese don’t really celebrate Halloween like we do here, they still recognize it as a reason to release more limited edition flavors of their favorite candies. This Pumpkin Pocky is usually found in a Halloween three-pack and is paired with a box of strawberry and honey Pocky. The box designs each have a “spooky” mascot on them: a jack o’ lantern, a ghost, and an evil looking strawberry witch. Don’t ask.
The taste is light and sweet and very much like squash. Just imagine pumpkin pie without the cinnamon/nutmeg/ginger spices in it and you have this Pocky. It’s nice because even though it lacks the “pumpkin pie” flavor, it still has a good sweet dairy essence to it so I don’t feel like I’m eating a serving of vegetables. These Pocky are very addictive and I’m thankful that the packet is quite large. There’s one packet of 16 sticks in there. Whoo hoo!
The box also came with a cut out mask on the back. Too bad I got the weird strawberry witch one.
Korean Pumpkin Candy:
I found this at my local Asian market and picked it up because I was intrigued by the idea of pumpkin flavored taffy. The color is of pumpkin pie filling: a dark caramelized orange color. Smells sweet, almost cinnamon-y. Should I expect this to taste of pumpkin pie, or pumpkin?
The chew is nice and firm, so it neither disappears too quickly nor gets stuck in your teeth. The taste is sweet, but it doesn’t taste of pumpkin to me. It has an oaty, starchy sort of flavor that reminds of honey flavored whole grain cereal. As strange and off-putting as it may sound, I really like them. I now have a new taffy chew to rotate with my favorites of Big Hunk, Squirrel Nut Zippers and Bit-O-Honey. I only wish they really tasted of pumpkin, since that’s what I was looking forward to.
Halloween Baby Bottle Pop
This wasn’t my first experience with the Baby Bottle Pop, as I buy them on occasion when I want something interactive and a little messy. When I saw this Halloween version on the shelf at my local grocer, I knew I had to try it out. This looks so festive, I almost didn’t want to eat it! The lollipop top is swirled black and orange with the dextrose powder inside an ashen purple. Spooky!
The flavor is labeled as “Ghoulish Berry” and tastes similar to blue raspberry, but has some sweeter, more strawberry flavors in it, mainly coming from the lollipop top. I expected to get a little sick from the intensity of the flavor like I do with the bubble gum/cotton candy flavor of the normal BB Pops, but I was wrong. I liked this enough to want Topps to add it to the regular line. Another really cool thing about this is that it does a lovely job of dying your tongue a deep purple/black. Very appropriate for Halloween tricks.
Halloween Finger Lites
These come in cute tiny packages of orange with a grinning jack o’ lanterns and bats on it. “Wear it! Light it! Eat it!” exclaims the package, and I feel compelled to obey. The bottom lists the possible flavors: cherry (bat shape), orange (pumpkin shape), lemon (hand shape), green apple (witch head shape) and (again) cherry (black cat head shape). I grabbed an orange one since I’m a big pumpkin fan (as if you hadn’t guessed that already).
Once I opened it I was immediately disappointed. My shape was a bear, not a pumpkin! It doesn’t even resemble the cat head, which is the only other possibility I could think of. Bummer! I pulled the plastic tab to start the light in the lollipop, and sure it enough, it starts to blink about every 1/2 second. I have to admit it looks pretty neat.
The orange flavor is very nice, like an orange Tootsie Pop minus the zesty citrus aftertaste. This lollipop is sweet and mild through and through. It’s a pleasure to eat, especially since I’ve just popped it on my hand and take a pass on it as I write this review. Most convenient! The only downside to this is that if you’re a chewer like I am, you may feel nervous about crunching away at this with the light source being in the center. Personally, I am frightened by the unknown consequences. Overall, very tasty and worth the novelty, even if I didn’t get the pumpkin shape.
I believe I found some winners here despite what your Halloween preferences are. A little something for everyone, right? So I encourage you all to go exploring and see what interesting Halloween candies you can find. Then I expect you to come here to comment and share you finds! Deal?
The French celebrate Halloween as well and their candy is very good, nothing to do with ours:http://www.histoiresucree.com/product_categories/hard_candy.htm
October 16th, 2007 at 3:41 pmHow does the Pocky taste?
October 25th, 2007 at 7:15 pmwhat’s your fav flavor?!