Candy Review: Kai’s Campaign ’08 Candies

Friday, July 25, 2008 - by Caitlin

In our continuing coverage of the ’08 election (hey, everyone else is covering it, why shouldn’t we?), today we bring you Kai’s Campaign ’08 Candies. Kai’s makes traditional handmade Japanese rolled candy (kumi ame) in various cute and fun designs. For this election season, they’re offering both Lick Obama and Lick McCain candy sets. I got a chance to try the Obama set, and while I can’t claim the candies set new heights in confectionery deliciousness, I will admit that they’re pretty darn amusing!

The Obama set includes several lollipops with a cartoon Obama face, a bunch of little blue lozenge-shaped hard candies with the Democratic donkey, and similar candies in red, white and blue with the word “Vote.” For now the Obama set also includes a McCain pop, and the website says that they’re redoing the McCain face – in the meantime, only the Obama set is available.

The candies themselves taste fairly typical – the Obama ‘pop is mostly just sweet (the website says it’s lemon-lime flavored), while the lozenges have very slight flavors – lemon-lime for the donkeys and lemon for the vote candies (the lemon-lime of the lozenge tastes different than the lemon-lime of the Obama lollipop). McCain’s ‘pop sports a flavor that seems to be that of burnt sugar, though the website claims it’s strawberry. It’s not totally unpleasant, but I’m not sure I would ever have come up with strawberry if I hadn’t read it.

What’s cool about these is that the images go all the way through the pop, so even after you’ve sucked on them for a while, you can still take it out of your mouth and proudly display it for coworkers or admirers. And while the flavor may not be astounding, they’re certainly good in a general sugary kind of way. But really, we aren’t buying these for their flavors, are we?

• Kai’s Candy Company Website