Candy Review: GoNaturally Organic Hard Candies

Wednesday, September 17, 2008 - by Caitlin

A while back I attended the Fancy Food Show here in New York City. Like the All Candy Expo, the Fancy Food Show is only open to people in the food industry (or, in our case, members of the press who write about the food industry). Where the ACE is pretty darn big, the FFS is freaking ENORMOUS! From herbs and spices to olive oil to cheese to candy, pretty much every food group is represented to the extreme. I had the pleasure of meeting with the folks from Hillside Candy to try their GoNaturally Organic Hard Candies. Much to my chagrin, it’s taken me this long to finally find time to sit down and write a proper review of their tasty sweets.

I got six different varieties of hard candy to try, including Honey Lemon, Apple, Honey, Cherry, Pomegranate, and Ginger. So how do these hand-made gluten free candies measure up?

Honey Lemon: This reminds me of a flavor I can’t quite place. It’s very pleasant, with a definite honey undertone and a very very faint lemon. I thought it was going to be like a cough drop or something gross like that, but am pleasantly surprised by its mild, pleasurable flavor.

Apple: These have a very definite apple flavor. Not the overpowering smack of a green apple Jolly Rancher, but instead the subtle, slightly tangy flavor you’d get from the peel of a good green apple. Very nice, and not too sweet.

Ginger: I have an innate fear of all things ginger. I simply don’t like the flavor. This was no different. In fact, this is the only one out of all the ones I tried that I spit back out. It wasn’t overpowering or anything like that, it just isn’t a pleasant flavor to me. However, if you like ginger you won’t go wrong with this as the flavor is quite evident while still very mildly sweet.

Honey: I didn’t expect the honey flavor to taste much different from the honey lemon flavor, and to be honest, I was right. While I could certainly tell them apart in a blind taste test, the difference is very subtle. Overall, a nice honey flavor, and it sure beats carrying around a plastic bear in your purse if you get a craving for something honey flavored.

Pomegranate: One of the biggest “hot new things” we found at the ACE was the advent of pomegranate as a flavor in candy. Having never eaten an actual pomegranate, I can’t really speak to the authenticity here, though I imagine it’s pretty close. It’s certainly a nice flavor, with a little tartness nicely balanced with sweet. It definitely tastes fruity and I liked it more than some of the other pomegranate-flavored products I’ve tried in the past.

Cherry: This one was sweet with a cherry flavor I didn’t really expect. It was a little tart, but I suppose the main thing that threw me off is that it definitely isn’t the flavor you expect to find in most candy, which is typically more of a fake black cherry flavor. I suppose I could also be thrown off by the fact that these are all made with much more natural ingredients than I’m used to, so the flavors mimic their counterparts in nature more closely than many other candies.

One of the main selling points for GoNaturally candies is that they’re all organic, meaning they don’t have any high fructose corn syrup, additives or artificial flavors. In fact, the ingredients for most consist of only three things: organic evaporated cane juice, organic brown rice syrup, and natural flavor. For such a short list of ingredients, they sure pack in a lot of good flavor!

• Hillside Candy GoNaturally Website

Buy GoNaturally Organic Hard Candies Online:

• at Amazon.com