Yum, history is tasty! Candy Addicts know what I mean because of the historical lollipops that I’ve previously mentioned. The kind folks over at McPhee decided that I needed to taste these historical legends for myself! Sweet!

These aren’t your typical lollipops. Not only are they made of up a base of boiled hard sugar like Ring Pops and Dum-Dums, they also have a hard, foamy, piped-on sugar for the details of the facial features (think eyebrows and jewelry) that reminds me of decorations on holiday candy. This blending of textures is a real strength, since it provides a welcome contrast for the mouth to experience. So here’s how they taste…

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Now not only can you learn history, but taste it too! McPhee has released some truly bizarre lollipops in the shapes of Abe Lincoln, Sigmund Freud, and Marie Antoinette. We’ve previously covered some of McPhee’s other strange candies here at Candy Addict, but I think these lollipops take things to a whole new level.

All of them look quite tasty with Lincoln being orange-flavored, Marie with Cherry, and Freud with Watermelon. How are we supposed to choose? Historical preference? I also couldn’t help but laugh at the funny altered quotes on the display boxes where Marie’s exclaiming: “Let them eat….CANDY!”

I’m sure many of you would want to try these (I do!) and I can’t help but wonder what Freud would have to say about eating a likeness of his head.

• Abe Lincoln Head Lollipops
• Sigmund Freud Head Lollipops
• Marie Antoinette Head Lollipops

lollipops

Along with the Bacon Mints I reviewed earlier this week, I also received two tins of banana-flavored Monkey Mints and two tins of grog-flavored Pirate Mints. Thankfully, the horrid smell of the Bacon Mints didn’t permeate the sealed Monkey Mints and Pirate Mints tins.

Monkey Mints: The first thing that you notice about Monkey Mints is the cool monkey-face-shaped tin. It’s almost worth the cost of the mints just for the cool green tin. Once you actually open the tin, you’ll see 100 round yellow mints. When I first popped one in my mouth, I immediately thought of a banana Runt. After a second, the mint taste came through. Banana and mint isn’t a flavor combination I had ever considered before, but it’s not bad. Neither flavor is overwhelming and they mix rather nicely actually. And seriously – who doesn’t like monkeys?

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Pirate Mints: The Pirate Mints say they are “Grog Flavored”. I had heard the word “grog” bandied about in pirate movies and always thought it meant beer. After looking at the ingredients list and Googling the word “grog”, I found out that grog is watered-down rum (the ingredients list says they contain “rum flavor”). The “mints” taste like a tropical (rum) drink and don’t have any actual mint taste to them all. I suppose they are called “mints” because they look like mints, have the texture of mints, and come in a mint tin. They taste pretty good – like a rum-flavored candy. It’s not a taste I can see myself ever craving after this tin is finished though.

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So, both the Monkey Mints and the Pirate Mints are good, but nothing special. They’re really better as a novelty candy/tin than they are great-tasting. At least they don’t taste like bacon.

• Monkey Mints at mcphee.com
• Pirate Mints at mcphee.com
• Bacon Mints Reviewed

candy, sweets, mint, mints, banana, bananas, rum, grog, pirate, pirates, monkey, monkeys, mcphee

I am amazed at how often bacon and candy cross paths. Candy Addict has done articles on chocolate-covered bacon, gummi bacon, and bacon jellybeans. Now we can add Bacon Mints to the list. When I was offered some Bacon Mints to review, I immediately said “hell, yes!” but wondered what they would taste like.

When the package arrived, it contained two tins of Bacon Mints and two tins of Bacon Flavored Toothpicks (more on those later). Opening the shipping package brought a scent to my nose that I wasn’t prepared for. It was bacony, minty, and had a smell of a hospital. The smell was odd and didn’t hit me as being an appetizing smell.

I opened a tin and took a big sniff and it nearly knocked me over and I don’t mean that in a good way. It was an absolutely awful smell. It’s really hard to describe, but it’s not a smell you want to get a whiff of. At this point I wasn’t really looking forward to trying them, but reviewing candy isn’t all about tasty chocolate – sometimes you must eat some questionable candy.

The mints taste as bad as I thought they would. It was maybe 30 seconds in my mouth and I had to spit it out. It was awful. It’s one of the worst tasting candies/mints I have ever had. Just thinking about it makes me nauseous. I took a tin to work to share with my co-workers too (with fair warning). I set the tin on my cabinet shelf behind me at about 8:00 AM and I could only last til 11:00AM and I had to move them to my car – the smell (even through the closed tin) was overwhelming. Nobody at work dared try them – even the guys that ate crickets with me wouldn’t try them.

My sisters tried them with me one day and we all spit ours out in less than ten seconds. I just tried one more while writing this to make sure the taste was fresh in my mind and palette. Good lord they’re hideous. I’m not sure who came up with the idea of mixing mint and bacon, or who gave the final OK to start making these, but I have to question that person’s sanity. The only good use I can think of for these is hiding ten or so of these in your enemy’s workspace and watching them go crazy trying to find the source of the smell. If I haven’t convinced you not to buy these yet, two tins of 100 mints will run you $4.95. Oh – and for the record – one of my dogs ate one, the other refused.

And the Bacon Flavored Toothpicks? Almost made me gag. Seriously.

I have an unopened tin of the Bacon Mints and an unopened tin of the Bacon Flavored Toothpicks that I must get rid of so leave a comment on this post before Thursday, March 1, 2007 and I’ll randomly draw one of the commenters to get them – be sure and leave a real email address so we can contact you (your email won’t appear on the site). Don’t say I didn’t warn you though.
UPDATE: Congratulations to Austin – he is the winner of the bacony badness!

• Bacon Mints
• Bacon Flavored Toothpicks

candy, sweets, bacon, mint, mints, toothpicks, meat, gross

In honor of Father’s Day today, we bring you “Just Like Dad Bubble Gum Cigarettes”, a new product from Archie McPhee:

Satisfy your oral fixation with these classic Bubble Gum Cigarettes. Each 3-1/8″ x 2″ x 5/8″ pack contains twelve 2-3/4″ sticks of bubble gum that are cleverly disguised in a paper wrapping to look like cigarettes. We’re pretty sure that the Surgeon General will have no problem with you chewing a pack a day!

You gotta love that retro packaging! To all the fathers out there, enjoy your children and make some good memories with them. Give them a hug every day and tell them you love them. Happy Father’s Day!

• Just Like Dad Bubble Gum Cigarettes

candy, sweets, gum, bubble gum, bubblegum, cigarette, cigarettes, retro, fathers day