I grew up spending ten cents a pop on Jolly Rancher candies at my small town news stand. Those hard little rectangles (especially the watermelon flavor) were a favorite among me and my elementary school crowd. I still love a good Jolly Rancher today. When I saw these Jolly Rancher Fruit Chews at the Five Below store near me, I thought I’d give them a shot.
Perhaps unusually for a sour-head like myself, I’ve never actually tried Nuclear Warheads. If the name is anything to go by, they should be about the sourest candy you can get in North America, but somehow I’ve just never tried them.
I guess that makes me pretty unsuited to review Warheads’ spin-off candy, Sour QBZ, described unenlighteningly on the package as “chewy fruity cubes.†Still, sour is sour, and I know what I like, so let’s get tasting!
My sample-sized bag of QBZ contained six soft, opaque cubes, each about the size of a dice and with a coating of sour sugar. They didn’t look like gummies, more like the soft pectin jelly of lunchbox fruit snacks. (They have both pectin and gelatin in the ingredients.) I received three red QBZ, and one each of pink, blue and green.
I love gummi candies so I said “yes please!” when I was asked to try a gummi snake. You should have heard the whoop I let out when this thing arrived: it’s almost THREE FEET long. To put it in perspective, for anyone under 6 feet (like me) that’s, like, half our height in gummi goodness. Now, I love me my gummies, but even I couldn’t eat this thing in one sitting – not that you’re supposed to, the serving size says there’s 4 servings per container. Still, my inner child was giggling with glee at the thought of downing this monster.
The candy offers quite the visual beyond its length. The blue raspberry flavor that I tried was composed of opaque white and yellow patches, and transparent blue patches. You even get green bits where the blue drips onto the yellow. And get this: when you bite into the snake you find out that blue part also runs all the way through the middle of the snake from tip to tail. Since it’s a gummi candy, it wiggles and jiggles, giving it an “ooh” factor… or an “eww” factor, if you’re feeling particularly squeamish. Personally, I loved it and I can see sassy little kids going mental over this.
Ah, but how does it taste? In a word: good. My snake had a good, consistent blue raspberry flavor. It leaned toward the sweet side, but in a good way that didn’t annoy me or overwhelm the blue raspberry flavor. The texture reminded me a bit of a really firm marshmallow – spongier than some gummies I’ve tried, yet still with enough firm chewiness to make it fun.
Since I’m a big kid, I like to play with my food, so I gotta tell you I had a ball pulling and twisting my snake – it’s a bit like taffy in that it’s malleable and the more you play with it, the stickier it gets. Also, I found it extra fun to bite the head off the snake!
Bonus: it turned my tongue blue!
All in all, this is a yummy, fun gummi candy that pays off in taste, texture, and sheer size.
At the All Candy Expo, Mike and Ike shared some of their new flavors of 2009. For those of you who are Mike and Ike fans, you might be wondering why I’m reviewing the Berry Blast flavor as new when we already reviewed it in 2007. Well, Mike and Ike have updated the Berry Blast to include some new goodies. You get the same Mike and Ike consistency and texture, just a different mix of flavors.
Blueberry: This dark blue candy has an artificial blueberry flavor that lacks the mixed sweet-tartness of a more genuine blueberry experience. Instead, the emphasis here is on sweetness.
Blue Raspberry: Not to be confused with the darker blue Mike and Ikes, the light blue candies are a blue raspberry flavor. These were the strongest flavor in the bunch – as soon as I put one in my mouth I could taste the blue raspberry before I even started chewing. The flavor here wasn’t as sweet as the blueberry, offering a little more complexity.
Courtesy of the All Candy Expo, I was able to try two of the Nuclear Sludge Chew Bars from Toxic Waste: the blue raspberry and the sour apple.
Blue Raspberry: I’m a Candy Addict who loves sour things and I’m telling you woohoo is this sour! The blue raspberry flavor started out really sour and just got more sour as I chewed. By the time I’d chewed enough to swallow, my eyes were watering. The flavor reminds me of a sour version of those blue Popsicles. Unfortunately, the first chew ended with a bit of a bitter taste and subsequent bites got progressively more bitter. I’d have liked it more if it just stuck with the sour. The texture was moderately chewy, taking a long time to chew any given bite.
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