When I see a $7 candy bar that weighs 2.5 ounces (70g), I nearly always keep walking. Seven dollars?! I could buy a… well, a large mocha frappuccino and a couple Rolos for that. But what if it’s in a really cool square box with a red, black and green retro design? And what if it’s an all-natural “artisan” bar filled with one of my favorite nuts of all time – the pistachio? And, what’s that? It’s on sale for $3.99? Okay, now we’re talking.

So I’ve got my little Bistro Bar treasure here at home, and I notice something odd right away. The Chocolat Moderne website says that my variety has white chocolate. But the box in front of me reads: “Parlez Pistache – dark chocolate bar filled with pistachio praline.” Wow, I hope the box is right, because I’m not a big white chocolate fan, and I also imagine that pistachio will taste much better with dark chocolate. But enough imagining. Let’s check it out.

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It’s not often I find a candy maker in my neck of the woods. North Carolina isn’t exactly exactly the candy-making capital of the world. One of my wife’s co-workers found out about Candy Addict and convinced his friend, who has a business making chocolate truffles, to get a batch to me to review. This friend runs Azurelise.

The story of Azurelise is an interesting one and well worth a read at the Azurelise website. Basically, a tenured associate professor in Philosophy abandons teaching and decides to make chocolates (there’s more to it than that, but that’s the basics). What I have before me now are Azurelise chocolate truffles, made by this former Philosopy professor.

The truffles aren’t your ordinary fancy, embellished truffles. These look, in fact… ordinary. They are approximately 1.25″ x 1.25″ x 0.5″ – they have no fancy flowers on them or swirly-q or anything else. Just a simple plaid pattern and the word AZURELISE diagonally across them. I received five dark chocolate truffles and four milk chocolate truffles.

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As part of my job I have to travel to Florida several times a year. For someone who hates sun, sand, and heat, it isn’t exactly a dream come true. One of the few things that make the trips bearable are my mandatory excursions to Fresh Market and their gourmet candy section. On my last trip, I picked up a bag of Albanese Gummi Bunnies, intending to review them when I got back home to New York. They didn’t make it home; in fact, they didn’t even make it to the airport. They were that good.

So, to make up for it, I bought some Albanese Beeps on Amazon. They have served to reinforce my belief that Albanese makes some of the best gummies I’ve ever had.

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There are several ways people approach eating candy. One of the main two is nostalgia for a specific candy and the other is the adventure some candies offer; some people just like enjoying their tried-and-true treat from their childhood and others love to try the newest and craziest candy for the experience. As a true Candy Addict, I fall into both categories. That’s why I was especially excited to find a small box of lollipops from Lollyphile waiting for me on my porch when I arrived home from work a few days ago.

Why all the excitement about a bunch of lollipops, you ask? Well, these aren’t just any lollipops. These come in flavors you won’t find anywhere else: Absinthe and Maple-Bacon. By now you’ve either started to drool on your keyboard (hey, happens to me all the time) or you’ve scrunched up your nose in skeptical repulsion. When I first saw the two flavors, I did both.

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Sucre is the kind of shop that I wish I had nearby. It’s a cute shop located in New Orleans that specializes in sweets, mostly of the chocolate variety. Sucre makes a large variety of bonbons, each one looking more tantalizing than the next. They kindly sent me a small sampling, and after opening the box, I didn’t know if I should eat them or just admire them: they’re so pretty!

Sucre’s bonbons are also tiny, so much so that I was reminded of toys and after taking my photos of them, I had an urge to play with them. That would have been a bad idea for several reasons, with the more obvious being that these are carefully crafted and are quite delicate. I had chipped one of the painted decorative tiles in just moving a bonbon from the box. Tucking my playful urges aside, I read the included flavor pamphlet and tried to identify my assortment. I had nine bonbons to decipher from a list of twenty four different types. On with the tasting!

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