To me, one of the most exciting announcements at this year’s All Candy Expo was the addition of three new additions to the Pieces lineup. Never knew there was a Pieces lineup? Well, there is now, with Hershey’s Special Dark, Almond Joy and York Pieces joining the familiar Reese’s. But are these new additions worthy successors to the mantle of everyone’s favorite candy-coated peanut butter treat? (The Hershey’s folks threw in a sample pack of Reese’s Pieces too, so I’m doing a bonus review of those as well.)

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We all have our guilty secrets when it comes to candy. Some of us will eat it, even it has fallen to the floor. Some of us will show no hesitation in “sampling” from an opened candy bag in a drugstore aisle. For me, I will eat candy that has long since been removed from the market.

I know, I know… but I can’t help it! With so many limited edition candy products out there, it isn’t always easy to find them all when they’re in season. This past weekend when I was browsing at the Dollar Store, I came across a cornucopia of limited edition candy that had escaped my tasting.

One such product was Hershey’s Special Dark Chocolate: Raspberry Flavored with Macadamia pieces. I scoured Los Angeles when I moved back to the United States a year ago to try these, but they never presented themselves in the California area. You can imagine my joy to see these after all this time in Texas of all places.

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I enjoy the limited edition Hershey’s Kisses so much that I bestowed the silver medal to them on my Top 10 Best Spinoff Candy list. The varieties they release aren’t always amazing, but when they are, they are.

Lately, there haven’t been very many releases since the 100th Anniversary passed, but every now and then I see a new flavor on the market that I eagerly purchase. For Halloween, they have reissued Candy Corn Kisses (no!), Caramel Apple Kisses (I haven’t been able to find these), and Pumpkin Spice Kisses (on sale this week at Target for two dollars a bag).

Oddly enough, the same day I came across the Pumpkin Spice Kisses, I happened to spot Raspberry Special Dark Kisses at Walgreens. There was nothing Halloween or Autumnal about this bag to indicate why it was being released at this time, but one should not question gifts from the candy gods.

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What’s not to love about a Hershey’s Kiss? It’s such a perfect little morsel of chocolatey goodness. I’d have to say the only problem I have with them is having enough patience to methodically unwrap each of the little guys when I am just anxious to shove a whole handful into my mouth. Well, I guess I’m burning half a calorie unwrapping, right?

Hershey’s has been coming out with a lot of limited edition flavors of Kisses lately like the Candy Addict favorite Cherry Cordial Kisses, Special Dark Strawberry Kisses, and even Candy Cane Kisses. Recently, I was lucky enough to find Hershey’s Special Dark Coffee Kisses. I love coffee, and I love coffee-flavored chocolate, so I had high hopes for these nuggets!

I think my hopes were a little too high. These Kisses aren’t bad, but they aren’t all that great, either. I’ve had the same bag for several weeks now, which is telling–if I really liked them, they would have been gone in a couple of days! The coffee flavor is sort of a sweet, syrupy coffee flavor, reminiscent of an artificial coffee flavoring. The coffee flavor, coupled with the dark chocolate, leaves a slight, somewhat sickly sweet aftertaste. I think I’ll stick with the regular Kisses and maybe try the peanut butter ones and, yes, I really need to try the Cherry Cordial Kisses to be a true Candy Addict, don’t I?

• Hershey’s Kisses

Buy Hershey’s Kisses online:

• at Candy Direct
• at Amazon.com

One flavor combo I really love is the combination of strawberry and chocolate. That’s why I was particularly excited to find out that Hershey’s has released strawberry flavored dark chocolate Kisses. I knew they had to be mine.

The wrapper is a beautiful berry pink color and the tag proudly announces “strawberry” all over itself. The smell of the Kisses is noticeable right away when the bag is opened, with a very strong, sweet berry aroma. Once unwrapped, I was surprised to see the the shape of the kiss itself suggests it was formed in a mold rather than the press technique that makes kisses so unique. I was confused by this because it’s not of the “filled” Kiss variety, like the Caramel Kisses and Peanut Butter Kisses flavors. The chocolate was dark, shiny, smooth and had a good snap to it.

The taste is the same as the smell, having strong candy-like strawberry/fruity flavor. It’s hard for me to describe since it’s different from any other strawberry flavor I’ve tasted before. The dark chocolate is an “aftertaste”, so to speak. It doesn’t really hit you until the wall of strawberry flavor has subsided and the Kiss itself has somewhat melted on your tongue. The texture is nice and smooth with a little grain to it. Aside from the strange strawberry flavor and the lack of “chocolatey-ness”, I really enjoyed these Kisses. So much so that over half the bag is gone now and I only bought it a couple of days ago. Oops.

This leads me to wonder what the other possibilities that strawberry chocolate could have in the Kisses line. Strawberry and chocolate work so wonderfully together and I can easily see them mixing well with both milk and white chocolate. Why Hershey decided on dark chocolate is a bit perplexing to me. it must be due to the recent popularity of dark chocolate.

• Hershey Kisses Webpage

Buy Dark Strawberry Kisses online:

• on eBay