Ring Pops are a candy I recall from my childhood. They weren’t something I’d have regularly, I love chocolate too much and when I wanted a lollipop I’d go for Tootsie Pops. I really don’t ever recall being lured in by the gem shape or the more interesting manner in which you eat it. So when I saw this along with the many other Halloween candies in Target, I figured it was time I gave it a grown-up try.

These Halloween Ring Pops are a little different from the ones you can buy most everyday. Usually they’re sold in single packages with flavors of Strawberry, Blue Raspberry, Twisted Berry Blast, Watermelon and Cherry. The Halloween flavor is “Screaming Berry” and I am not sure if it’s the same flavor as the Twisted Berry Blast flavor that’s in the normal flavor lineup. The Halloween one also differs because the package comes with two pops in it. The pops themselves also look different, as these have a black base and a black and orange striped candy “gem” on top.

I was really surprised, as this Ring Pop is so awkward to eat. It doesn’t fit into my mouth well, and I found that it just caused me to drool all over the place. Can you say awkward? I tried several techniques of sucking on the pop, but the results were the same: I drooled over everything. The flavor didn’t really warm me up to the candy much at all either. It is a nondescript berry flavor, but it tastes the most like raspberry to me. It start off sweet and ends in a tart note, and it smells very fruity like a yogurt. It was nice, but nothing that really “wow-ed” me.

I didn’t like this candy and it wasn’t because it tasted bad. The ring form of it just made it horribly awkward to eat. I could see perhaps as a kid when your mouth is much smaller this could be for fun, but for me it was just a big drooly mess.

Rating: Not Worth It

Links Ring Pop Website (Bazooka Joe)

I found these colorful Hitschler Softi in that German deli I’ve mentioned before. They were in a basket by the checkout and they were impossibly to resist with all their bright colors and price of only 10 cents each. The wrappers come in four different colors, for four different flavors I’m guessing, and has colorful lettering and illustrated fruit friends. I bet these are really popular with kids by the looks of them.

The side of these is pretty small, they’re about as long as a normal sizes stick of gum, but only about 3/4 of the width. They’re flat and pliable and extremely light.

Surprisingly, the taffy inside each colored wrapper all looks the same. I was expecting the green to be green, blue to be blue, etc. Instead they’re all a pale yellow and all smelly lightly fruity. Ok, I can understand them not wanted to use food coloring. So let’s see how they taste.

I tried the green wrapper taffy first expecting an apple flavor and yes, it tastes fruity with a light of lemon. It has a funny plastic note to it that I can’t quite lay my finger on. The texture of the taffy it nice and chewy. It’s a tag sticky, bit it’s still pleasant to eat. Not what I was expecting though.

Confused by the green one’s flavor I try the pink wrapper taffy next and it tastes milder and less lemony. Really? Shouldn’t this be strawberry or something? The texture of this one was harder and chewier than the green too. Hmm. 

The blue wrapper was next and it’s the chewiest by far, it almost resembled gum, but tasted like the green wrapper taffy one. Strange. I’m beginning to realize there’s no flavor variation here at all. 

The yellow wrapper taffy had a hard texture and a mild flavor similar to the first three. Disappointed. At least it should taste more lemony than the others!
These were disappointing to say the least. They were small, looked colorful and cute, yet they lacked any flavor to really sell me as a candy. There was no variation or specific flavor to even comment on really. I guess this is what you can expect for 10 cents.

Rating: Not Worth It

Here comes Necco Sweetheart’s newest member of the family: Dazzled Tarts. These Sweethearts are trying, they’re are trying so, so hard to be cool. The original Sweethearts come across as a more “classic” candy to me, like their sister candy Necco Wafers. It feels like an older candy, so I can see how Necco wanted to make a version of their classic Valentine’s Day candy for the younger crowd.

Now, I’m not saying that you have to make everything pink and glitzy to make them more popular. But, apparently that’s what Necco seems to think. These are more glitzy looking and portrayed on the box as sparkling and shiny. It really makes me wonder what the actual candy looks like.

Terrible, that’s what they look like. The quality control on these must have been non existent. Most were broken, others the words were not printed correctly so they were either cut off or illegible on the candy. They didn’t sparkly or shine at all, but looks mottles and blotchy.

The candies have sayings on them like “Drama Queen”, “Just Dance”, “Hehe”, “Holla”, “Rock out”. I can’t help but look at these and have a Valley/Jersey girl voice run through my head. The colors are red, purple, orange, green and blue. Let’s see how they taste…

Red is watermelon with with that fake Jolly Rancher flavor. It had an extremely bitter end to it, gross.

Green is a fruity, bright apple flavor.

Blue was this funny perfumy color that I couldn’t identify

Grape tastes like this strange cotton candy flavor.

Blech. Really, what were they thinking? The original Sweethearts look and taste better than these, and that’s saying something. If you’re going to try and make an improvement, please make it more than just the design on the box. Do yourself a favor and go for the originals.

Rating: Not Worth It

Links Necco Website

How can you tell I’m still going crazy with the Vosges bars? It’s amazing how many new things a chocolatier can make when you ignore them for a few months. So many chocolate bars to catch up on! This Habana bar is made up of Ecuadorian Plantain Chips, enveloped in 45% deep milk chocolate. The packaging of this bar is much plainer than the other bars I’ve had recently. It opted for a deep purple color and yellow accents over the clinical macro photography of ingredients that the other bars had.

Upon opening this chocolate, this bar is thicker than other Vosges bars I’ve had before, as it looks like double the thickness to me. It’s a nice middle brown color, and it’s very creamy looking. The chocolate smells sweet and starchy. No hints of cocoa at all.

Taking the first bite, immediately the texture is very strange. The plantain chips have been crushed up and mixed into the chocolate so the texture is extremely gritty. The chocolate is very smooth so it’s kinda a shame that the chips were incorporated that way. The chocolate comes across as very sandy because of it.

The flavor? Well, it’s strange. It starts off sweet, then you get this sweet, perfumey flavor from the plantain chips. Then you taste the salt from the dried chips, and it just overwhelms the rest of the flavors until the finish. It’s very strange and unexpected.

Really not a fan of this one. The texture kills it for me.

Rating: Not Worth It

Links Vosges Website

This week’s review is brought to you by one of my bosses who passed these packets of Palmer’s Merry Christmas Double Crisp at work. A thoughtful gesture for sure, especially considering that Palmer is a chocolate I would never buy for myself, because let’s be honest here, it’s really mockolate. I always feel bad for my body when I eat that stuff, so I avoid it whenever possible.

So these Palmer “chocolates” are a more modest type of Nestle Crunch with bits of crunchy rice crispies in it. They’re decorated with Santa and Snowmen foil wrappers and look festive. The actual chocolate pieces are not large, probably an inch and a half long, 3/4 inch wide at the bottom and maybe 1/4 tall. It smells very sweet and milky.

Upon opening the chocolate you can easily see the bits of rice crisps in it, and the light colored milk chocolate shows them off nicely.

The chocolate has a nice crispness to it. The chocolate is smooth and the flavor is very, very sweet. It’s creamy and has nice milky notes to it, but, the flavor is not “chocolatey” at all. That’s mockolate for ya. It’s tasty, but you can tell it’s not the real thing for sure. The flavor just comes across as sweet and flat to me.

Not a bad candy choice if you’re on a budget. However, speaking for myself I’m always willing to pay a little more to get the real chocolate over the stuff make with tropical oils instead of cocoa butter. Some people love these types of candies and I can understand why, they’re just not for me.

Rating: Might Eat Again

Links Palmer Website