Not Worth It
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
I found the Irish Creme Hershey Kisses in stores again this year. I believe they premiered last year along the holiday sweets, so it’s really no surprise to me that they showed up for a seasonal encore. These were nestled right up next to the Mint Truffle Kisses, sporting festive coloring of dark forest green and gold. It’s a very attractive package and has that wonderful mix of familiar iconography and festive appeal.
The Kisses inside come in a gold wrappers with green sparkle/fireworks on them. On the top they have the iconic Kisses flag popping out, complete with “Irish Creme” printed on them in green ink. They smell…kinda chemical, like artificial rum flavoring. There’s a sweet scent to it too, from the chocolate. But neither smell reminds me of chocolate or Irish Creme.
You can see that inside the Kiss is creme colored filling. This looks promising!
The flavor starts off like chemicals. It tastes of fake alcohol flavoring, and it’s not very good. Then some sweetness kicks in that has a coco edge to it, but it’s not exactly chocolatey. The Irish creme center has a subtle buttery flavor to it, but it’s all drowned in the awful artificial flavoring. The texture is also more greasy than smooth, so it’s a very strange mouth experience. I couldn’t get past eating one of them.
Not impressed with these. I found the fakeness of the flavor overwhelming. I think even Irish Creme fans will disappointed in this, so I don’t really know who to recommend these to. Perhaps those who really want to try them for yourself or those who enjoy that fake rum flavoring you find in stores.
Rating: Not Worth It
Links Hershey’s Website
Trips to Japanese markets are always like Christmas in a way. You go in there not knowing what to expect and you always find interesting things that feel like presents to take home. My most recent trip to Mitsuwa Market yielded a lot of new candy surprised. One of them was this Lotte Crunky Sweet Potato Crisp chocolate.
One of the most popular sweet potatoes varieties in Japan are purple inside. Yeah, you heard me, purple. So naturally when they’re in season you find this sort of stuff in stores, purple potato chocolate. The image on the box depicts a bright purple color, so I’m curious to see the real thing. Like some Japanese candies, this box has individually wrapped single serving portions of the potato chocolate. Each little packet hold two squares of chocolate. As soon as I open one up I immediately take photos of it. This is just too strange to behold!
The color is much paler than the box suggests. It’s more of a light lavender than a intense purple. You can see the crisps in the chocolate easily, and it makes me excited to taste it as I love the texture they bring.
Taking my first bite, the texture is awesome as the chocolate is nice and creamy and the crisps are crunchy and crispy, which is a great contrast. As for the flavor? Well, it’s sweet, a little starchy, but overall it’s kinda bland. Not that I mind, but I was hoping for something a little more punchy. Something that tasted more of potatoes. Still, I was impressed, as many white chocolate candies are just overpoweringly sweet.
There’s a novelty to eating purple chocolate so I’m glad I gave this a try. If you’re a fan of Crunky, Nestle Crunch, white chocolate or the color purple you might like this chocolate.
Rating: Not Worth It
Links Lotte Website
The newest variety of Skittles is here and I’m sure all of you fans of this candy have tried these by now. I found this bag at my local gas station and since Skittles aren’t a candy I crave, they’ve been sitting in my candy pile and waiting for me all these weeks.
The package is pretty, with the rainbow popping beautifully off the dark blue background. I love the re-design of the Skittles packaging, and this one is certainly eye-catching.
The Skittles are…hmmm, dusty looking. They have a coating of fizzy sugar on them which gives them a white, powdered appearance.
The fizz is odd, to say the least. The Skittle hits your tongue and you feel an intense tingling that feels like a burn in your mouth. You feel the bubbles intensify, and they get stronger and deliver a bit of a salty taste, before they immediately dissipate and the normal skittle remains. Very strange.
So let’s discuss the flavors:
Berry Punch (purple): The fizz effect made this one sour and I could taste the berry flavor right away. It’s very nice actually, it’s rich with sweet blackberries at first, then the flavor of tart cranberry peeps through. Sadly, it ends on a horrid medicinal cherry note that reminds me too much of real cough syrup. Not, red, not metallic cherry, but cough syrup. Yuck.
Melon Berry (green): The fizz tastes salty here, and it has to dissipate before I taste the Skittle. The flavor is nice. It’s sweet, and it tastes of watermelon punch. Not quite that standard fake watermelon flavors, there’s something more tropical and floral to it. I’m reminded of Japanese melons candies.
Raspberry (blue): The fizz is sour, and I get a sweetness from it. The flavor is surprisingly sweet and berry like. It’s a nice blueberry blackberry mix, like a Slushie.
Strawberry (pink): The fizz is very salty on this one. The strawberry flavor is standard Skittle we all know and love. It’s sweet, nice berry notes with a floral accent to it.
Wild Cherry (red): The fizz felt hot and it burns. The flavor is really…deep and like black cherries. Yes, it has that medicinal note to it, but it’s not anywhere near as bad as the berry punch flavor.
I feel the top of my roof getting raw after eating just a few flavors. I didn’t finish my bag.
I didn’t enjoy a majority of this candy. The fizz was strange and painful at times, and the flavors didn’t wow me enough to push through the odd Alka-Seltzer texture. If you like sour candies, skittles, and fizz, you might really enjoy these.
Rating: Not Worth It
Links Skittles Website
These Switzer’s Chewy Licorice Bites with my other find along with the Switzer’s Cherry Twists that I reviewed earlier this week. I admit that I had higher hopes for these, as I’m must more of a black licorice person than a red one. So I was excited and curious to see how I’d like them. Would they prove me wrong that these American licorice chews were not all flavorless and unremarkable? Only one way to find out…
The bites are really little nubbins of licorice. They’re nicely black and have a pretty sheen to them. They do have some holes in them, but you can tell that some sealed off when the bits were cut in the production line. They pattern reminds me of lotus root.
The flavor is a little bitter at first, then grows into a lovely anise/licorice flavor. It’s very herbal and lightly sweet, and the chew is very plasticity. It falls apart easily into chunks as I chew and gradually softens before dissolving away.
Overall, I’m sad to say I’m not very impressed. The flavor a nice, yet still too mild for my tastes. The texture was also not as chewy as I hoped, and the strange slickness of it felt like it was robbing me of some of the flavor. So the style of these aren’t my thing, but like the Cherry Twists from last week, if you’re a fan of this style of candy, you might have a new favorite of these!
Rating: Not Worth It
Links Switzer’s Website
