Root Beer Barrels

As a soda addict, these are an old-time favorite of mine. I got these from Dylan's Candy Bar, but I believe they are the Brach's kind. They taste very much like root beer soda (with almost a licorice-like aftertaste), and they are a thick, satisfying size.

Rating: 3 stars

Squirrel Nut Zippers

I was not a fan of these -- too chewy, too much like taffy, not enough flavor. It had a caramel-like texture, but wasn't quite caramel, and a peanut-like flavor, but wasn't quite peanut butter. For some reason, I expected them to be stiff like Mary Janes, but they stuck to my teeth immediately.

Apparently there is a band called the Squirrel Nut Zippers, which I must say is an excellent name for a band.

Rating: 2 stars

Grape Twizzlers

Now, I bought these from the bulk candy bin at Dylan's Candy Bar (yes, I'm reviewing all of the candy I bought there), so I don't know if they are really the Twizzler brand. I've never seen grape Twizzlers before, but these were excellent.

For one thing, even though they were sitting in bulk bins, they weren't stale in the slightest bit. They were chewy and somewhat soft -- they didn't have that hard, plastic bite to them that Twizzlers get when they're exposed to open air for too long. The color was a nice, deep purple, and they had a rich, grape flavor with just a slight (very slight) tang to them.

I definitely plan to buy more when I go back.

Rating: 3.5 stars

Giant Smarties vs. Regular-Sized Smarties

I had never seen the Giant Smarties (although I’d heard about them) until I went to Dylan’s Candy Bar. The thing about the regular-sized Smarties is that all of the flavors pretty much taste the same. My preferred method of eating them is pop several, often the entire roll, into my mouth for one big, sugar-dissolving bite.

This would be difficult with the Giant Smarties, and probably not well-advised. The Giant Smarties taste pretty much exactly like the regular ones, but you can discern slight differences between the colors, especially the white ones. But I liked the size of them, and one package of them was more than satisfying.

Since my camera is still broken, here is a link to photos of the Giant Smarties.

Ratings:
Regular: 2.5 stars
Giant: 3 stars

Giant Now and Laters

I have loved these ever since I was a kid. They used to be difficult for me to find, and I always looks forward to Halloween because I knew I could trade my brother for them, but it seems like that’s no longer a problem. You can even buy bags of them at my local CVS. My favorites are the grape and tropical punch flavors.

The Giant Now and Laters are slightly softer than the regular-sized ones, but they’re just as sticky (the grape ones I bought in this batch were especially soft). If you ever want to rip a filling out of your mouth, these will do the job. But they last longer than taffy, and I like to suck on them to prevent any such filling loss. The grape and tropical punch are the sweetest of the bunch; the green is a fairly tart apple flavoring. I despise most banana candy flavoring, so I don’t buy the yellow ones.

Rating: 4 stars

Licorice Scotties

I bought these from the bulk bins at Dylan’s Candy Bar – they are thick, licorice pieces shaped like Scottie dogs. I’d never seen them before and bought two each of the red and black kind. Both were tasty, although the black Scotties didn’t have much of that black licorice bite to them. The red kind were sweeter and didn’t stick to my teeth as much as the black ones. They weren’t quite as sweet as, say, Swedish Fish, which I was glad for.

Overall, not bad, but I don’t think I would buy a large quantity of them.

Rating: 2.5 stars

Smarties Lollipops

(My camera broke today, so I will add photos as soon as I fix or it replace it.)

These are a childhood favorite of mine, and when I visited Dylan’s Candy Bar in New York this weekend (review to follow), I was delighted to see that they had them. Dylan’s is pricey, so I only put a few in my bag, but they’re sure to go quickly.

The Smarties lollipops are bi-colored – the one I ate had a pink top and yellow bottom. These lollipops have a favorite composition of mine, namely that they dissolve after a few minutes of eating of them, and form in your mouth into that wonderful, cavity-causing sugar pool. For some reason, eating a lot of these makes me very thirsty.

Rating: 3.5 stars