With news that the Pink Grapefruit (Pamplemousse) Mentos were discontinued, I scoured the web and purchased a box of 40 rolls in late May.

I have about half left.

But a morning browse on eBay a couple of weeks ago led to an auction of some Mentos from Japan in a yellow package simply flavored Grapefruit. I had to have them. So I placed an order with JBox and they arrived earlier this week.

Sporting and expiry date of 2010, these puppies must be fresh. The package is much like the others from around the world, the large Mentos logo, a picture of the fruit flavor on the right end and, of course, the name of the flavor in both English and Japanese.

They’re a nice yellow color and have the crunchy shell and soft chew inside. They’re tart and fragrant and have a good mix of citrus oil and zest notes. They’re not quite like the Pamplemousse though. The citrus is a bit more generic, a little floral and less bitter. Still extremely satisfying. I have two more rolls and if this were a permanent Japanese flavor, JBox could count on more orders. At a dollar fifty a package (instead of the 75 cents or so for my remaining Pink Grapefruit), I wouldn’t buy a lot of them though. (Mentos, can you make Yuzu flavored next?)

For those die hard fans, Pink Grapefruit can still be found here: FAA Imports (boxes of 20 rolls), Avi Glatt Grocer (single rolls) & KosherMania (40 count box - this is where I ordered from). 

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1. Barley Mint Mentos
2. Banana n Cream & Red Orange Mentos
3. Mentos Plus Citrus Mix
4. Mentos Ice Pomelo
5. Dalandan & Juicy Ponkan Mentos
6. Hi-CHEW Grapefruit

When I was a kid these were called Red Hot Dollars. They were introduced during the depression by Henry Heide when a “red hot dollar” was an enviable thing, even though the candy itself was always raspberry flavored (and red and shaped rather like a one dollar coin).

The Heide candy company later sold out to Hershey’s in 1995 who decided in 1999 that the name was confusing (because many people would buy them thinking they were cinnamon) and changed them to their present name of Red Raspberry Dollars. The company was later sold to Farley’s & Sathers Candy Company in 2003. To make it even more confusing, Farley’s & Sathers does sell cinnamon (and licorice) dollars and reunites them with their name of Red Hot Dollars (I can’t find them in stores, but look sharp and you may see them on the internet).

By all appearances F&S took over the Heide name and production of the candy itself but hasn’t done much else. The box design looks like someone created it with some royalty free clip art circa 1998 (but the copyright on the back says 2003). But what they’re saving on designs, four color photo realistic images, an actual description of the product and advertising they’re putting into value. This box I picked up for $1 holds a 7.8 ounces, making it an excellent deal.

The images on the package don’t really represent the candies either. They make it look as if these are flat disks with large dollar signs. Instead they’re thick, ranging from 1/4 of an inch to 3/8 of an inch and about 3/4 of an inch around. More like nobs than coins. The color is a pleasant red, kind of translucent.

The design on the pieces consists of a dollar sign and the letters HEIDE curved above it. Of course I coulnd’t really make that out on many of the candies. About half of them were “rejectable” for any number of reasons. Some were underweight (too thin), still others were mangled and irregular in shape and size.

The outer texture is soft and the candies are quite firm, somewhere between Jujubes and a Jujyfruits. (These candies are well sealed in the box, but the box is still only paperboard and has no plastic overwrap to seal it from drying out and nearing their expiry when I bought them.)

The flavor is a bit similar to Swedish Fish. A mild and pleasant raspberry, but all sweetness and floral flavors, none of the tangy sour bite of the berry. It’s pretty mellow, almost like honey. Later there a bit of a bitter aftertaste, but I’ll go ahead and say that’s the Red 40 that I always seem to detect. But then there’s the texture. They’re quite sticky ... not that they’ll pull out any fillings but they sure stick to your teeth in big clumps on the sides and in between. I find hot tea dislodges them well. Or, well, brushing.

I think I’ll stick to Swedish Fish. And I’ll keep my eye out for the cinnamon variety. 

Related Candies

1. All Gummies Gourmet Fruity Fish (Swedish Fish knock-off)
2. Dots Elements: Earth, Air, Fire & Water
3. Red Vines
4. Dots
5. Swedish Aqua Life

I was surprised at readers’ passion for Nips, so I thought I’d try a few more varieties.

I found Nips Caramel and Nips Dulce de Leche at the Rite Aid for only 99 cents (same price as the 99 Cent Only Store, see you don’t have to look far for a bargain).

Though the candy is described as rich & creamy hard candy on the front of the box, I don’t think it quite qualifies as hard since it’s not crunchable. It’s also not a caramel, because it’s not chewable. It’s just a Nip, I guess.

Caramel Nips look pretty similar to Coffee Nips, but just a smidge lighter in color. They have the same ultra smooth texture, light burnt sugar flavors and slow dissolve.

They’re creamy and milky without being cloying or sticky. They fit well in the mouth, too.

It’s taken me a while to retrain myself when eating Nips that they’re not like Werther’s Originals, I can’t crunch them, instead I’d end up cementing my teeth together.

Overall, not quite as good as the Coffee ones, but that’s a personal preference thing, these are still quite tasty and an excellent candy that belongs in everyone’s candy dish. (Except in really humid climates.)

Readers were lamenting that they thought that the Dulce de Leche Nips were possibly discontinued. I was quite happy to see a large inventory of them at Rite Aid, so I’m just guessing that they focus on regions where dulce de leche is a more recognizable. (Large Latino populations - I’m guessing because the packages for both of these are in both English and Spanish.)

I was a little nervous about these, I do remember having the chocolate parfait ones years ago and not caring much for the grainy and flavorless filling (but that could have been a bad or old batch). There’s no real description on the box either, just the banner that says dulce de leche (which means milk candy and is usually made from sweetened condensed milk boiled slowly to caramelize both the sugar and the milk sugars and served either as a sauce or fudge).

In this case it’s a shell like the Caramel Nip but inside is a layer of a sort of creme like the filling of an Oreo, a little grainy, sweet and chalky.

The overall flavor here is not really caramelized milk to me, instead it’s maple or pecan. It’s woodsy and sweet and nice, but doesn’t really enter into the dulce de leche zone for me. So if they’re looking for a way to make these appealing to other regions, maybe in New England they’d call it Country Maple and in the South they’d call it Toasted Pecan.

The cream made the candy disappear much faster, which wasn’t as fun either. They weren’t as consistent, some had a little cream sticking out of the sides. I’ll stick with the solid ones.

The other flavors still out there: Butter Rum, Chocolate Parfait, Peanut Butter Parfait and Mocha. 

Related Candies

1. Crown Nuggets Borrachitos
2. Caramilk Maple
3. Milk Maid Caramel Candy Corn
4. Nestle Turtles

Scharffen Berger is celebrating their 10th Anniversary making distinctive chocolate with a limited series bar they call Finesterra (tm) which they say means “land’s end” in Latin.

They’ve gathered up the best beans from the ends of the earth: Venezuela, Trinidad and Madagascar. The bar is 72% cacao and comes only in the 3 ounce tall tablet bar. As part of the celebration the package says that they will donation a portion of the bar’s proceeds to un-named “cacao non-profit organizations.”

I’ve always enjoyed Scharffen Berger’s packaging and design aesthetic. The package has a lightly striped paper outer wrap with a pleasing muted purple cacao pod design. Inside the paper wrap is a nice, heavy foil that makes it easy to save some of the bar for later.

A lot has happened for Scharffen Berger in the past 10 years. They’ve gone from a tiny facility in South San Francisco to their present factory in Emeryville (near Berkeley) and another plant in Northern California (anyone has toured the plant in the East Bay realizes they can’t possibly make it all there). Further, back in 2005 Hershey’s bought Scharffen Berger as part of their Artisan Confections line (which now includes Dagoba and Joseph Schmidt).

The bar has a wonderful reddish tone to the nicely tempered brown chocolate. It has a very rich and dark scent: raisins, olives, coffee, charcoal, cardamom and limes.

The melt is quite nice, creamy and smooth with a rather strong dryness to it without being chalky.

The flavors are intense and riotous. I was catching lavender, citrus, raisins and an overwhelming tanginess to it that I find in all Scharffen Berger chocolate. Though it’s a 72%, I find it rather sweet at the front and with a long and lingering mid-tone bitterness towards the end.

I know that I’m more sensitive to strong sour and bitter things than some other folks, so your mileage may vary. I didn’t find them unpleasant, but quite pronounced, so it’s a major part of the experience of this bar.

It was by far a more satisfying dark bar for me than the usual Scharffen Berger dark (there’s a reason the only thing I really eat from them is the Chocolate Covered Cacao Nibs), but still an extreme bar and a nice way to celebrate their success. 

Related Candies

1. Domori Cru
2. Choxie 3 Ounce Chocolate Bars
3. Amano Single Origin Bars
4. Scharffen Berger Tasting Squares
5. Treat Trip: Scharffen Berger Factory
6. Scharffen Berger

On my continuing quest to try off brands of confections to see if saving a little money means sacrificing taste, I came upon this bar at the Walgreen’s, mixed in with the other upscale chocolate bars: Regal Dynasty European Chocolate. This bar was called simply Dark Chocolate. For $1.29 and clocking in at 6.3 ounces, I was more than curious how well it could compare.

The packaging is less than exciting, in fact it looks dated, like some sort packet of cheap stationery from the Office Max circa 1993. The paper is rather flimsy and the foil wrapper inside is similarly thin, though both seem to do their job of protecting the bar well enough. So I can look past that (especially since I’ve had some very expensive bars that I don’t think have very attractive or useful packaging).

The ingredients however are a big old red flag: sugar, cocoa mass, vegetable fat, cocoa butter, soy lecithin, flavor. It states that the cocoa solids are a minimum of 45%. But it never says what those vegetable fats are or if that flavor is natural.

The bar is lovely. It’s well molded and has a crisp snap.

It has a sweet and slightly cinnamon & cereal smell to it. It has a difficult melt though, but as it does soften, it is very sweet but at least not chalky or gritty. But it’s cool on the tongue, which usually means substitute fats or substitute sugars and always makes me a bit uneasy.

The chocolate notes aren’t deep or complex or satisfying. I would probably find this passable in a chocolate croissant, but standing alone as a piece of confection, it tastes watery and empty of nuance.

The simple fact is that it’s not chocolate. I’d hazard that since the vegetable fats come before the cocoa butter on the ingredients list that it wouldn’t even qualify under the laxer rules in Europe that allow veggie fats up to 5%. No, this is a plain old false label. It’s not chocolate. Not even close. But in an odd twist, it doesn’t have any dairy fats so can be considered vegan!

Even though I liked it a bit more than the Carlos V Chocolate Style Bar and it was cheaper, I can’t get past the fact that its downright false label.

Hopefully it will make passable brownies (which is what happens to many of the bars that I can’t bring myself to eat). Oddly enough, I can see myself buying this again though if I need a really nice looking, generic chocolate bar for a photo shoot. But if you’re looking for something you can actually eat that doesn’t cost too much, wait for a sale on something you know you like or just settle for a smaller package. 

Related Candies

1. Bel Chocolatey Bars
2. Palmer Hollow Chocolate Flavored Bunny
3. Satisfying Treats for Parents & Kids: All Natural
4. 99 Cent Goodness (part 2)

In the annals of crazy product extensions, I actually did a double take on this one at the store: Ferrara Pan Fruit Snacks featuring Lemonhead & Friends.

The box is busy and a little confusing. When I hear term fruit snacks, I usually expect some sort of fruit puree candy, like a fruit leather or fruit roll up. But these go on to say that they have a Juicy Center made with Real Fruit Juice & 100% Vitamin C.

The first ingredient actually is fruit juice from concentrate (apple, cherry, grape, lemon) followed by corn syrup, sucrose and gelatin ... then some ascorbic acid and artificial colors later on the list. So really, they’re gummis made with real fruit juice. Which is cool, I love really intensely flavored gummi.

For a 99 Cent Store product, they stand out. The box is bright & colorful, if a little big considering how many packs are inside.

The little packages also say that they’re only 80 calories. Pretty easy really, considering they’re only .9 ounces and have no fat.

Each packet has seven pieces of candy in it. In my experience opening three of the packages, all were heavy on the green and each had only one. Lemonhead has a lot of friends!  (And to be fair, the lemonhead on the box is singular and friends is plural.)

Each piece is both colored and shaped like the fruit it’s supposed to taste like:

Purple = Grape - though they may have put real grape juice in there, this tastes like Kool-Aid or grape soda. Tangy, sweet and completely artificial. Not that it’s a bad thing, pretty much like the old Alexander the Grape.

Green = Apple - as the most common one in my assortments, I tried more of these than any other. The apple flavor as really pleasant, kind of like a granny smith. The chew of the gummi part is kind of short and less bouncy than some other gummi, but the flavor center is similarly flavorful and less like a sugar goo.

Red = Cherry - he looked kind of like a pumpkin to me, except for the color. The flavor is pretty tangy cherry, very artificial and rather unpleasant for me.

Yellow = Lemon - nicely rounded, it has a lot of zest to it, a nice soft chew and a mellow tangy component.

As a comparison, I tried some Starburst Gummibursts again and found the Ferrara Pan to be moister plus far deeper and more intensely flavored. But of course the flavor assortment is different (cherry and lemon being the only ones in common).

My big beef here is that there’s no orange. Maybe Orangehead and Lemohead aren’t friends any longer. I also wanted more Lemonheads, because they’re my favorite.

As a healthy snack, well, they’re portion controlled and the worst damage you can do is eat the whole box which’d be 480 calories and of course be stocked up with enough vitamin C to last the week (well, if you were able to store Vitamin C for a week in your body ... a better way is to store it in these little candies and portion them out over a longer period of time). There’s nothing else redeeming about them, so I’m happy calling them candy. Really inexpensive candy. 

Related Candies

1. Three Pink Bubble Gums
2. Chewy Lemonheads & Atomic Fireballs
3. Lifesaver Gummies
4. The Fruit Heads
5. Narbles

When I was a teenager I discovered Pearson Coffee Nips. Like my other favorite at the time, Andes Mints, they represented a sophisticated taste in an easy to share individually wrapped portion. I’d buy them by the box, usually for about a dollar and they’d last forever.

I wasn’t quite developed enough at the time to drink coffee straight, about all I could stand was coffee floats (hot coffee with vanilla ice cream in it) but I loved the taste of the stuff.

That’s what attracted me to Coffee Nips. They combine the rich coffee taste with a creamy texture and a long lasting hard candy experience. And they were pretty inexpensive.

Pearson Coffee Nips were known simply as Pearson Nips when they were introduced over 70 years ago. But now they’re made in a wide variety of flavors (and some even have flavored goo centers). The Pearson line of Nips was sold to Nestle back in 1989 and looking closely on the package, they’re not even called Pearson any longer.

Even though they’ve changed hands, they’re the same as they ever were. A lump of hard caramel, made from a combination of sugar, corn syrups and milk products and a few tropical oils ... boiled down with some real coffee to become a slow dissolving bit of concentrated coffee. It’s almost a toffee, but more of a hard caramel.

They’re smooth and creamy and not too sweet (though far sweeter than I like my liquid coffee). They’re impossible to chew, which makes them last a long time (though I caution you to not try to chew them as they will cement your teeth together).

They’re an excellent summer candy because they travel well but provide a rich creamy experience and mimic a hot drink that many of us eschew on hot days. (Okay, I only eschew hot coffee in the middle of the day, I pretty much always drink hot coffee in the morning.)

Refreshing. Classic. I’ve never tried the other flavors which include Butter Rum, Caramel, Chocolate Parfait, Dulce de Leche, Mocha and Peanut Butter Parfait. The coffee suits me just fine. 

Related Candies

1. Caffe Acapella - Coffee Confections
2. Cafe Select Chocolate Coffee Trios
3. Walkers Nonsuch Toffee
4. Storck Chocolate Riesen
5. Pocket Coffee
6. Bali’s Best Coffee & United Coffee Candy

Nestle made a big deal earlier this year with their American launch of their popular Mexican chocolate bar, Carlos V. The bar comes in two varieties, Milk Chocolate Style and Dark Chocolate Style.

I tried the Mexican import some years ago, back when it was just a milk chocolate bar and found it interesting, very milky and quite different from American or UK style chocolate.

What I found alarming about the new bars that Nestle’s is now selling in the US market is this nuevo dark chocolate style bar. Gotta wonder what the style of dark chocolate is. I’ve got to tip my hat to Nestle, dark chocolate style sounds much better than mockolate or chocolatey or chocolate flavored.

It reminds me of the Superfriends characters of Zan and Jayna when I was a kid. They’d activate their Wonder Twin Powers (tm), Zan would take the form of something made with water and Jayna would take the shape of an animal. See, they weren’t actually changing, Zan wouldn’t actually be a huge iceberg, he’d just be the shape of an iceberg with iceberg qualities but remain sentient and with the full power to change back. Same with Jayna, she’d become a sea eagle, but that wouldn’t mean that she’d suddenly lose her senses and eat Gleek.

So while I get that this is a bar that walks like a chocolate bar and talks like a chocolate bar, that doesn’t make it a chocolate bar.

The Nestle Carlos V Dark Knight is nicely packaged. The new version is full sized, 1.41 ounces instead of the old 3/4 of an ounce version. The bar is nicely domed and segmented.

The color is good though the snap is a bit soft.

As a chocolate style bar, it has a good amount of chocolate in it, the ingredients go like this:

Sugar, chocolate, cocoa butter, vegetable oils (palm, shea and/or illpe), lactose, milkfat and less than 1% soy lecithin, natural and artificial flavors.

So it’s not even vegan friendly (also it is made in a facility that processes peanuts and wheat products).

It smells like cocoa, sweet and kind of empty.

The taste is, well, similarly empty. It’s chocolatey, in the sense that it’s the flavor, but not much else qualifies it as such. It’s not creamy, it doesn’t really melt well though it is rather smooth once chewed up. But later there’s an aftertaste ... of vitamins. You know, those tasty large horsepills with a high B vitamin content. Oh, the aftertaste, kind of bitter and musty.

It has very little style, chocolate or otherwise, and it’s sad. The traditional Carlos V bar has also become milk chocolate style, Candy Snob reviewed the new version recently.

(No, I’m not even going to go into how cheesy I think naming the bar Dark Knight is.)

Related Candies

1. Kissables (Reformulated)
2. Bubu Lubu
3. Reese Hazelnut Creme
4. Palmer Hollow Chocolate Flavored Bunny
5. Sixlets & Limited Edition Dark Chocolate Flavored Sixlets
6. Peruvian Candies