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Czech Republic

Monday, July 28, 2014

Wonka Randoms Gummy Variety (and some Rowntree)

Wonka RandomsWonka, a Nestle company, has been trying get traction with some newer candies over the past decade. There have been many introductions, but none have the staying power of some of the classic candies under the Wonka label, like Runts, SweeTarts and Nerds.

The new Wonka Randoms are billed as an Endless Gummy Variety because there are dozens of different shapes and colors possible, each bag is likely to be a unique mix of possibilities.

There are five different colors/flavors and three different textures.

The easiest version to spot is the transparent molded shapes which come in yellow, orange, pink, purple and red. Some also have a foamy white bottom with a transparent fruity top layer. Then the third version is also a foamy bottom, but they’re usually dome shaped and have a dollop of goo in the center under the transparent layer.

Wonka Randoms

The variety of shapes is quite charming. Most are mundane and realistic, such as trains, crowns, ships, alligators, unicorns, pieces of candy (how meta), paintbrushes, footprints and bicycles.

The Pink are Strawberry, or something similar. It’s bright and tangy with a mellow jam quality instead of fresh fruit. They’re soft and with a balanced and dense flavor.

Orange are Orange. It was ordinary and a little disappointing, as it tasted more like an orange popsicle than a good, zesty orange gummy. The package says that the flavors and colors are all natural, and includes real orange and lemon juice.

Red is Cherry. This one was admirable. It had a light black currant note to it, a bit of tangy bite and less sweetness than the others.

Purple is Grape. I was rather surprised this was a flavor. I didn’t care much for it, as it was rather like eating generic purple jelly on toast at a diner. It was tangy and had a fruity note, but didn’t taste as good as some other grape gummis I’ve had from Japan.

Yellow is Lemon. It’s a very strong lemon flavor, with a blend of tartness, zest and sweetness. It had a concentrate note to it (which I always associate with aluminum, for some reason) but was very flavorful.

The Marshmallow Whip ones were very similar, but a bit bouncier from the aerated gummy base.It gives it a creamier note, but also dilutes the overall intensity of the flavor.

The Jam Filled were okay, the jam was mostly sweet, without much of its own flavor contribution. It definitely made the pieces a quicker chew, less dense.

Rowntree's Randoms & Wonka RandomsSince Nestle is a global company, they have a much larger presence in Europe. Many of the Wonka products we know in the United States are under the Rowntree brand in the United Kingdom and parts of Europe. I first saw Rowntree Randoms in London when was there back in March and picked up a few little bags.

The Rowntree packaging doesn’t state where they’re made, but the Wonka Randoms are made in the Czech Republic, which is also where previous Wonka gummis (such as the Squishy Sploshberries and Sluggles) were also manufactured.

Rowntree Randoms

The molds and flavors were the same as far as I could tell.

Overall, the idea of so many different shapes in a single bag is delightful. The actual flavor variety doesn’t quite float my boat - I like pineapple and a wider range of citrus flavors in my gummis. These look great in a bowl and are fun to share. Many parents will appreciate that they use naturally derived flavors and colors. They’re not gluten free and there’s no statement about other allergens like peanuts and tree nuts.

Related Candies

  1. Life Savers Berry Bites Gummies
  2. Sugarfina: The Gummis
  3. Wonka SweeTarts Gummies
  4. Angry Birds Fruit Gummies
  5. Wonka Springy Double Yummy Gummies
  6. Wonka Whipped Wingers Gummies
  7. Wonka Squishy Sploshberries Gummies


Name: Wonka Randoms
    RATING:
  • SUPERB
  • YUMMY
  • TASTY
  • WORTH IT
  • TEMPTING
  • PLEASANT
  • BENIGN
  • UNAPPEALING
  • APPALLING
  • INEDIBLE
Brand: Nestle
Place Purchased: Target (West Hollywood)
Price: $2.79
Size: 10 ounes
Calories per ounce: 101
Categories: Candy, Nestle, Gummi Candy, 7-Worth It, Czech Republic, Target

POSTED BY Cybele AT 11:55 am     CandyGoo FilledReviewNestleGummi Candy7-Worth ItCzech RepublicTarget

Monday, April 4, 2011

Wonka Springy Double Yummy Gummies

Wonka Springy Double Yummy GummiesWonka continues its new strategy of candy releases which includes a bit more imagination and uniqueness. For Easter they have some new products that are basically reshaped regular items for the holiday but also at least one truly new conrection. Their Wonka Springy Double Yummy Gummies are a completely new introduction from Wonka’s edible garden.

They’re a layered gummi that features a base of fluffy marshmallow and a colorful fruity gummi on top. They’re vaguely similar to the Squishy Sploshberries, in that they’re layered and the bottom is a marshmallowy plank. (The Sploshberries were berry flavored, basically round and had a goo filling.) The big feature here that parents may be interested in is that there’s no artificial colorings used. They go with fruit and vegetable colors plus a little cochineal. The candies are made in the Czech Republic. (The plant also processed peanuts, nuts, milk, soy, wheat and eggs.) The package I got holds six individually wrapped candies.

Wonka Springy Double Yummy Gummies

The pieces are individually wrapped. Each one is about .6 ounces and just shy of three inches tall, so two is a nice serving and only 130 calories.

Wonka Springy Double Yummy GummiesStrawberry Rabbit is rather ordinary but very satisfying. The strawberry layer is fragrant, tart and has a decent strawberry jam flavor to it. The marshmallow layer gives it a little vanilla ice cream note but mostly a lighter, foamy texture. It makes the chew a little easier, less of a rubbery pull.

Orange Duckling is very orange in color and it was easy to bite his head off. The flavor is rather similar to orange drink, it’s juicy but zestless. The marshmallow didn’t seem as thick on the two that I ate, but still gave a lightness to the large piece.

Lemon Lamb smells sweet and creamy. The foamy marshmallow base isn’t quite as sweet as a regular marshmallow, so it offsets the more intense tart and zesty lemon top layer without watering it down.

It’s a fun, nicely themed product and I appreciate the effort Wonka is making to get ahead of the artificial colors issue here in the United States. Of course it helps that I like all three flavors in the assortment. They’re not really that innovative or mind-bendingly fantastic, but they’re fun, good quality though priced a bit steep for a sugar candy.

Related Candies

  1. Wonka Whipped Wingers Gummies
  2. Wonka Exceptionals Scrumdiddlyumptious
  3. Wonka Squishy Sploshberries Gummies
  4. Puffy Candy Corn
  5. Wonka Puckerooms
  6. Necco Paas Gummi Baby Bunnies
  7. Circus Peanuts


Name: Springy Double Yummy Gummies
    RATING:
  • SUPERB
  • YUMMY
  • TASTY
  • WORTH IT
  • TEMPTING
  • PLEASANT
  • BENIGN
  • UNAPPEALING
  • APPALLING
  • INEDIBLE
Brand: Nestle
Place Purchased: Samples from Wonka
Price: $1.99 retail
Size: 3.72 ounces
Calories per ounce: 105
Categories: All Natural, Candy, Easter, Nestle, Gummi Candy, 7-Worth It, Czech Republic

POSTED BY Cybele AT 3:14 pm     All NaturalCandyReviewEasterNestleGummi Candy7-Worth ItCzech Republic

Tuesday, December 29, 2009

Wonka Squishy Sploshberries Gummies

Wonka Sploshberries GummiesThe third new product in Wonka’s Edible Garden line of gummies is called Squishy Sploshberries Gummies Candy. As the name implies, they’re berry flavored gummies and they have sploshy centers.

What I found most interesting about them, as the gooey center has been done quite a bit already, is the flavor array. These aren’t ordinary berries. Though there’s no Snozzberry the flavors are: Raspberry, Blueberry, Goji Berry and Cloud Berry.

Like the other new Wonka gummis, these are made in the Czech Republic and boast no artificial flavors or colors.

Sploshberries - Cloudberry, Blueberry & Raspberry

Each piece is about the same diameter as a nickel (about 3/4”). They’re high and domed candies. They’re not greasy to the touch, just soft and matte. They have a translucent amber colored gummi top with a dark red fruity goo center and it all sits on an opaque white base.

The texture is soft and chewy, with a good latexy bounce to it. The molding of each of the pieces is great and for filled gummies, I was pleased to see that none of them had oozed in the bag.

The goo reservoir in the center is rather small, just a little dab. It’s also not liquid, more of a jelly so it’s more moist than the rest of the gummi, but not a flowing syrup.

Raspberry (far right) is vivid and jammy. It’s not quite specific enough to be exclusively a raspberry, sometimes I thought it was more like a blackberry with a little black cherry note to it.

Blueberry (middle) is also lightly tangy. The unique flavors come from the goo center. It’s a little more tannic, more like it has notes of black tea mixed with the more vanilla berry flavors.

Sploshberries - Cloudberry

Cloud Berry - I’ve never eaten a cloud berry so I can’t talk about the authenticity of the flavor. What I can say is that it pretty much tastes like all the other gummis in this assortment. It might have a little note of green apple, but it’s very pleasant and a little more custard-like, probably because of the white kind of marshmallowy base. This was the most prevalent flavor in the bag, so I had quite a few of them.

Sploshberries - Goji BerryGoji Berry - a little more woodsy than the others in the mix. It’s only lightly tart with a vague rosemary or herby note to it, like chewing on fibery goji berries.

I was hoping these would be a little more vibrant, that they’d have a little more pizazz. Wonka candies are usually known for being bold. Candies like Nerds and Runts are very specific. These were kind of tame. I appreciate the risks of making a naturally flavored & colored product and the unusual actual berry flavors instead of made up flavors. On the other side of that coin, all the flavors went together really well so it’s not like I noticed getting a “bad” flavor.

The allergen info on the bag has all the hot targets on it: made on shared equipment with peanuts, nuts, soy, milk, wheat and eggs. Also, it contains gelatin so it’s not vegetarian friendly.

Related Candies

  1. Wonka Puckerooms
  2. Wonka Sluggles
  3. Wonka Kazoozles: Cherry Punch & Pink Lemonade
  4. Trader Joe’s Gummy Tummies
  5. Albanese Gummi Butterflies
  6. Starburst GummiBursts
Name: Wonka Sploshberries
    RATING:
  • 10 SUPERB
  • 9 YUMMY
  • 8 TASTY
  • 7 WORTH IT
  • 6 TEMPTING
  • 5 PLEASANT
  • 4 BENIGN
  • 3 UNAPPEALING
  • 2 APPALLING
  • 1 INEDIBLE
Brand: Wonka (Nestle)
Place Purchased: Target (Harbor City)
Price: $1.59
Size: 5.5 ounces
Calories per ounce: 106
Categories: Gummi, Czech Republic, Nestle, All Natural

POSTED BY Cybele AT 9:37 am    

Wednesday, July 1, 2009

Wonka Puckerooms

Wonka PuckeroomsI’m really digging Wonka’s new look and commercials. They take advantage of candy’s inventiveness and imaginative ways that kids (and adults) look at it.

One of their new candies is Puckerooms Sour Gummy Candy. They’re sour gummies (unlike the Sluggles, which are sweet gummies) in mushroom shapes and three different flavors.

The new Wonka’s Edible Garden are made with natural ingredients, including fruit juice and no artificial colorings or flavorings. (But of course they’re gummis and are not vegetarian since they use gelatin ... and in this case cochineal color, too.)

Wonka Puckerooms

There are three flavors and three different shapes (though the shapes are applied to all the flavors):

Cherry - as you can see from the photo, I found a grape & cherry combo, but for the most part the cherry ones were single flavored. It’s a tart cherry with a black cherry darkness beneath but a lingering sour. It got my glands a’tinglin’.

Grape - it’s just so fun for me to have grape gummis, I have a hard time focusing on these for the review. The grape flavor is much like concord grape jam with Pixy Stix poured over it. (Come on, if you’d thought of it as a kid, you would have loved it!)

Lemon/Orange - I loved the look of these, the orange was always on the top, making the stem lemon. The flavors were a good blend of citrus zest and of course a sour punch that lasted beyond the grainy coating and permeated the soft gummi. The lemon and orange were distinct but blended well.

The sourness isn’t blisteringly strong, in fact, I found them barely more tart than the Sluggles, just more consistently tangy from start to finish.

I like the option of really potent gummis made without artificial flavors & colors, so these are real winners. I saw them at Target over the weekend for $1.59 for a 6.5 ounce bag, so it’s not like parents need to compromise here - the kids get a mainstream treat without going to a special store. (Of course that doesn’t mean adults can’t enjoy them.)

Wonka Sour Puckeroom Gummies (updated 2010)UPDATE 11/2/2010: It appears that many folks shared their phallic views with Nestle and they updated both the package and the shapes of the actual candy.

The package is mostly green instead of purple. The Wonka name is minimized and the name of the candy is more focused on Sour Puckerooms Gummies where it was originally just called Puckerooms with a descriptive logline of sour gummy candy below that. I do like the typography on the word Puckerooms better on the new version.

The new shapes are such a compromise from the earlier, well defined mushrooms that they’re mere shadows of the shapes they once were. There are really only two shapes, the pointier one is now gone. There are two slightly different rounded ones with wide round caps and wide bases and then the narrower stemmed one with a wide cap. On the package they look distinctive. In real life they’re

New Wonka Puckerooms (2010)

So, there you go. Wonka is receptive to your ideas.

Related Candies

  1. Wonka Kazoozles: Cherry Punch & Pink Lemonade
  2. New Flavors: Skittles Sour & Wonka Runts
  3. Trader Joe’s Gummy Tummies
  4. Wonka Tinglerz & Nestle Buncha Crunch
  5. Organic Zootons
  6. Super Sour Worms
  7. Organic Surf Sweets
Name: Puckerooms
    RATING:
  • 10 SUPERB
  • 9 YUMMY
  • 8 TASTY
  • 7 WORTH IT
  • 6 TEMPTING
  • 5 PLEASANT
  • 4 BENIGN
  • 3 UNAPPEALING
  • 2 APPALLING
  • 1 INEDIBLE
Brand: Wonka (Nestle)
Place Purchased: samples from All Candy Expo
Price: $1.59 retail
Size: 6.5 ounces
Calories per ounce: 92
Categories: Gummi, Sour, Czech Republic, Nestle, All Natural

POSTED BY Cybele AT 9:15 am    

Thursday, June 4, 2009

Wonka Sluggles

Wonka SlugglesAt first I was confused when I saw that Wonka, a Nestle brand, was introducing gummis.

Honestly, it seems odd that Nestle hadn’t entered the gummi category up to this point, especially since the Wonka brand is all about straight sugar candy (every once in a while they have a chocolate product). They’ve returned to the Roald Dahl book for some inspiration on the name. They’re called Sluggles (I’m guessing a vamp off the Arthur Slugworth character combined with the critter theme.)

But once I saw the package it kind of made sense. The says they’re from WONKA’S Edible Garden which sounds like fun! They come in four flavors: grape, orange, lemon & strawberry and say they’re made with natural ingredients and 25% real fruit juice. Yes, naturally flavored and no artificial colors ... from Nestle!

Wonka Sluggles

The Sluggles are shaped like little invertebrate creatures. The shapes I could discern looked like chitins, millipedes, snails and larvae. (They’re not exactly named on the package so forgive me if I gravitate towards the sea creature indentifications.)

I was really excited about the flavor array, mostly because there was no cherry, but also because they included grape, which is pretty rare in the gummi area.

Wonka SlugglesStrawberry (mellow pink)

Most of the gummis smelled the same, as it’s a mixed bag. The flavor is immediately tangy with a nice berry flavor, though not specifically strawberry and lacking that fragrant floral note.

The tartness has a slight fizzy quality to it towards the end.

Though the colors are all natural, gummis use gelatin so are not for vegetarians ... and in this case the red coloring is cochineal in addition to beta carotene.

Wonka SlugglesOrange (peachy orange)

I had a little trouble telling these from the strawberry at first glance because the colors aren’t as vibrant.

They’re mostly sweet with a light orange flavor to them, rather like orange drink with a little sprinkling of zest. While I sound underwhelmed, I thought these were the nicest of the bunch.

Wonka SlugglesGrape (deep red-purple)

Wow, grape gummis! I can count on one hand the grape gummis that I know about (Albanese, the Japanese muscat varieties and the Big Bite Giant Gummi Bear).

Since this is a naturally flavored assortment, the grape flavor is much more like concord grape juice (not that there is actually any grape juice in here, the 25% is apple juice) than “artificial grape candy”. It has the deep jelly flavor but is much more sour than a jam. The exterior of the candies isn’t greasy at all, rather soft & dry but the chew is pliable and has a nice soft but rubbery bite.

Wonka SlugglesLemon (yellow)

The lemon flavored Sluggles were a little on the sweet side for a tangy citrus. The zest was mellow, the whole thing reminding me more of canned frozen lemonade than anything made with real lemons. It’s kind of a boiled sweet taste.

Still, they were tasty and all of the flavors went together well, I didn’t feel the need to look at the pieces before popping them in my mouth and any combinations of the flavors were acceptable.

The other product in this “edible garden” line is Puckerooms, which I’ll review soon. The other new items introduced this year are two different flavors of Kazoozles (which are not exactly in the garden theme and are definitely not all natural). 

Ingredients:

Glucose syrup, sugar, water, gelatin, apple juice concentrate, lactic acid, tartaric acid, malic acid, citric acid, sorbitol, natural flavors, vegetable & fruit juice color, cochineal color, beta-carotene color.

The package I got is a “sales sample” so this may not be the final package, ingredients & nutrition info. They’re made in the Czech Republic on equipment that processes milk, wheat, eggs, soy, peanuts, tree nuts and sulfites.

I think these are a great option for families that want to shy away from artificial ingredients but still want mainstream treat. (I also expect them to be priced very well.) The information from the All Candy Expo indicates that these should be hitting store shelves in June.

Related Candies

  1. Trader Joe’s Gummy Tummies
  2. LifeSavers Tangy Fruits Gummies
  3. Sunkist Fruit Gummies
  4. Organic Zootons
  5. Organic Surf Sweets
  6. Gummi Lightning Bugs
  7. Haribo Gummi Bears vs Trolli Gummi Bears
Name: Sluggles
    RATING:
  • 10 SUPERB
  • 9 YUMMY
  • 8 TASTY
  • 7 WORTH IT
  • 6 TEMPTING
  • 5 PLEASANT
  • 4 BENIGN
  • 3 UNAPPEALING
  • 2 APPALLING
  • 1 INEDIBLE
Brand: Wonka (Nestle)
Place Purchased: samples from All Candy Expo
Price: unknown
Size: 6.5 ounces
Calories per ounce: 92
Categories: Gummi, Czech Republic, Nestle, All Natural

POSTED BY Cybele AT 9:07 am    

Tuesday, August 16, 2005

Kocici Jazycky

Name: Ko??i??í jazý??ky
Brand: Orion (Nestle)
Place Purchased: gift from Lisa
Price: unknown
Size: 50 grams
Calories per ounce: unknown
Type: Chocolate

I have it on good authority that the translation of this candy is, loosely, Kitten Tongues. I suppose they do kind of look like tongues. Having never eaten a real kitten tongue (or any part of a kitten for that matter), I can’t say that they do or don’t taste like them.

The little tray box slides open to reveal an array of these chocolate tongues in a piece of wax paper. Unfortunately they taste rather like wax paper. They could be stale (after all, they’ve been passed through at least two people before getting to me). But the expiration says they’re good until October ‘05. The chocolate is slightly stale and doesn’t melt quickly. It’s sweet and milky, like most European milk chocolate, but not terribly flavorful otherwise.

It’s too bad too, because the photos of the kittens are as cute as can be (I’ve seen other photos on the ‘net and it seems that there are different kittens for different varieties of the chocolates). I have to say that if I were ever in a position to buy these again, I probably will, if only for the novelty of it. I can’t fathom where I’d be where they’d carry them (besides Prague) but at least now I’ve had them and know what I’d be buying (not like that time I tried to buy saffron in Spain and ended up with a tea for air sickness). 

See also these pages: Katzenzungen , Cokoladove  and Cat’s Tongues are Grrreat.

Rating - 5 out of 10.

POSTED BY Cybele AT 1:02 pm     CandyReviewNestleChocolate5-PleasantCzech Republic

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