Wonka is consistently coming up with the most unique ideas and flavor combos in candy, can always count on them to put something really different out there. A few years ago they had a SweeTarts Rope, which was a cherry licorice tube filled with blue goo that had Nerds in it but it wasn't around too long before Nestlé (which owns Wonka) discontinued it. Obviously they reworked the idea and came out with Kazoozles.

I love how colorful and whimsical Wonka packaging is, makes me that much more excited to eat their candy. Described as Delickoricious, they come in Cherry Punch and Pink Lemonade. I started with Cherry Punch (blue package) and sadly, it was a little underwhelming. The first thing I thought when I bit into a rope was that it tasted like cough syrup, yuck. Candy should not taste medicinal! The medicine taste never went away and eventually it faded to the background a bit. The rope itself had a nice firm chew, firmer than your standard Red Vine and more like those giant red licorice ropes you can get at the ball game. The goo in the middle was yummy, like cotton candy or a Pixy Stix, to me it wasn't very "punch" flavored, just a super sweet vaguely fruity slightly gritty frosting.

The Pink Lemonade was a hair better. As you can see these had big sugar crystals on them, which were a nice texture addition and broke up all the chewiness. The licorice wasn't very lemony, like super watered down Country Time. To combat all the sweetness it would be better if there was some tartness thrown in but the filling is more of the same super sweet variety, dare I say it's the same filling as the Cherry Punch but just in a different color.

I did enjoy these, just not as much as I was hoping and I would probably pick them up again if there wasn't anything more appealing on the shelf though honestly I'd rather just have some Red Vines.

Worst. Blogger. Ever. That must be what I am. Haven't blogged in over a year! Can you (the 3 of you out there that read this) ever forgive me? Let's move on to the candy, shall we?

A long while back I got the original Mo's Bacon Bar, which is the smaller one in the photo above. More recently I got the Dark Bacon Bar and so when I sat down to blog, I decided to do both of them at the same time (that's what she said). Sadly, upon opening, the original bacon bar had bloomed :( That's what I get for waiting so long.

The Dark Bacon Bar is simply gorgeous, a nice sheen and 12 neatly scored squares with embossed images on them (the Vosges logo and what looks to be a girl holding a bag, weird). It smells like smokey chocolate but there was no meaty smell which I think is a good thing because as delicious as bacon is, a chocolate bar should not smell like meat (even if it has meat in it, does that make sense?). It's 62% cacao so it was a nice bitter chocolate with just enough sweet to get it on with the saltiness of the Alder wood smoked salt and the baconyness of the Applewood smoked bacon to result in a ménage à trois in my mouth. Oh yeah, I said it!



The bacon was not overpowering at all, none of the flavor elements were, they truly all worked together in this fantastic bar. It was obvious that the bacon pieces were real pork bits and not just imitation pork product thrown in, it tasted like real bacon not like something disguised to taste like some approximation of bacon.

You should definitely pick up a bar if you should cross its path.

First of all, what a redundant name! If you already have 'burst' in your product name, why muddy the waters by using 'burst' again? These should have been named Starburst Sticky Gummi Discs, that's a much better name don't you think? Man I would be awesome at product marketing!

Unlike original Starburst these aren't square or hard but they are the same flavors: Cherry, Lemon, Orange and Strawberry. They're a pretty candy, glossy and bouncy little discs with a raised "S" in the center. The biggest complaint about appearance that I have is that the Cherry and Strawberry flavors are nearly indistinguisable from each other. Check it:

Can you tell which ones are red and which ones are dark pink? Nope, didn't think so. I could only tell them apart by holding them really close to a light and then I could sorta tell them apart. Sorta.

Sadly, the taste didn't help out in this dilema. The taste in both berry flavors was extremely subtle and frankly didn't taste like cherry OR strawberry. Lemon wasn't much better, just a very mild tingle. Orange was the strongest flavor but still only a little zesty.

"Nothing is juicier than Starburst GummiBursts. Not even real juice!" their website claims but honestly, they weren't that juicy. Sticky is definitely the right word. Think the filling, or burst as it were, was pure corn syrup since it didn't taste like much aside from being sickly sweet and it was sticky, sticky, sticky!

These weren't bad really, just kind of boring and not really worth the calories. Think I'll just stick to the original fruit chews.

 

Yes, I know I have been quite the slacker as of late in getting some new bloggy stuff out. For shame! I promise to try and do better. Really.

Part of the inspiration for this blog was that I wanted to order a bunch of candy from Jbox. What a great website! So many interesting, yummy and odd things from Japan. One of the items in that first order was Poifull.

As the package says, now comes with Pineapple! Poifull are jelly bean like candies with flavors Pineapple, Purple Grape, Apple and Green Grape. I love the graphical depictions of the flavors on the bottom of the box, so cute. Or as they would say in Japan, kawaii!

Upon opening the box I was delighted to find that it opened kind of like a Nerds box. Fun.

They're smaller than standard jelly beans and in softer hues. Pineapple is pale yellow, Purple Grape is, um, purple, Apple is pink and Green Grape is green.

The outer shell isn't as firm as most jelly beans, in fact there doesn't seem to be much of a shell at all. It's very soft, hardly any chewing was necessary.

If the box hadn't said that ones of the flavors was apple, I wouldn't have known what the heck pink tasted like. At first I thought it was some kind of melon, after another taste, I thought it was grapefruit. To me, it didn't really taste like apple. Regardless, this was my least favorite flavor.

Green was sort of reminiscent of an actual green grape. I don't particularly care for green grapes (any grape really) so again, this flavor didn't do a whole lot for me. It was pleasant enough but not something I'd want several of.

Purple was another lackluster bean. No artificial grape flavor here, just a vague sweet bland taste. Perhaps I eat too much sugar and have gotten my taste buds used to large doses of sweet, maybe I can't taste subtle sweet flavors anymore. That would be sad.

Yellow was hands down my favorite, I ate all of them in the box! The pineapple flavor was fresh and immediately recognizable, though it didn't have the same acidic tart that a real pineapple has but I really wouldn't expect it in a candy, unless it was a sour candy. I would love a whole box of just the pineapple ones, the other flavors I could certainly do without.

Not sure why some of the beans were heart shaped. It as a nice surprise for sure :)

This item requires no introduction.

*Note: I'm still toying with the photography for this site, pardon the non-uniform look of the pictures.

For my birthday, I received this fabulous product (thanks to my awesome brother and his wife) and needless to say, it cried out to be reviewed.

I love bacon. Bacon rules. I dare you to come up with something that isn't made imminently better by bacon. Sadly this bacon does not taste like bacon but that's ok. It still looks like bacon, a helluva lot like it and just looking at it makes me happy.

So according to the oh so helpful handling instructions on the box, I wasn't supposed to fry this stuff up. Which was disappointing because the best part about eating bacon is the wonderful crackling sounds that go along with cooking it. I don't have a microwave either, so at least I couldn't be tempted to put it in there.

Out of the box, this stuff really does look like the real deal. Pretty uncanny. It's even sticky and greasy, like real bacon! The box even had a bacon viewing window, like real bacon!




It's strawberry flavored and that was immediately obvious once it was unwrapped. The smell was very strong, nearly overwhelming. A nice smell though, like real strawberries.

The gummy was pretty firm, but not hard and had a nice chew to it. My jaws were not taxed to the breaking point with these. The strawberry flavor was clean and not super artificial tasting.
Very well done.

The picture at the right was taken after I took a bite out of it and you can barely seem my teeth marks. The gummy reformed and melded back together after the bite.

The original Cadbury mini eggs are my mom's all time favorite candies. Who can blame her? They're delicious, really pretty and are a one-of-a-kind candy. Well, until now.

I saw these reviewed on Candy Addict and found them so intriguing and interesting (and I love Nerds) that I desperately sought them out in every drug store, grocery store, etc. that I went into. Voila! The Walgreens near my parent's house netted success thanks to my mom's keen eyes.

In the bag, they're not very impressive looking. They're very dusty and made the bag look like it's filled with brightly colored rocks and dirt. But I digress. Don't you just LOVE the cute little Nerds in bunny ears on the bag? Well I do.

They come in your standard candy colors: Red, Orange, Yellow, Green and Purple. Red was strawberry I think. It wasn't exactly obvious or strong, which isn't a bad thing. A lot of strawberry candy tastes fake but not in a good way, unlike fake banana candy which I care for a great deal. Orange was....ORANGE! Isn't that crazy?! So yeah, it was your basic zingy orange, like Crush soda. Yellow was lemon as usual and it was a nice lemon, bright and happy.

Green took some major taste testing to figure out for sure.
At first I assumed lime but I was pleasantly surprised to discover that it was watermelon! It's a nice, pleasant watermelon with no harsh aftertaste like some watermelon flavors.

Purple was grape. Blech. I don't like grape flavored things, and when I was young would always make my brother eat any purple candy I got. It's an ok taste, just not for me.

The biggest upside of these bumpy little guys is their wacky crunchy chewy combination.
 
Coming from Wonka, it's no big surprise that these are unique and different. The crunchy outer shell kind of breaks away as you chew them and mingles nicely with the chewy of the bean and since it's not a sticky bean, you don't get those pesky chunks stuck in your teeth. Won't your dentist be pleased?

I think they started out as a seasonal Easter thing, but according to Mariko at Candy Addict "An email from Wonka tells us that these are offered year round as Giant Chewy NERDS!" Be on the lookout for these guys but be careful, you might just eat a whole bag!