Results tagged “cherry” from Christine's Candyland

Wonka Kazoozles

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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.

Kazoozles-1.jpgI 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.

Kazoozles-2.jpgThe 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.

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Russell Stover is apparently trying to update and revamp their image with the addition of their Internationale line of chocolates. It includes flavors like French Cafe Vanilla Creme, Swiss Lodge Mocha Creme, Bavarian Creme Brulee (hmm, lots of creme) and this bar, German Black Forest Truffle.

I like Black Forest cake. The combo of chocolate and cherries is scrumptious, naturally it does seem like a good idea to take that flavor and make a chocolate bar out of it.

In theory.

At first glance, this is a really nice looking product. Very simple and elegant box rather than your standard paper wrapped chocolate bar. Pictures of an impressive looking (supposedly German) castle and a lovely piece of Black Forest cake.

Once opened, the bar is encased in a pretty gold wrapper with Russell Stover embossed all over (it didn't show up great in the photos sadly).

russell-out-of-package-250.jpgThe bar itself is dark, slick and shiny It's conveniently pre-scored into perfect little squares, again with Russell Stover emblazoned on each piece. It smells warm and chocolately, with the faintest bit of cherry in the background.

Come on, get to the good part, how did it taste?!

Well, that's the thing. It wasn't all that good. The bar was actually made up of two different kinds of chocolate, dark and milk. The top layer was dark chocolate and the bottom was milk, however, the two chocolates did not live in harmony. When I bit into it, the two layers practically separated from each other. Astonishingly, there was hardly any cherry flavor to be found! If I let the chocolate just sit in my mouth for a while, I could almost taste a mellow cherry like flavor but it was nothing like the cherry tartness I I was hoping for based on the numerous pieces of Black Forest Cake I've eaten over the years.
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In short (too late for that!) it was a very unremarkable piece of chocolate. I would certainly never buy it again for myself and would only buy it for someone else if I was really pressed for time on getting a last minute gift and the only shopping option was Walgreens.


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