Trader Joe’s Dark Chocolate Mint Creams and S’mashing S’mores

while i was in california, i noticed an abundance of stores called “trader joe’s“. we do not have any of these stores around here, but i had heard of them from The Best Candy Blog on the Intarwebz™, Candy Blog. candy blog has reviewed countless millions (well, i’m sure one could count, but i’m not going to) of candy products produced by trader joe’s, and with each new review, i have gotten more and more pissed that i don’t have access to these candies. so i jumped at the chance to sample their goods.

trader joe’s is basically a super-yuppie, hipster, green, organic, fight-the-man-or-at-least-look-cool-thinking-you-are type grocery store. kinda like whole foods or fresh market. i felt a little douchey being there, but i also felt like i was hot shit. and maybe i was, just for that day. maybe i was.

anyway, they make a good deal of their own products, which is pretty awesome, and a lot of the cool stuff they make is candy. chocolates, specifically. they have a whole bunch of different types of chocolate covered crap, chocolate infused shit, and edible chocolate feces. it was exciting walking down their “some chocolate stuff” aisle, and trying to decide just what i would try. after all, this is likely to be the last time for a long time i get anything from trader joe’s (their business model supports child slavery*, and i can only fund that so much before i start to feel awful about myself). so i just grabbed a couple items i thought sounded tasty, purchased them from an overly-chatty cashier, and headed out.

behold! my treasures. this is what i ended up getting: dark chocolate covered mint creams, and “s’mashing s’mores”. so exciting! i got in the car and immediately tried them (no cell phones allowed while driving in california, but i’ll be damned if they take away my right to eat rather than pay attention to the road!).

the dark chocolate mints were up first. the chocolate itself was quite nice; a little more rich than the standard dark chocolate you might get from lesser companies who don’t care about you, and thick enough around the insides that it was not just a shell, but a big part of of the candy experience. the mint inside was good, but not quite what i was hoping for. honestly, based on the size alone, i was expecting something almost liquid, along the lines of a junior mint (really, like “cream” might imply). instead, as you can see, the insides were more like what you’d get inside a york peppermint patty. it had a solid mint flavor, but was nothing too spectacular. honestly, i prefer the generic taste you get with either the york or the junior mints, but that’s probably because i’m so used to them. these weren’t bad, but i probably wouldn’t buy them again (instead picking up something else covered in chocolate).

but these… the s’mashing s’mores… my god. after my first bite of these, i pulled the car off the side of the busy freeway (causing a traffic jam within the traffic jam i was already in) and just wept. i wept, for in that moment i knew there was a god, and his name was joe. these chocolates were magnificent! the perfect amount of marshmallow to graham cracker to chocolate ratio. it was like biting into a s’more nostalgia bomb. the marshmallow was perfect, and i love marshmallow. it was fluffy and light, with a bit of pull. the graham cracker was everything it needed to be without being overpowering. not the greatest graham cracker i’ve ever had, but it did what it was supposed to. the chocolate was decadent. trader joe’s knows chocolate. it was like something you’d find at an independent chocolatier. i’m surprised that i’ve never had anything quite like this before… it seems like a simple enough idea. anyway, if i ever had it from some other source, i doubt it would measure up. this was perfect.

as an added bonus, the packaging recommends “for a traditional s’more treat, place s’mores in microwave for 4 to 6 seconds.” this seemed stupid to me, guessing the chocolate would get all melty and ruin everything, but i decided to try it out anyway, and i was delighted to find that not only was it not long enough for the chocolate to start to melt at all, but it was the perfect amount of time for the marshmallow to get all excited and puffy. in fact, it had started to escape out a small hole in the chocolate, like a little balloon blowing its way out of a box. the marshmallow was just warm enough that as i ate it, the chocolate started to melt in my mouth. it was seriously like eating a s’more. i would have done it more if i hadn’t already eaten the rest of the little treats.

you can’t order trader joe’s products online, you have to go directly to their stores, so this is a rare treat. but if you find yourself near one, stop by and pick up these s’more things. they are almost worth the trip to athens, georgia.

*trader joe’s does not support child slavery in any way. that i know of…

Kazoozles Pink Lemonade

as i had mentioned before, i quite enjoy wonka’s kazoozles. stupid name, crazy candy. unique. well, in addition to their standard “cherry punch” flavored ropes, they have a pink lemonade flavor. being such a big fan of the original, i had high expectations for this modified version. and honestly, i can’t really complain.

the pink lemonade style kazoozles are a completely different beast from their “normal” counterparts, which is pretty awesome. instead of just throwing a couple different flavors into the same machine process, they gave the pink lemonade kazoozles a light sugary coating, and “rib” the ropes for your pleasure. in addition, the licorice outer “rope” part is a bit less starchy, and a bit more chewy (so it seems). it results in an entirely different candy experience. the flavors you get are a somewhat bland but sweet exterior, overpowered by the tart yet sweet inside. there is a nice lemony finish, but nothing too strong. i don’t believe the sugar coating contributes at all to the sourness here; that’s all provided by the creamy center.

all in all, it’s a pretty good candy. it certainly holds its own against the original, even without the textural additions. i definitely prefer the original for its flavor (i don’t care much for lemon flavors), but i appreciate the sour alternative, and buy it on occasion mostly for the ribbing. it’s a completely different sensation.

rowr.

Airhead Xtremes Sweetly Sour Belts – Lemonade Rush and Bluest Raspberry

it’s a sequel! my first sequel. a sequel to this: Airheads Xtremes Sweetly Sour Belts – Rainbow Berry.

okay so i knew these other flavors existed, but i had never seen them. until today. well, actually, until last saturday. but whatever. i found them at, of all places, the manliest of truck stops, state road 52’s flying j. SO MANLY. i never like going to the flying j… there’s always something crazy going on. this time there was a woman screaming at someone on her cell phone in the middle of the drink aisle. why would anyone do this? not only is it happening in public, but she could have just as easily hung up the phone, and ended the confrontation. but i was too scared to say anything, so i just grabbed my candy and ran.

i gotta say my favorite thing about this candy is the way it looks. i mean come on… those stripes! and AMERICA STRIPES! hellz yeah. maybe that’s why they carried them at the trucker’s station; they thought they were patriotic candies. well at least the bluest raspberry. the lemonade rush… your guess is as good as mine.

okay so the candies… same deal as before, licorice belts, sour, a bit slimy. but generally good quality. the flavors are what’s different here. the lemonade is pretty gross. it has the sour tart of a lemon, but very little of the sweetness that makes lemonade drinkable. and the lemony flavor is more like the flavor of the pith than the lemon itself… kinda gross.

but the bluest raspberry… mm yes. i like it. good blue raspberry flavor, just a bit sour. could be more sour. but i’m a sucker for blue raspberry candy. blue candy is good candy. but honestly, i would be more likely to buy the rainbow berry anyway, just because of the more fun colors. i take offense at the america-themed stripes on bluest raspberry.

Walnut Whip

okay so this may be the stupidest candy i’ve ever had the pleasure of eating. i picked this up the other day along with the milkybar. i did not care for the milkybar, but compared to this, the milkybar is like sweet ambrosia. but like… concept ambrosia. taste-wise, they’re both just lame.

what i’m trying to say here is whoever came up with this thing may have been an idiot. i had never heard of it, and it came in a little package, so was unsure of what i was getting. this is what i got:

it’s like a friggin volcano of dumb. it came packed with half a walnut, which apparently was supposed to be affixed to the top. i guess the trip over from the uk was too much for the walnut, but even if it was still stuck to the cone – what am i supposed to do with that? there’s no portioning of half a walnut! you eat it, and then eat the rest. for a candy called “walnut whip”, you’d expect some sort of walnut integration. but it’s more like they completely forgot it was supposed to be a walnut candy, and were like “oh shit, throw one dem thangs on der”. that’s- that’s probably how they talked.

on the inside of a thick (waaay to thick) milk chocolate shell is a whipped vanilla fondant, that seemed almost an entirely separate entity from the chocolate. the chocolate was okay, but the fondant was so light it was hardly there, and stacked up against the thickness of the chocolate, the thing may as well been empty. and the vanilla taste was practically nonexistent.

what a dumb… i hate this candy.

Nestle Milkybar

okay sooooo maybe white chocolate isn’t strictly chocolate. MAYBE. but it’s still pretty good. it’s not something i’d eat all the time, because too much will make me sick. IT’S SO SWEET!! but just a bit is a real nice treat. and so you can probably guess that a whole bar of it would be way too much for me. well you’d be right.

the milkybar, made by nestle, is simply a white chocolate bar. that’s really all there is to it. when i saw it in the “english dude” section at publix, i was kind of excited… because first of all – candy. but also because it was something i hadn’t tried, yet sounded familiar. i didn’t know what it was, but surely it must have been a wonderful treat! instead, disappointment. and subsequently, rage. hard, fast rage brought on by too much white chocolate.

it was not bad by any means, but it was nothing special. standard white chocolate. somewhat “milky”, i suppose… i mean it melts in your mouth, and it’s a bit buttery. but very plain. luckily it was broken into little sections, so you could have a bit at a time, but honestly, who would buy a candy bar and not eat it all in one sitting? it’s too much to ask! white chocolate is only good in moderation, and accompanied by something else. like a white chocolate covered pretzel. or OREOS. yeaah… those are good. of course, they’re white fudge, not white chocolate. but uh… same thing, right? RIGHT?!

FOOD BLOG!!