Reese's Peanut Butter Whoppers

I wasn't aware Whoppers were actually intended for consumption. I'd assumed they were produced and sold solely for the purpose of covertly flinging at people in movie theaters. I'm pretty sure you couldn't even purchase them outside of movie theaters until the last couple of years.

So, while I will admit to a slight anti-Whopper bias, I think we can all take my word for it when I say that these are a terrible, pointless waste of everyone's time. If I needed a malted peanut butter ball, I would wad up a slice of toast and dip it in Skippy. Also, if peanut butter milk balls was in any way a good idea, they wouldn't need to co-brand with Reese's, because that is a brand name that conjures up waxy brown flakes, at best.

Staring into a box full of off-tan circles is enough to convince the few stubborn minded folks. And you know that It doesn't taste like peanut butter, exactly. I guess it's a cheap imitation or maybe weird bootleg peanut butter or something.

Also, my feeling is, when the box art can't even make a product look appealing, there is pretty much no chance of the food inside being tasty. And the balls themselves are a grody tan, with inexplicable brown specs. Not exactly inspiring. They have this weird flavor curve too. The 1st is revolting, then the next 5 or so are kind of addicting, then they abruptly go back to being nauseating, but somehow not disgusting enough to make you stop eating them. Weird.

Skittles Crazy Cores

Skittles are the latest in the long line of formerly delicious candies gone completely batshit insane. Well, probably not the latest, but definitely one of the most enthusiastic. I think I see a new kind of Skittle every other month or so, and always flavors that I would have never ever thought of, nor asked for. In no universe do Skittles need to be mint or choclatey. The ones I'm looking at today, however, are unique in that they are shockingly non-disgusting.

This is doubly impressive considering what a terrible idea they are on paper. Approximating any one flavor in candy form is difficult enough-combining two is just asking for disaster. Plus, the two-in-one thing is only cool when doled out sparingly. Take watermelon Jelly Bellies, for example. They're an enjoyable little bit of visual spice in an otherwise normal assortment of beans. But try buying a bag of just the watermelon ones sometime and see how long it takes for you to stop marveling at the cute little red centers and start stuffing them in your face by the handful. Novelty wears off, is the point these Skittles seem to be missing. But on to the flavors:

STRAWBERRY WATERMELON
These sucessfully recreate the flavor of strawberry Runts. I know I shouldn't even count that, since it's a single flavor, but in the race to the bottom that candy's become lately, I say congrats.

BLUE RASPBERRY LEMON
Very Curaco Lemonade, served in a glass that was washed, but not rinsed. Or maybe the secret ingredient is Lemon Dawn. Hard to say.

CHERRY LEMONADE
Little cough dropy, but definitely cherry. Actually, I think they just stole a vat of the Luden's Cherry Throat Drop syrup and called it a flavor. I'm not sure what sets the lemonade flavor of this apart from the lemon in the blue raspberry Skittle, but I didn't taste soap on this one, so maybe it's that.

MANGO PEACH
Look, I know mangoes are very exotic and decadant and all but can we just stop? Actual mangoes are disgusting and the recent onslaught of mango flavored shit is ruining things I would otherwise eat. None of it tastes like actual mango, anyway. It's always the same vaguely tropical, little bit coconutty/little bit dollar store perfumey melange, and nobody needs that in their cereal.

MELON BERRY
Yes, very good, but which melon? There is a big difference between honeydew, watermelon, and cantaloupe, for openers. And that's to say nothing of all the weird melon subspecies floating around Green River, Utah, which is apparently the Melon Capitol of the World. Although not the fun kind. I imagine that would be somewhere in Brazil. Not that any of this matters, anyway, because this Skittle is just fruity and nondescript. In case you're interested, Green River holds an annual Melon Festival, where they crown a Melon Queen, although again, not the fun kind.

Despite my earlier praise, when eaten individually, these aren't any great treat. But when scarfed down in big fruity handfuls, they're actually pretty enjoyable. In a plastic-y sort of way. Basically, they taste more or less like a regular bag of Skittles, so I don't know that that's actually anything for the marketing team break out the champagne over.

Willy Wonka's Tinglerz

Once again Willy Wonka brings to us creepy candy that no one has ever, or would ever ask for. What I don't understand is how someone who is essentially the personification of innovative and wonderful candy has somehow failed to come up with an edible candy in like, 15 years.

I enjoy a good Gobstopper as much as anyone. Runts are great too; little candies that're fresh from the Barbie farmers' market Mmm-mmm. In fact, most of the old Wonka candy is solid. SweeTarts, Nerds, Bottlecaps, this is all classic shit. In fact, even some of the things that seem like bad ideas are actually good, such as Fun Dip. Bags of colored sugar and weird medicine-flavored sticks doesn't sound like a winning combo, but in my grade school days that was the equivalent of high grade cocaine. Anyone on the playground could get trailer trash Pixie Stix, but if you rolled in with a bag of Fun Dip, it was a going to be a special day.

So, that bit of history out of the way, back around to my original candy. The major problem with the Tinglerz is that in our universe, ol' Wonka has somehow never been able to make chocolate happen. Yes, the candy that defined his empire, propelled him to the heights of candydom, and was supposedly his magnum opus is also the last thing you ever want to take home a lifetime supply of. It's absurdly sweet, and barely tastes chocolatey at all.

This has actually been bothering me for years, come to think of it. Why is it that even third world Easter bunny manufacturers can produce a more convincing chocolate flavor than this? Not to mention that Wonka is owned by Nestle, and I would imagine there's gotta be somebody on that factory floor who can explain to the suits why everything they makes tastes like it came out of a My Little Pony's ass. Chocolate is a confection that has been around for centuries, it shouldn't be that hard. I'm not asking you to figure out the secret ingredients of Coke after all, the Mayans were sipping hot chocolate in 460 A.D., using nothing but cacao seeds and blood sacrifice.

Also, and most important of all, it looks like a bag of chocolate coated herpes. Really. Maybe that's why the name sounds like something that would make more sense on a vibrator package.

So chocolate-coated pop rocks is not an appealing idea visually. But this candy has other problems, too. Firstly, one does not chew Pop Rocks. They all explode at once, totally negating the entire point, which is to enjoy finding them hiding in your teeth hours later when you're going down on your significant other and she runs screaming from the room, trailing little popping noises from her nether regions. No, Pop Rocks must be savored, like a fine, tingly wine.

But you can't keep the Tinglerz in your mouth for more than 30 seconds, because no one needs to taste cheap chocolatish failure for that long, and you end up with a mouthful of brown goo. Individually, these texture issues wouldn't be a problem, but when you combine foods that aren't meant to coexist, guess what, it is. I don't know what the hell to do with these. I ended up kind of keeping them in my mouth for a few seconds before chewing, thereby giving me the worst of both worlds: crappy chocolate coated teeth, and unpleasantly poppy food.

Honestly, I see these candies as a cry to let the chocolate go from the Wonka empire once and for all. They're the confectioner's equivalent of the senile ramblings from the old guy who's always wandering around the park in slippers and a plaid vest. It's time we put this franchise out of its misery, because god only knows what STD based candy they'll make next.

Tire Tread

Well. It appears I have discovered the solid cousin to the diet Moxie soda. MORE'S THE PITY.

These are impressively horrible. I mean it. I can only imagine that these remain on store shelves solely to please old folks, and that worries me terribly, as this shit is clearly not meant for human consumption.

THEY ARE STRONG. This licorice does not fuck around. It really does taste exactly like the Moxie, right down to the painful burning sensation after you take your first bite. They're really not that bad until a few seconds after you swallow, which means there's really nothing you can do to save yourself from the horrible experience that is the Tire Tread. But then again, when the first ingredient is 'beet syrup', you can pretty safely assume you're not in for a taste treat.

The Great Japanese KitKatastrophy part III

White

Although I'd sworn off albino chocolates after the yogurt horror, I gave these a chance anyway. They're the officially 'white' flavored Kit Kats, altho for some reason they have a picture of a maple leaf on the box. So, suspecting maple but fearing something less pleasantly Canadian, like beaver or Mike Myers, I forged ahead. Adding to my disturbing-flavor concerns was the texture of the things. They were lumpy. Clumps of unidentifiable crap clung to the bottom of the bars, not entirely disguised by the milky coating.

My concern now shifted from unidentified Canadian flavors to chunks of actual Canadians. It could be some sort of soylent green for modern times, like a really shitty remake that's been 'hipped up' for today's audience.

Turns out, however, they are maple, really REALLY maple, on top of the painful sweetness of the white chocolate. The flavoring was STRONG, much like the Maple Prez. In Japan the men are real men, women real women, and the maple is mind-blowing.

Interestingly enough, the chunks weren't related to the maple flavor, but were little bits of wafer that got stuck on the bottom, which I suppose does make them somewhat cannibalistic, which is pretty cool.

Strawberry

Jesus god these are revolting. While this does make me feel better about the American version of strawberry candy failure, I am frankly NOT happy I had to go through that taste experience again.

These may actually be worse because, in a moment of misguided realism-related fervor, the coating has little strawberry bits ensconced in it. Which sounds reasonable, but looks like a scale model of a highly communicable skin disease (which btw, is a phrase you should never ever
Image Google). I don't know that rosacea KitKat would've necessarily tasted worse, but it's never-the-less not a parallel I need to be drawing while the damn thing is in my mouth.

Sakura

This is one of those flavors which you immediately recognize as being disgusting, but carry right on eating it anyway. I can't say for sure what it actually tastes like, there's definitely sweet waxy undertones, but they're lighter than usual, and accompanied by something that tastes like chocolate covered feet.

While the flavors are all fairly unpleasant individually, the whole effect is not bad. Everytime I ate one, I knew that it was bad, but I kept wanting more of them. It's a destructive behavior microcosm Kat! Just like a Lifetime special, only with less Patty Duke.

Wine

These are really interesting. They start innocently enough with that bland waxy flavor that has become synonymous with KitKat in my mind, and then move on to an actual wine flavor. Seriously. Not a fine vintage, granted, more like the solid cousin of wine in a box, but still. They're neither hideously sweet nor terrifyingly strong. Amazingly, they're an entirely acceptable, if somewhat baffling flavor of Kit Kat.

I keep trying to picture the setting in which a wine KitKat would be the sophisticated choice. The only situation that springs to my mind is 'trying to get laid in Candyland'. Presumably you smoke candy cigarettes afterwards.

Candy Racism and Process at Work

You may've noticed that I generally avoid using American candy for these reviews. This is not because I'm a terrible candy racist. The reason I don't bother with my own country's confections is because in recent years the major US candy companies have lost their fucking minds, and cranking out dozens of completely awful candies that are on the market for all of two weeks before slinking off in shame.

And rather than being entertainingly bad, these flavors are simply not worth bothering with, either in print or as edibles. I don't need to write a review telling you that eating a Limited Edition Giant M&M is the modern equivalent of the experience of eating a handful of M&Ms. You can figure that out on your own, I hope. If not, for godsake, I don't want to know about it.



Raspberries 'n' Creme / Strawberries 'n' Creme Hersheys
This could have been so much better, or at least less awful. Raspberries are delicious and underrepresented in the world of confectionery outside of Blue Razzberry shit, which we shall not speak of.
Even so, I don't want to see them getting their moment in the sun in bad candy. It tastes like cheap white chocolate, no surprise there, with grainy little bits of generic sweetness. In fact, I'd be hard pressed to tell the difference between the two flavors. They're both unimpressively unpleasant, and I have to wonder why Hershey's even bothered with both. Did they honestly think people's candy bar palette is refined enough to distinguish the between the two? Everything about these bars says 'slapped together the night before launch'. They even reused drawing of the splash on the packaging. You'll have to do better than Image>Adjust>Hue/Saturation, to fool me, Milton Hershey!


Junior Mints Inside Outs
I just hate to see this. One of the best things about being one of the less popular, non-flashy candies is that you're generally pretty safe from the various revamps and marketing gimmicks that plague the more popular candies. But for some reason, Junior Mints have now been dragged into the jaws of progress, and shat out as Junior Mints Inside Outs.
Despite the amusingly suggestive name, I can't even enjoy the absurdity of these. They don't taste like much of anything-bad chocolate goop coated in crusty sugar, and they certainly aren't much to look at, appearing, as they do, to be giant wads of bird shit. Junior Mints are tasty and should be left alone. For fuck's sake, nobody messes with Skor bars, or Mary Janes. Leave the classics alone!

Milky Way Slammer

To me, that sounds like a porno move, not a beverage. And not a particularly appealing move, either. Actually, I've been sitting here thinking about it so long that I've kind of grossed myself out, so I'm going to drop the porn metaphors, and just say that this is a very bad drink.

Not so much because it tastes bad, but because it actually does taste like a Milky Way bar. But it's a liquid. I felt unpleasantly like I was partaking in a candy bar that had, in fact, already been digested. This is not fun at all, and, in retrospect, even less appealing than the porn idea.

The Great Japanese KitKatastrophy part II

Orange & Creme

As promising as the image of an Orange slice coming all over a KitKat bar was, these were a tragically less than orgasmic experience.

They were actually like a sort of opposite orgasm, where instead of getting more and more enjoyable, these started off bad and built to a hideous crescendo of unpleasantness, culminating with my convulsively spitting the whole revolting affair into the garbage.

Milkshake

You ever had Whoppers? Great, this is that, only shaped like a stick. You can put it between two Whoppers and have a little milkshake flavored sex-ed set up. You may as well, there's no other excuse for having these things around.

Matcha with Azuki Beans

Ok, this one I know:matcha is green tea, and azuki beans are sweet red beans which are famous for not making you gassy. Which I suppose is a nice feature, although what candy is known for its gas producing prowress? Not even novelty fart candy, really. I fed a bunch to our dog once, and got nothing. And if you can't even make a dog farty, you have no business allying your self with the internal gas industry.

Anyway. I was pretty excited about these, because there was a little drawing of green KitKats on the back of the box, which pretty much guaranteed that the actual bars themselves would be green. Imagine! Little green KitKats! You can play that you're eating miniature uranium bars that make you mutate and destroy the city, or that they're martian candy, and use them to lend credibility to your abduction story, or leave them in the living room and claim the dog ate a birthday cake. The possibilities are endless!

As you can see, they did not disappoint. And while it's hardly worth mentioning in light of the how amazing these things look, I will say that they do taste a little like green tea. In that strange watery way that green tea flavored things have. It's not something you can really eat much of, but it doesn't matter, because what they lack in snackability, they make up for tenfold in comedic possibility.

Watermelon

It is long past time we as a species stop trying to make things watermelon flavored. Watermelons DO NOT HAVE A FLAVOR. THEY DON'T. And attempting to assign them one via red dye #40 and industrial food flavoring is not going to change that.

Personally, I move that we start using 'watermelon' as a texture. Think about it: really wet, but still structured, and rather grainy. What word describes that? Nothing! Think of all the good watermelon could do for the English language. We'd have the perfect one-word description for all sorts of things like....well, like...Watermelon. I guess there's not a lot of call for that specific texture. I still think it would do less harm as a texture than a flavor, though. Especially where KitKat flavoring is concerned.

The Great Japanese KitKatastrophy...

Melon

Exactly as it sounds. You can't imagine it? Well that's because it should never have happened. I don't understand what possesses companies to make things taste like melon. Melons don't even taste like melon.

Yogurt
Well. Thank god this one was just a fun-size. I was expecting something akin to the yogurtish coating that makes even raisins (nature's cookie and bagel ruiner) tasty. But what I got was very, very different. I'm not sure what exactly these were coated with, but 'not yogurt' just about sums it up.
They were sweet. Nastily, cloyingly, filling-damagingly sweet, kind of like the weird sweetness of white chocolate x1,000. And sort of off-tasting, like they were rotting somehow, despite having been teased into existence from the least organic substances the planet has to offer. All in all, I got no semblance to yogurt out of these, other than that they're both white and unpleasant.


Cafe Latte
I don't understand how we can not have these in the US. Not because they're particularly tasty, but because every other food here that can have coffee added, has.
These guys were pretty much exactly what you'd expect if Starbucks made crappy chocolate. A bland, watery milkish coating over nondescript little wafers. Very non-offensive. Not too coffee tasting, because we don't want to scare the kiddies. I predict it's only a matter of time on these things' American debut.
UPDATE!
Since I haven't been paying much attention to American candies lately, as they've been getting progressively dumber and dumber, I missed the Limited Edition Coffee flavor KitKats.
Unsurprisingly, THEY'RE BAD. They taste like the air in one of those coffee shops that middle aged women hang out in. Usually these places sell a lot of unbearably cute knickknacks and rubber stamps and things of that nature.

Takagi
The main problem I have with importing candies is not that they are generally pretty bad (I like that), it's that I don't write down what I order, and when a big 'ol box of foreign candy shows up at my door a couple weeks later, I have long since forgotten what actual flavors these things are supposed to be. At any point in time I could biting into a squid 'n chicken creme, and I'd have no idea.
This one, at least, has the romanization of the flavor name written on it, although I'm not sure why that would be, considering. I'm not complaining, however. At least I can look this one up, or I could if I wasn't so lazy. From the picture on the front, I'm guessing some variety of persimmon / pomegranate type affair. The heart motif all over the outer and inner package made me a little nervous, because maybe animal heart flavor is a routine candy additive in Kit Kats, I don't know.
But these actually turned out to be pretty ok. They were dark chocolate, of which I heartily approve, and some weird tangy flavor creme that you could hardly taste anyway. So if it was heart squeezings, at least it was from one of the tastier-hearted animals.

Chocolate Velamints

If you are a normal person, right now you're saying, 'Velamints? I thought they stopped making them around the time I cut my rattail off, and stopped dressing like the unholy offspring of a cocker spaniel and a barber's pole.

If you don't recall, before that punk Werther brought his caramels and slightly pedophilic commercials showed up on the scene, these were *the* old people mint. Proudly taking their place along side Skor bars , Reisens, and those unidentifiably flavored blue disks everyone avoided in the pick-a-mixes.

They're back these days, and while they are fairly tasty, the inner paper wrapper bears this disturbing legend. I can't take a mint out of the box without feeling vaguely molested. Really, 'fits perfectly in your mouth'? glide back again? I know I've seen those same phrases trying to sell me a dildo.