Halloween Candy 2016 X 2017 Part 1: Cross Generation of High-fructose Corn Syrup

It's 2018, I'm browsing the bargain section of a big UK candy importer's web site, just feeling the life leave my body. I decide that the time has come to take a break, not least because I still have a mountain of the freakin' stuff still left over from the last couple of years that I'm still trying to get through, like an idiot! So while I focus my energies this Halloween converting slightly softer and staler fare than usual into yet more body fat (:D), what better time to catch up on the last couple of years of Halloween candy consignments?

Well, providing that my impeccable and through notes, usually scrawled down  in the middle of the night while watching some random horror movie, make even a lick of sense at this point at least. There seem to be a lot of them at the very least, so let's give it a crack!



Mr. Kipling Toffee Terror Whirls

Starting off with some of the more seasonally-appropriate fare, or hmm, well, maybe not. What is it with UK companies and Halloween variations on their products? Toffee apple, say, would have been a great Halloween-themed flavour here. Toffee on it's own though, I really don't associate with this time of year at all. I don't get why you'd go to the effort of producing a limited edition flavour of your regular Viennese Whirls for Halloween and make it toffee.

As for the Terror Whirls themselves, they're pretty much just regular old Viennese Whirls - a lovely, buttery shortcrust pastry with a a nice, creamy buttercream filling, but this time with a barley noticeable toffee syrup under that buttercream. As good as these still are, for a limited edition Halloween product, they're a real let down. 3/5

Cadbury Screme Egg Biscuits

Speaking of disappointing seasonal variations, we covered standard Screme Eggs all the way back in 2010. Now here they are, finally in biscuit form! So, these are basically shortbread chocolate biscuits - nice texture, good chocolate flavour. You don't really notice the Screme Egg filling too much though, which is a good thing. I pealed off the top of one of these and licked that filling, purely for scientific purposes, and ick! It's sickly and unpleasantly sweet. It has a slightly different texture to the filling in the actual Screem Eggs though - it's thinner and more gelatinous, which somehow makes it even less palatable. Still, the biscuit itself is pretty good, so partial credit. 3/5

Cadbury Pumpkin Patch Cakes

"Orange coloured creme" - I'd love if Cadbury would just once make something with a unique flavor for Halloween. Much like the Screme Egg biscuits above, these are just a recolored and reconfigured version of an existing Cadbury cake product. Well, at least they're upfront about it. :D, These are still pretty good though: you get a decent amount of that creme - which is a nice, rich buttercream; a chocolate coating that's almost, but not quite Dairy Milk chocolate; and a good-quality, soft sponge cake holding it all together. 4/5



Mysterious Halloween Chocolate Coins

Strangely there's no brand on these - they're made in Italy and that's about all the info you're given: somewhat worrying. The designs an the wrappers I think are really cute here though - I especially like the witch. The chocolate is of a pretty decent quality too, so, you know what, I'll take the risk that these are probably some kind cursed Halloween candy that someone left on a store shelf, designed to inflict endless pain and suffering on anyone who consumes it. Having already forced myself to sit through most of the Leprechaun movies though, I'm pretty sure I can handle it. (Oof!) :D 3/5

Candy @ Halloween 2015

Yeah, I meant to quickly follow up the 2014 post with this one, but I seem to have gotten slightly side tracked again. :D So, kind of the same deal again this time. I managed to get my hands on a grand total of one Halloween-themed thing in 2015. There was nothing to do but to continue my descent into the vast well of US candy. *sploosh*

Mm. It's like I'm drowning in a sea of high-fructose corn syrup.

Jaffa Cakes Scary Cake Bars

Hey, why not? Let's start off with the only real Halloween thing here: Lemon and "Slime" flavoured Jaffa Cake bars.



I really loved the tangy layer of jelly here: it had a nice, tasty lemon and lime flavour that I thought went great with the dark chocolate coating. The base here though, I found a little dry. I guess it had about the same consistency as the bases in regular Jaffa Cakes -  which I love, dearly :D -  but in a cake bar like this, with a much thicker layer of cake-type stuff, I'd have preferred it to be a little moister. I'll give these a four out of five.

/ 5

Naturally, I'm rating everything here on a scale of tossers from RTE Two's embarrassing current idents out of 5, with making-tweed-cap-cool-again guy being the lowest, and inappropriate-internet-posting guy being the highest.

No wonder no one watches TV any more.

Junior Mints

A brand I've heard thrown around a lot in old sitcoms and the like; inside these was a soft - I'd say even bordering on wet - mint fondant, surrounded by what the pack claims is "rich dark chocolate", but it seemed to have the taste and texture of a pretty so-so chocolate-flavoured coating to me. The fondant was great though; there was a real good mintiness to it. And while the coating didn't quite live up to the pack's lofty claims, it was still serviceable enough to give you the classic, dark chocolate and mint combination they're going for. That, along with the melt in the mouth fondant made these addictive as hell.

/ 5



Wonka Nerds Bumby Jelly Beans

These guys were jelly beans on the inside, surrounded by thick, hard, bumpy shells. The shells I really loved. They had a great mouth feel to them, to borrow a phrase from the early days of the Bombcast: sort of pleasingly smooth, but bumpy at the same time (insert dildo joke here). The flavours I thought were great too, though they weren't especially easy to identify. I'm still not sure what the red and green ones were supposed to be. But, along the grape, lemon and orange, they were very tasty nonetheless. The jelly beans inside though, aside from being vaguely sweet, I found to be almost flavourless. Granted, I'm not a big fan of jelly beans in general, but I still feel I've had better than the ones inside here. Those shell though: damn.

/5



Hawaiian Punch Candy Chews

Maybe I just saw the wrappers here and jumped to conclusions, but I was really expecting these to be taffy, pretty much. Unfortunately, the chewiness just wasn't there. These started off with a consistency kind of like chewing gum before quickly melting away into nothing. Even as basic chews, I wouldn't really rate these. Getting on to the flavours, these were quite a mixed bad, if you'll excuse the terrible pun. The green berry wasn't bad, falling somewhere between lime and apple; not really getting the "berry" though. The orange was pretty much your typical bad orange candy flavour, which always tastes to me like a gross satsuma. The blue ones, I guess if you use your imagination you could just about get a blue raspberry flavour from them, but to me - and maybe my taste buds are fucked at this point :D - they tasted quite similar to the orange ones, so also terrible. The lemon berry squeeze definitely had a hint of lemon in there, but the prevailing flavour I got from them was, weirdly, cherry cola. Those were actually pretty damn good though. Finally, the fruity juicy reds; it might be further evidence that my taste buds have packed in, but cherry cola was what I got from these ones too, just a slightly more watered-down version. Still, those were petty good too. A few good flavours, but overall, these were quite disappointing.

/5

0% Vitamin A, C, Calcium and Iron. That's good eatin'!

Candy @ Halloween 2014

Do not adjust your calendars, it's time to check out some more candy. You might have noticed the name change this time. Unfortunately, I found new Halloween themed candy extremely thin on the ground in 2014, even on-line for whatever reason. With no new bat/skull/vampire/mummy-shaped things to chomp down on, I was left with no choice but to continue my vision quest into the world of US treats, loading up a box with as much cheap, weird stuff as I could. Let's hop in (It is almost Easter, after all. :D).



Cadbury Dairy Milk Top Deck

So, starting off is a bar not from the US, but from South Africa. It was available here in Ireland though, at least for a while in the 90's (possibly under a different name). I know because I had one of these at least once before. Despite it stacking white chocolate on top of Dairy Milk though  - two things I love - I remember not being very impressed with it at the time.



Unfortunately, the outcome was no different twenty years (yikes!) later. It seems like a good idea on paper, but the milk chocolate just completely overpowers the white chocolate, to the point where you might as just have a regular Dairy Milk. It does look cool though.

3/5



Taffy Town Halloween Taffy

The sole bit of Halloween candy in here comes from Taffy Town. I had some of their taffy a couple of years ago and enjoyed it very much. It's just as good this time. in the Halloween bag you get four flavours: grape, orange, apple and liquorice. The liquorice, I wasn't crazy about, but the other three were tasty as ever.

4/5





Whatchamacallit

You know, I can't think of a peanut and caramel bar that I dislike, so the odds were heavily stacked towards this to begin with. I really liked the caramel; it's nice and chewy with a bit of saltiness to it, which I quite enjoyed, and it's pretty much the dominant flavour here. The peanut is quite mild and the chocolate is pretty bland, run of the mill stuff. I could have done with the crisp bits being a little crisper, more like a Toffee Crisp, but overall a nice, chewy, tasty bar.

4/5

Uhhh... More hot close-ups.

Nestle 100 Grand

For any Irish folks out there, this one's pretty similar to a Catch bar. On the outside, you have a layer of thick chocolate and crisped rice. Inside you have what the wrapper describes as "chewy caramel" but really it's more of a soft toffee. It's a little more solid than your usual caramel and it's got a graininess to it that you get with toffee more than caramel. Semantics aside, the filling's soft and tasty, though still nice and chewy, and it works well with the crunchy chocolate coating. Overall, a great little bar.

4/5



Nestle Oh Henry!

So, this tasted like a Snickers bar. I mean, exactly like a Snickers bar. The make-up is a little different: there's more caramel here and the nougat is swapped out for fudge, but eating it, I was hard pressed to tell the difference. Hey, as far as I'm concerned Snickers is a five out of five bar. I can hardly give this any less, especially as it pre-dates Snickers by the look of things.

5/5



Red Vines

The grape version of these I tried out last year (by which I mean 2013, of course) and really enjoyed. Unsurprisingly, these are the same deal with a different flavour, which the pack describes "Original Red", but even after devouring almost two packs of these now, I still can't quite decipher what that's supposed to be. It's a little bit cinnamon, a little bit clove, and a lot cough syrup. I wasn't crazy about it at first, to be honest, but after my first few, I really came around to it. Just as addictive as the grape variety (I've just had three :D), I'll give these a four out of five.

4/5



MegaLoad Original / MegaLoad Caramel Crunch

Looking at that packaging, these seem like everything you could ever want from candy: peanut butter cups, caramel-filled cups, a cookie on one, a bootleg Oreo on another, fake M&M's, nutty buttercrunch. These certainly look the part, and texture-wise, at least, they deliver: the M&M's are like M&M's; the peanut butter is peanut buttery; the chocolate is thick and chocolate-like.

Looks good, right?

The problem is that, and I not sure how they even managed this, every aspect of every one of these tastes as bland as hell. These are some of the least flavoursome things I've ever experienced. These are a cruel candy-based joke. Full disclosure: these were slightly out of date, but I don't think that explains it. These are a bizarre anomaly that can only be explained by us all living in a Matrix-type simulation, in which these are a serious glitch. Yeah, thanks Architect!

1/5

Halloween Candy 2013: Just in Time Edition

More American candy, a bunch of local stuff and almost a year late. Oh yeah!



Brach's Candy Corn

I'm ordering a box of American candy and it's almost Halloween. How could I not throw in a bag of candy corn? Still pretty damn good.

Brach's S'mores Candy Corn

I'm not exactly clear on what a s'more is, but I don't think I need that foreknowledge to know this wasn't great. Though that's only partially true: bite off the the orange and white sections only and you've got a nice rich vanilla flavour going. A flavour that's almost completely spoiled by the nasty, artificial chocolate-flavoured end.

2/5



Tootsie Caramel Apple Pops

Candy apples seemed like a pretty Halloween thing so I bunged two of these in too. This is a pretty odd one. I'm not sure if it comes across in the photo, but these are actually apple-flavoured lollipops covered in a semi-soft toffee. The apple pop is quite good: nice and tangy. And I really liked the toffee. It has a kind of creamy, almost home made flavour to it. Unfortunately, I just didn't think they worked well together at all. The apple is just too tangy and sharp to gel well with the toffee.

3/5





Cadbury Crunchy Spider

The first of the non-American stuff, which I was actually able to unearth a fair bit of this year. First of all, I've got to say I really like the packaging here. Just look at that guy! I was a little disappointed at first to not find some kind of soft filling inside. What you do get though is nice, big hunk of Cadbury's chocolate dotted with rice balls for a little crispiness, and there's not much wrong with that.

4/5





Murder Motel Bone Mallow

Also found in a local supermarket, these are pretty neat. They're marshmallow bits with a gummy strawberry-flavoured "marrow" in the middle. To be honest, the strawberry-flavour isn't much to write home about, but they're pretty fun to eat. I've gone through three quarters of the bag now, and stripping the marshmallow from the marrow core has yet to get old.

3/5



Murder Motel Coffin Chaos

And the prize for most packaging definitely goes to this. Candy-wise, what you get here is a bit of a selection box. There's a couple of red lollipops of indeterminate flavour, though it tasted a bit of cinnamoney to me. I quite liked it actually, though both were a bit soft (even though this box was still well in date). There's a few bits of marshmallow rope, which I was a bit tougher than I'd like; a couple of bubblegum-flavoured gumballs and a few of bags of candy shapes made from some kind of sherbet-type stuff. Didn't really care for those, but otherwise not a bad little selection.

3/5





Murder Motel Body Parts

These were great. As candy body parts go, they don't look that amazing, but as gummy candies I thought they struck just the right balance of chewy and soft, and they had a real satisfying chunkiness to them. Flavour-wise, I'd say they're kind of orangey; nothing spectacular, but not bad either. Though that's not really what I come to gummy body parts for anyway.

4/5

Halloween Candy 2012 Part 2: Super-Timley Edition

Coconut M&M's

While I could have sworn these were slightly bigger than the M&M's we have over here, otherwise they're just normal green M&M's with coconut-flavoured chocolate. Something I couldn't be more in favour of. I'll give these a well-earned 4/5.

Hershey's Miniatures

If you'll excuse the horrendous pun, these, were somewhat of a mixed bag. The basic milk chocolate miniatures are average at best. I don't have the bag to hand anymore, but I'd imagine that's because they contain less cocoa solids than I'm accustomed to. While they certainly won't be winning any awards (please tell me Hershey's don't win any awards), they're at least passable.

Thankfully though, both the Krackel and Mr. Goodbar minis take that so-so chocolate and improve it significantly. Krackel with rice puffs, which give it a nice crunch and a subtle toasted rice flavour, which I quite enjoyed; Mr. Goodbar with bits of peanuts (and I'm guessing a hit of some kind of nut flavouring), giving it similarly crunchy texture and a nice, rich nutty flavour.

Then there's the plain chocolate miniatures. Wow. I haven't thrown up in a long time, but you don't forget what that tastes like, and these really aren't many steps removed from that. The thought that there may be full-sized bars of this stuff on sale in the US is both baffling and terrifying to me.

Overall, I think this selection deserves a 3 out of 5 for the Krackel and Mr. Goodbar minis, but I'd advise everyone to give the milk chocolate, and especially the plain chocolate ones a wide berth. 3/5



Wonka Giant Chewy Sweet Tarts

They really aren't kidding about the "giant" part here. These things are freaking huge to the point where I decided to break them in half for fear of choking. But they're entirely worth it. The four fruit flavours (apple, lemon, cherry and I think, grape) are all very tasty (no blackcurrant-flavoured duds in here), and satisfyingly tangy too. I'll give these bad boys a much-deserved 4/5.

Wonka Chewy Gobstopper

Now these were a major disappointment. On the outside they have quite tasty fruit-flavoured shells, with extremely smooth textures, making them quite satisfying to just roll around in your mouth. Bite into them though and you reach this clumpy, sugary core, which sure as hell ain't chewy, and had a flavour that I can only really describe as "musty" (though the certainly weren't gone off). Just about passable, I'll give these a 2/5.



Taffy Town Salt Water Taffy

Holy crap, this stuff was incredible. I don't think I've ever had a candy that was this immensely satisfying to chew, and the selection of flavours in here was delicious, my favourites being the watermelon and strawberry. Out of everything here, these are the only ones I'll definitely be getting again and as such they certainly deserve full marks. 5/5



Expired Easter Stuff

Seeing as the postage for all this stuff was fixed, I tried to get as much as much out of that (fairly hefty) fee as I could, packing a trio of (only slightly) expired chocolate bunnies into the box along with everything else. As such, I don't think it'd really be fair to review these, but dammit, I already took a picture and I'm going to use it.

And, in response to your question: Yes, I did eat all of them, in their entirety, myself.

Bonus International Selection



Tymbark Cherry Apple Drink

As the first soft drink I'd ever seen in the Polish section of our local supermarket, I was pretty excited to try this last Summer. While drinkable, the watered-down cherry flavour here certainly won't have me switching away from Pepsi Max any time soon. I'll give this a a rather disappointing 2/5



Tokuno 8.2 Salt Flavor Stick Candy

One of three types of Japanese candy I ordered from Play-Asia last Summer, I really wasn't sure what I was getting into with this one. What exactly did "milk flavor" taste like? And why the salt? Actually though, these were pretty great. In the tube above you get about a dozen hard candies with a mild, tasty, butterscotch flavour that's complemented quite nicely with the few salt crystals dispersed through each one. An odd combination maybe, but I enjoyed these quite a lot. 5/5

Pocket Candy Cream Soda

These, I was initially a bit disappointed by. On first inspection they seemed to be solid, boiled candies with quite a nice kiwi type flavour, but didn't the pack say something about "cream soda"? Then, the creamy vanilla filling came spilling out from the inside and everything made sense, and was delicious. 5/5

Pocket Candy Wildberry

So, having scoffed several of the cream soda variation of these, it's fair to say my expectations for this variety were high. Having popped one in my mouth, and having determined that "wildberry" sure tasted a lot like raspberry, I kept waiting for some tasty filling to come bursting out (sorry), but that was it. These were just solid, boring, raspberry-flavoured candies. I can't say I'm much of a fan of the flavour, but as raspberry candies go, these were pretty decent; I doubt I'll bee seeking them out again though. 3/5

And so concludes another set of Halloween candy reviews. I think I better go floss now or something.

Halloween Candy 2012 Part 1

While I struggled to put together last year's feature, given how little Halloween candy I was able to turn up, this year should have been different. I was on the candy beat in a couple of different stores, on multiple occasions. Unfortunately, all I managed to find was a couple of bags of Haribos, only one of which I hadn't seen before. The situation could have been dire, but this time I had a back-up plan - a terrible, terrible back-up plan.





Haribo Spooky Ghosts

Well, this was it as far as new, locally-available candy went. In here we've got gummy orange and blackcurrant ghosts, as well as softer vanilla-flavoured ones. Tasty flavours all round, and I think the two slightly different types of candy compliment each other nicely. Good job, Haribo. 4/5



And that's where I'd be wrapping things up, if I hadn't taken the likelihood of this happening as an opportunity to do something dumb I've wanted to do for a long time: take this feature to it's logical, inevitable conclusion by ordering this big, €50 box of American candy for the occasion.

My body is ready.

Mayfair Candy Corn

Everything I kew about American candy is wrong! For some reason I always thought candy corn would be a hard candy that probably tasted a lot like barley sugar. Imagine my surprise when I popped one in my mouth and discovered something in taste and consistency that's pretty close to a fudge. Not that I'm complaining though; this was great, and I'd almost consider giving it full marks if it hadn't been for the amazing candy corn lurking a little deeper in the box. 4/5

Mayfair Mellocremes

Of the three bags of candy corn here, this is the only one I didn't like. This may not taste terrible, but it's extremely bland, which surprises me given that this seems to be made by the same people as the candy corn above. Don't know what went wrong here. 1/5

Brach's Milk Maid Caramel Apple Candy Corn

From the initial hit of tangy apple to the rich caramel flavour that follows, these taste freaking fantastic. Hands down, the best candy corn I got with this order, and well worth your time checking out. 5/5

Brach's Assorted Halloween Mellowcremes

Another offering from Brach's. In here we have four Fall-themed caidies made from the same stuff as candy corn, which I suppose is mellowcreme, to get technical. Running through the candies: There's a brown, chocolate-flavoured bat that's easily the worst, least convincing chocolate flavoured thing featured in this part; There's a fairly bland orange-coloured pumpkin that I'm assuming is supposed to be candy corn flavoured; There's a yellow-coloured moon, with your typical fake banana flavour, which I'm actually quite a fan of for some weird reason; And finally, there's a toffee flavoured, and coloured bundle of wheat, which I was quite a fan of. So, all in all, a mixed bag. *gets shot* I'll give a three out of five for the two candies I liked, and hey, even the blandish pumpkin is decent, unlike the Mayfair Mellocremes. 3/5



Reese's Peanut Butter Cups

Quite liked the filling in these; it was exactly the sweet, but slightly salty peanut flavour I was hoping for, with a nice mix of smooth and crunchy textures. The chocolate coating though, is kind of nasty. It's got a very artificial, over-sweet flavour with a weirdly chewy texture. It reminds a lot of the cruddy chocolate and raspberry icing on those awful Demon Slices last year. I'll give these a three out of five for the filling and nothing for the chocolate. 3/5

White Reese's

These are almost exactly what you'd expect, with the same filling as the regular ones, but with a white chocolate coating that's actually pretty tasty this time. That should be a recipe for success, but I just didn't think the two worked well together. The filling overpowers the white chocolate flavour to the point where it might as well not be there, which is a pity.

Out of the two versions of these I tried though, these are definitely the ones to go for. This coating might get lost in the mix, but that's infinitely preferable to tasting the crud on the outside of the regular ones. I'll give these a 4 out of 5. 4/5



Halloween Peeps

Texture-wise, I thought the gritty sugar coating and the marshmallow interior of these worked surprisingly well together, and they look great. Unfortunately, they also taste like freaking disinfectant. Maybe this lot are just defective somehow, but if these are the Peeps I've heard so much about over the years, colour me disappointed. I'll have to give these a big, fat zero out of five. 0/5



York Peppermint Patties

For the uninitiated, these are round candies with a soft, peppermint fondant filling, coated in a thin layer of dark chocolate. While I wish the peppermint was a little bit stronger here, the dark chocolate/mint mix is a great combination of flavours and I really liked the consistency of the fondant: firm, but still a little chewy. I could happily go through a bag of these in one go, providing I wasn't already feeling nauseous from having consumed pounds of candy over the course of a few nights. 4/5

Tootsie Roll Midgees

For the unfamiliar, these are chocolate-flavoured chewy candies. As such, these don't really have the most convincing chocolate flavour, but they're tasty enough and certainty provide a solid, satisfying chewing experience. I'll give these a solid three out of five. 3/5

In Part 2: Taffy!, non-reviews of expired products, chocolates that taste like vomit, and an exciting bonus international section. Continue >>