Candy Ratings By Your Dentist & Child

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The RockNRoll Dentist is not an eater of candy. Sure, I have a serious salty snack addiction but candy just isn’t something that is in my food pyramid generally. I admit that as a kid I loved jaw breakers and once nursed a mammoth sucker all summer procured while visiting my Pennsylvania grandparents (and I have the fillings to prove it). Later it was chocolate covered thin mints, 3 Musketeers and Smartees (oh the shame I brought to my kids!). But nevermore, quoth the raven (by the way, apparently there once was a candy called Raven’s Revenge – sorta like powdered Sweet Tarts). It happens that eldest child Brenna was visiting and so was added as a guest rater to add a younger female perspective. By the way, if youngest offspring Hilary would have been here, Red Vines would have been her confection of choice. It is with a clean palette, then, that your Dentist and Brenna went to 3 candy emporiums to procure a set of popular and lesser known confections for the purpose of a taste test. The weirder stuff came from Rocket Fizz (look them up for a list of strange sodas as well) while Walgreens and Walmart supplied the rest. We each started with a common fave of ours (me-3 Musketeers, Brenna-Milky Way) and arbitrarily gave them a rating of 5 as far as taste (T). We also rated each candy on presentation/packaging (P) and mouth feel/texture (M). Understand that this is all subjective with your Dentist hating candy that clumps on his teeth or palate and won’t go away. We welcome your comments pro and con plus your own faves so bring it on! The format for ratings: D(entist) – T ? P ? M ? B(renna) T ? P ? M ? A final caveat: BRUSH YOUR TEETH AFTER EATING THESE – we did.

Abba-Zaba

This is a chewy candy with peanut butter in the center made by Annabelle’s of Hayward, CA. The Colby & McDermott company first made this in 1922 then later the Cardinet Company. Captain Beefheart fans might recognize this as the title of a song on his 1967 LP Safe As Milk as Mr. Van Vliet was a fan. The back cover of the LP also uses the same yellow & black square pattern as the candy wrapper. Tom Waits also references this candy in the song “Chocolate Jesus”. Brenna and I only found a “Mystery Flavor” as opposed to the peanut one which hopefully is way better. Brenna thought it had no flavor while your Dentist detected a hint of old PVC pipe.

D – T 1 P 3 M 1 B – T 0 P 3 M 2

Almond Roca

This is a buttercrunch toffee made by Brown & Haley of Tacoma, WA. It was developed in 1912 with the local librarian supposedly giving it the name Roca, Spanish for rock (since it is hard). Each candy is wrapped in gold aluminum foil (which is very genteel) and can be purchased in a pink can though we bought it singularly. It tasted stale to us plus it stuck to my teeth.

D – T 1 P 6 M 2 B – T 2 P 8 M 4

Bonomo Turkish Taffy

From their website: “invented in Coney Island in 1912 Bonomo Turkish Taffy became the most sought after candy. As the first interactive candy Bonomo Turkish Taffy has thrilled generations as there was simply nothing like it.” Well 110 years ago people definitely had different tastes than us as this was the bottom of the barrel for us both. Too chewy, poor chocolate flavor, hard to get out of the package and when you do it sticks to everything – great otherwise. It was invented by Herman Herer of NY who added too much egg white to a batch of candy he was making creating this product. It was picked up by M. Schwarz & Sons until 1936 when the Bonomo family bought (and branded) it and apparently folks went ga-ga on Coney Island. Supposedly Woolworths was the first store to market it. The packaging has instructions on how you are supposed to get it in to pieces by hammering it – didn’t work for us.

D – T 2 P 1 M 1 B – T 2 P 0 M 1

Bun

Milk chocolate on the outside with peanuts on the inside, these come in 3 flavors – maple, vanilla and caramel. We had maple. The Wayne Company made it in 1947 then it passed to many others including Leaf, Curtiss and now Pearson’s of St. Paul, MN. Brenna again liked it far better than I as I wasn’t fond of the peanuts or the stickiness.

D – T 2 P 2 M 3 B – T 5 P 5 M 5

Charleston Chew

Charleston, SC lent its name to a popular twenties dance and also a candy created in 1925 by the Fox-Cross Candy Company. Today it is made by Tootsie Roll and comes in vanilla, chocolate and strawberry. There is a thin coat of chocolate around a chewy nougat center. In the song “Forget About Dre”, Eminem raps about choking on one. We got the vanilla and didn’t choke, but liked the taste while thinking the packaging was so so. By the way if you want to do the Charleston dance, it is a pretty wild dance so google it.

D – T 5 P 1 M 3 B – T 4 P 1 M 4

Chick-O-Stick

In Lufkin, TX the Atkinson Candy Co. makes mostly peanut or peppermint candies. This one is crunchy peanut butter rolled in toasted coconut. You need to eat it when fresh and crunchy otherwise it gets hard. As you can see, at one time the packaging had a nifty chicken on it wearing a cowboy hat and a badge with the company logo plus it also had a happy kid on it – way better than the current wrapper. It is vegan for you foodies.

D – T 4 P 3 M 4 B – T 4 P 4 M 5

Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Bites

Inspired by eating raw cookie dough, the attractive thing about this for your blogger is that it doesn’t contain uncooked eggs like the dough would. It comes in 8 flavors with us rating the classic chocolate chip. It is made by Taste Of Nature from Santa Monica, CA who also makes Mrs. Fields cookies. It came out in the mid-nineties. While your Dentist thought it was easy to eat and tasty (perhaps due to eating mom’s cookie dough as a kid), Dr. Brenna didn’t find it as enthralling.

D – T 5 P 5 M 5 B – T 2 P 3 M 3

Chunky

Milk chocolate, raisins and peanuts go in to this product of Ferrara (Ferrero overseas). Philip Silvershein came up with this in the late thirties in New York but with cashews and Brazil nuts. Nestle took it over in 1984 and switched the ingredients around. Ferrero grabbed Nestle’s candies in 2018. Hands up those of you Boomers who remember Arnold Stang selling this on TV by saying “Chunky, what a chunk of chocolate!”. Neither of us thought the chocolate tasted that great plus I thought the raisins made the peanuts taste stale. Not that it has anything to do with the candy, but before they became The Turtles (“Happy Together”) they were The Crossfires and they had a song and a club named “Chunky”.

D – T 3 P 3 M 5 B – T 2 P 6 M 2

Crunch

Ferrara also makes this old Nestle product consisting of crisped rice covered by milk chocolate. Nestle came out with this starting in 1938. We both liked that the candy was easy to eat and break apart.

D – T 3 P 5 M 6 B – T 5 P 5 M 3

Goo Goo Cluster

This one goes back to 1912 and is milk chocolate covering peanuts, marshmallow nougat and caramel. It is still made by the Standard Candy Co. of Nashville, TN who at one time sponsored the Grand Ole Opry whose initials are also GOO. Coincidence? Neither of us love it – too sticky and just plain sweet.

D – T 2 P 3 M 2 B – T 3 P 3 M 2

Haribo Peaches

This was a selection of Brenna who loved it and finished the whole bag. According to the company’s website, they “are sweet, velvety soft, and irresistibly delicious”. Haribo makes gummies in a myriad of flavors from Sour Bites to Smurfs (wonder what a Smurf actually tastes like – scary thought). Haribo started in Germany back in 1920 named after the founder HAns RIegel BOnn. While still headquartered in Germany, the U.S. packaging says it is from Rosemont, IL with the peach candy made in Brazil. Their signature product is the Goldenbear – bear shaped fruit gummies.

D – T 3 P 2 M 3 B – T 5 P 3 M 8

Hi-Chew

It is interesting to try candy from other parts of the globe like this one originally from Japan. The U.S. branch of the Morinaga Company is in Irvine, CA with the package saying the candy was made in Taiwan. It first came out in 1975 though it started in 1931 as Chewlets when “Taichiro Morinaga sought to create an edible kind of chewing gum that could be swallowed because of the Japanese cultural taboo against taking food out of one’s mouth”. While gluten free, the gelatin is non-Kosher as it is pork based. In the U.S. it comes in 20 flavors. We tried Strawberry but didn’t fall in love with the low key flavor and the hardness.

D – T 2 P 6 M 2 B – T 2 P 6 M 2

Kinder Bueno

This is made by the Ferrara company of Parsippany, NJ. It is the U.S. branch of an Italian company Ferrero SpA that makes Nutella, Tic Tac Mints, Ferrero Rocher, etc. The Kinder Bueno bar came out in 1990 and is chocolate covering hazelnut cream on a wafer. In German kinder means children while in Spanish bueno means good. While I thought the chocolate was just sweet, Brenna was more of a fan. It dissolves in your mouth nicely.

D – T 3 P 4 M 5 B – T 5 P 7 M 6

Mallo Cup

Altoona, PA gave us the RockNRoll son-in-law Jeff not to mention the Mallo Cup, a Kosher candy from the Boyer Company. This product goes back to 1936. The company started in the home kitchen of Bill and Bob Boyer and is now owned by Consolidated Brands. The center is soft whipped marshmellow and it is covered by milk chocolate. According to the Boyer website there is another reason to eat Mallo Cups: “There’s nothing better than enjoying a delicious Mallo Cup only to reveal the coveted Mallo Cup Play Money that remains a favorite Boyer memory for generations of Boyer Candy Company fans. The Play Money program gives Boyer Candy fans a coin, printed on a decorative cardboard package that ranges from one five cents to one dollar in each and every pack of Boyer Candy. These Mallo Cup points can be used to redeem free candy or other amazing prizes from the Boyer Catalog.” It is mostly just sweet and dissolves nicely. There is a nice tie-in to the Longmire series of books (written by Craig Johnson) which I enjoy (as well as the 6 season TV series – need to make a new one guys!). In the 2019 book Land Of Wolves Sheriff Longmire finds a dead Basque shepherd and in looking for clues to solve the case he finds play money coupons from inside Mallo Cup candies, which he sees as help from his deceased spiritual guide, Virgil White Buffalo. You can read the book to find more details, but Walt always solves any case he tackles.

D – T 4 P 3 M 5 B – 3 P 4 M 3

Mamba

A mamba is a venomous snake native to Africa – doesn’t sound like a tasty candy but it is. From the German company August Storck (who also make Toffifay and Werther’s Original), this is a very tasty fruit chew in the vein of Starburst. The flavors are cherry, lemon, strawberry, orange and raspberry. The launch in Germany was 1953 and in 1986 in the U.S. out of Chicago. Brenna and I both liked this one a whole lot as they actually tasted like the flavors they claimed to be while not gluing in to your teeth.

D – T 8 P 7 M 6 B – T 6 P 7 M 5

Milky Way

Nougat and caramel topped with milk chocolate, this is the flagship of the Mars Candy Company. This went on sale starting in 1924. While Franklin Mars started the company, it was his son Forrest who came up with this immediate winner. In 2008, Mars bought the Wm. Wrigley Jr. Company and the packaging gives the company location as Hackettstown, NJ. This was Brenna’s benchmark candy (we both thought the candy was lumpy hence the low presentation scores – maybe too harsh).

D – T 5 P 3 M 4 B – T 5 P 2 M 5

Nerds

Originally made in 1983 by Wonka, this is now yet another candy under the Ferrara umbrella. There are two flavors in each box – we went with grape and strawberry. Looking at the ingredients, frankly it is basically made from sugar and wax with some flavoring and color (since they start out white). The flavors range from very sweet to very sour. In the 1950 Dr. Seuss book If I Ran The Zoo, he speaks of sailing to Ka-Troo to bring back a Nerd among other strange creatures. I liked the flavoring better than Brenna.

D – T 6 P 4 M 5 B – T 3 P 4 M 3

Now & Later

Well here we again reach the bottom of the barrel and yet after reading about the candy online I have to wonder if the batch we bought was old and not representative of the brand. Frankly the ones we had were hard as rocks and we couldn’t even eat them. Supposedly this Ferrara product is chewy so who knows. The Phoenix Candy Co. of Brooklyn, NY originally developed it in 1962 and one has to wonder if the ones we ate (nearly) were that old. Nice packaging at least which gets the “good personality” award.

D – T 1 P 6 M 1 B – T 2 P 5 M 1

Owyhee Cherry Cocktail

Owyhee County, ID is where the Idaho Candy Co. creates this confection. They make the Idaho Spud Bar which is chocolate and coconut covering marshmallow, but we went for their cherry bar which has ground peanuts rather than coconut. It was developed in 1926 by this Boise, ID company. Brenna chose this as her favorite of the chocolate candies while I didn’t like that it stuck to my teeth.

D – T 2 P 3 M 3 B – T 7 P 6 M 7

Post Fruity Pebbles

According to their website, “This Fruity PEBBLES™ Candy Bar is loaded with cereal and bursting with bright colors and flavors. It tastes just like the fruity milk in your Fruity PEBBLES ™ cereal bowl.” Likely the white color is supposed to evoke milk which is an ingredient along with sugar, oil and rice cereal. It is like a sweeter version of a Crunch Bar without a chocolate taste. If you love Fred Flintstone than you will love the packaging. If you don’t know, Pebbles was the child of Fred & Wilma Flintstone in the old cartoon.

D – T 4 P 4 M 5 B – T 4 P 4 M 3

Raindrops Crunchy Chewies

These candies made in the Netherlands are labeled as Kosher on the packaging. Further info is that they are from Raindrops Enterprises of N. Miami Beach, FL. who specialize in gummy candy and was started by Abraham Gilinski. They looked like Nerds, but turned out to be very chewy (while Nerds are crunchy) with little flavor plus packaging that once you open can’t be resealed.

D – T 2 P 1 M 2 B – T 2 P 1 M 3

SweeTARTS

This sweet and sour candy was invented in 1962 as basically a hard pressed version of the powder in Pixy Stix. It started out as part of the Sunline brand then Nestle took it over and then was acquired by Ferrero SpA (Ferrara in the U.S.). It comes in several flavors including cherry and grape. We didn’t like any of them – sorry (though in fairness, the RNR Dental Assistant Meagan loves them along with Pixy Stix so if you like sour candy this is for you).

D – T 2 P 3 M 5 B – T 1 P 2 M 2

3 Musketeers

This is the classic bar made by the Mars-Wrigley Confection Company in Hackettstown, NJ introduced in 1932. It is basically the Milky Way without the sticky caramel which is why I prefer it. You get whipped mousse (there is a joke there – you insert it) with a chocolate outer layer. The name was derived from the fact that at first the candy came in three pieces with each being a different flavor – strawberry, vanilla & chocolate. The first two flavors were eliminated because of restrictions during WW II. Us Boomers remember Buffalo Bob on the Howdy Doody Show trying to get us to nag our parents to buy it for us (and it must have worked for this Boomer as it became my fave).

D – T 5 P 5 M 5 B – T 3 P 4 M 3

Valomilk

Made by the Russell Sifers Candy Company of Merriam, KS, this was apparently created as a sweet accident in 1931 when they added too much vanilla to marshmallow and it refused to set. Rather than toss it, they filled some chocolate cups and had a tasty treat. VA(nilla)(marshma)LOMILK(chocolate) is how the name came about. We both liked it, but thought the packaging was harder to open.

D – T 6 P 2 M 5 B – T 4 P 2 M 4

Whozeewhatzit

The folks at Hershey make this candy. This is the newest candy here debuting in 2021 with this tongue twisting name the winner in a contest. According to the wrapper, Lisa M. from Framingham, MA won $5000 for this name. It is peanut butter, cocoa crisps and chocolate – essentially a rebranded Thingamajig bar that went away in 2012. They also make Whatchamacallit – does anybody like these terrible names?! The flavor didn’t nail either of us that much while I liked the crunchy texture more than Brenna.

D – T 2 P 3 M 4 B – T 3 P 3 M 2