I will make up for my inability to eat fresh watermelon with an assortment of artificial watermelon flavored foodstuffs! These are definitely better than the lemonade dots. There is only one flavor here: watermelon. Just like the watermelon La Croix, the flavor is strong, bright, and candy-esque. Well, these are candy, so that makes sense, but it's like a chewy version of a watermelon jolly rancher. And they are very cute, also.
Overall
Cost: 5/10
Taste: 7/10
It's a rough time for seasonal snacks right now, since almost everything is AMERICA-themed. But not these artificially colored and flavored dots!! Lemonade is good, and dots are good, so that's fun. The flavors aren't actually that good here though. Ah well.
Limeade: Mostly tastes like cleaning product, but smells good. 6/10
Strawberry Lemonade: Just a strawberry dot with a weird top. 6/10
Lemonade: See above re: limeade -- not as good as the OG "lemon". 6/10
Blue Raspberry Lemonade: Now we're talking. This tastes exactly like a raspberry lemonade, weird blue flavor and all. 7/10
Cherry Lemonade: Is that a thing? Well, this is just a cherry dot with a weird top. Sad! 6/10
Overall
Cost: 6/10
Taste: 6/10
In honor of Dunkin Pumpkinning today, behold, some halloween candy. These are smaller than your typical blow pop, which is probably for the best, although it means a greater gum-to-pop ratio, so maybe not. Anyway, they're nut free, but packed with artificial flavors/colors. I always hated the bottom wrapping, but I do admit it keeps things neater than a top-only wrap. The problem with a blow pop is it ends in a small, boring piece of gum, which isn't anything I want to blow. Or pop. I'm so used to tootsie pops that I'm sure one of these days I'm gonna accidentally swallow it. Hazards of the trade, I guess.
Extreme Lemonade: Hells yeah, two super lemonade flavored sweets in a row (after yesterday's fruit-by-the-foot). Tastes exactly the same, some very strong sweet & sour lemon cleaning flavor. I love it. The color of this (puce with pink shining through) is not super appealing, but I suppose it's spooky. 7/10
Blue Razzberry: Happy to report this is a normal blue hard candy color. Tastes just like a blue raspberry dum-dum(&etc), which is to say, pretty good. A little bit of tart complexity beyond pure sweetness (that must be the razz of it all). I don't really get the spooky tie-in to these flavors, but that's OK. 7/10
Black Cherry: No cute name effectz for this one? Ah well. Usually I don't like cherry flavored things (because they lean medicinal), but this tastes just like a cherry icee. Not that I LOVE a Cherry Icee, but it is a rare happy treat (associated with The Movies, which I haven't been to in 5+ years now). Sweet, artificial, and red (even though the lolly is dark colored, purply maybe). Also quite similar to the Cherry Tootsie pop, for that matter. But a bit less sweet! 7/10
WhataMelon: This is probably the least compelling flavor, because it's just... watermelon. Tastes a little like I am in middle school and on summer vacation, although I'm not sure what's pinging that association. Vending machine candy, maybe? Those little sweet juice jugs? There's a slight sourness to this that keeps it interesting, and it if were a different type of -pop than blow, it'd be solidly Good. Not ever my top flavor, but good among watermelon! 6/10
Overall
Cost: 5/10 [6$]
Taste: 7/10
Tootsie sure produces a lot of mid products. But I still love them. Hope for us all!
Green Apple - It tastes very bad. Like overripe fruit, wax paper, and something uniquely sour. 3/10
Pumpkin Spice - This also tastes like bad artificial wax, or Jones soda. It's better than apple, but not good, either. 4/10
Candy Corn - This tastes like the vanilla (blue) OG tootsie flavor roll, which I like. Maybe a slight candy corn vibe. Pleasant. 6/10
Cinnamon - This was like a pleasant dessert. Tastes like dulce de leche cookies. 7/10
The ratio was horrible: I got 2 cinnamons, 4 candy corns, and like 5000 green apples and pumpkin spices. It's like they know what the bad ones are (like Starburst and their "mostly yellow" sticks). Interestingly the only flavor that's "natural" is green apple, the rest are artificial, and I never would have guessed that in a million years. Guess my supertaster gene is melting.
Overall
Cost: 5/10
Taste: 5/10
These are, strictly speaking, forbidden. But they're also, strictly speaking, really small. While we're speaking strictly, these are also a little bit gross. But just a little because they're small.
Meanwhile, I'm cultivating a little dietary restriction paradigm in my head. You've got physical restrictions (allergies, intolerances), ethical restrictions (veganism, kosherism), and then a scale of strength (death vs tummy aches) and temporal resolution (immediate consequences vs longterm consequences). It all adds up to a pretty cool chart that I will not bother to actually produce. But it's something I'm cultivating, OK? So even if the brain diet restrictions are potentially strong, the temporal resolution is long. It's like, yes maybe god will smite me, but it'll take so long that I won't even know if it's because I ate this bad Andes mint or if it was something else I did. Herein lies my defense to my future self (or family, weepily reading this blog as they say "It was the Andes mints that did it"). Thank you for your prompt attention.
Now then. These taste like malted milk balls. I do not know why. Also these are not mints, I shouldn't call them mints. But they aren't chocolate or toffee either. Or even crunch. I guess it's true that they are "thins". The taste is bad. The texture is identical to mint-Andes. The chocolate is worse than mint-Andes because of the weird artificial malt-toffee (and lack of mint). If you want to punish yourself (as I often do), these are perfect. The color makes them look like they'd be good. Sneaky.
Overall
Cost: 5/10
Taste: 4/10
Some of my best friends are caramel apple sugar babies. Anyway, a lot of the things I can eat it turns out I don't want to eat. Am I a picky eater, or are many things simply unpleasant? My self-image says the latter, but I'm honestly not sure. Stay tuned for more data, I guess. (In one of my current favorite pulpy gay TV shows, a character says "even a bad day brings good data", and that really resonated with me ♡)
So, as I'm sure you know, Tootsie is great for allergy stuff. These are also chocolate free, which is good because Tootsie chocolate is bad. However, their apple candy coating, and dare I say, their caramel? Also bad. The soft texture is good. Apple flavoring is fine (although kinda heavy). Is there any caramel flavor? Not really. Do these turn your mouth a murky green color? They do indeed. Will I buy them again? If I remember to check my archive of reviews first, the answer is no. (No, future me! No!)
Overall
Cost: 5/10
Taste: 5/10
Yooo. Tootsie is a great allergy-friendly company. I like Junior Mints. I like caramels. But if these are new and improved, I tremble at the thought of how they used to be. Basically, they taste nothing like caramel or chocolate. The overwhelming flavor note for me is artificial coconut flavor, which makes no sense because these have no artificial flavors and no coconut ingredients. Maybe the palm oil?? I really don't know, but it's not at all what I hoped for. The texture is fine though, very soft and chewable.
Overall
Cost: 6/10
Taste: 4/10
Although I am not a born Christmas celebrator, I like the gimmick of holiday things (and am open to foods related to winter holidays for other religious traditions also!!). I also, of course, like explicitly nut free candies, as all tootsie products are. Having gotten that out of the way, these are a little disappointing. The texture is great: a firm chew but not haribo level gnawing. The appearance is annoying: two flavors (both green/red hybrids) which are, as far as I can tell, identical to the eye! And it's not fun like a jelly bean, because these flavors are very different from each other. One is good (cherry, lime) on each pair, and the other (strawberry, apple) is much less so. Some weird vibes because the pairings also don't really "go" together. I think green apple is the only non-canonical dot flavor here, and it's nothing special. The lime, even though it's good, also sometimes has a funky rancid/bitter undernote. Eating these just makes me wish I had normal dots instead, Christmas be darned!
Overall
Cost: 6/10 [1.20$]
Taste: 6/10
I thought these were surprisingly good! They taste like the Healthy Choice Cherry Chocolate Chunk Ice Cream! (rip to a real one). The real cherries really help. Fun! No mint flavor here, just choco and cherry. Yay!
Overall
Cost: 5/10
Taste: 8/10
Aw, these are individually wrapped like candy bars, in red and green! Very cute and festive (and of course, nut free, which is why we love Tootsie & Andes). This mint crunch flavor is not as good as the old Hershey Cookies and Mint bar, but the vibe evokes it. We have a normal andes mint, but bigger, with the top white part containing some "cookie crunch" bits. Alas, those bits are smaller and firmer than in Cookies And Mint, and the overall flavor is a much stronger "peppermint oil" than "chocolate". It's basically an andes mint but bigger and with a more interesting texture. However, I do love an andes mint, and it takes me down memory lane, so it is fun. If only there were a little bit less mint and a little bit more chocolate!
Overall
Cost: 5/10
Taste: 7/10
I like the regular fruit chews, especially the vanilla and a little bit the green and red ones. But these sour ones are sadly less good. For one thing, there's no vanilla, it's blue raspberry! And the main flavor note you get on 'em is just "sour". Plus, they hurt my lil teethies (and I'm due for two fillings)! Anyway, here's my tentative flavor ranking:
1. Red (cherry)
2. Yellow (lemon)
3. Orange (orange)
4. Blue (blue razz)
5. Pink (watermelon)
Overall
Cost: 5/10
Taste: 6/10
Wow. This really does look and feel exactly like cotton balls, which is a trip. It has a generic strawberry-candy flavor (like those strawberry wrapper hard candies). The texture isn't as smooth as normal cotton candy is though, it's more gritty/sugary. A novelty but not actually that great as a candy. Probably good for decorating cakes and whatnot though!
Overall
Cost: 6/10
Taste: 6/10
These are named for their creator (Andrew) which is cute. They are a prototypical mint: very tasty although not a "eat the whole box" kind of candy (unless you're in a dark, dark place). Refreshing and pleasant. A little weird if you give it a sniff, but on eating, a nice pliable mint-chocolate layered bar. I'm not sure if this is actually the original flavor, as the green wrapper is bluer/lighter than normal, but maybe it's just a redesign. If it is a different flavor, maybe it's slightly more minty(?) but otherwise very similar to the original. Ha.
Overall
Cost: 5/10
Taste: 7/10
This very charming box of candy touts that it contains "Real Junior Mints", which raises the question: is anyone is producing "fake junior mints"? (I don't think they are). In essence these are just regular junior mints. The peppermint crunch is a tiny bit of crushed peppermint pieces (crushed very finely) sprinkled on the outsides only. So the taste is really not changed at all, and the texture only slightly cronchy. I like junior mints and irrelevant holiday repackagings, so this is pretty good for me. Refreshing little snack for a winter's day (even when sick)!
Overall
Cost: 6/10
Taste: 7/10
This is a good candy! Nut free, of course, but also tasty and fun. There are 5 flavors, but weirdly they aren't the same 5 as regular dots. I think my ranking goes:
Lemon: These are best. They are the same lemon as regular, with a sour coating, and it makes them taste like lemon wedges or chuckles. Good!
Red: Cherry? These are also the same as regular, decent, but actually I may prefer basic red to sour red.
Green: These are apple, which is a change from the OG lime. And a sad change, because sour lime would probably be amazing, much like the lemon. But it is still pretty good, nice sour apple chew.
Orange: These are the same as original, but not my top either way. Fine basic candy.
Grape: These are new and weird therefore. Definitely grapey, and the most unique of the flavors -- like a Welch's gummy. I just don't like grape flavored things much, but if you do, you'll probably enjoy it.
Overall, all are solid. Would cut my tongue up on these bad boys again!
Overall
Cost: 6/10
Taste: 8/10
I always assumed the milk choco version of these would be significantly better than the dark choco version, but to be honest, I didn't get a huge difference! They're both just extremely sweet. The chocolate here is maybe a little softer, and they're still nut free and cute, but the overwhelming sweetness and low quality chocolate (sorry Tootsie) means that these aren't my favorite candy, alas. My parents got me these though, and that's very sweet of them.
Overall
Cost: 5/10
Taste: 6/10
These are good! I always like Andes mints because they are mint and they are safe. They're always better than I remember them to be. This flavor is kind of like the Hershey's candy cane kisses, which are good, but not as amazing as the Boscovs pastel mints or the cookies n' mint bar (my two mint chocolate holy grails, pre-this-blog, sadly). Very minty and sweet, and a fun Christmastime change up. I think I still prefer the original, but these are solid and nice to have just one or two at a time.
Overall
Cost: 6/10
Taste: 7/10
I regret to inform you that "delicious" is not quite accurate for these bad boys. Nut-free, and inexpensive, these are the good qualities of Sugar Baby. But the texture! Oh, they are firm. Firmer than a milk dud, which is already too firm. RIP my teeth. I realised too late that these aren't chocolate covered, they're "candy covered", which is basically "firm shell of firmness covered". Other candy (junior mint, andes, rolo) is better, and I was a fool to buy this. I still ate them all though.
Overall
Cost: 7/10
Taste: 5/10
Gotta love Tootsie for their nut free-ness, even going so far as to put a nut-free logo on the box. This is a pretty good candy as candies go, it's quite sweet with a good soft texture. I believe my ranking is red > pink > yellow > green > orange, with the red and pink buckets above (like starburst!).
Overall
Cost: 6/10
Taste: 7/10
Ah, these are a classic in my family, because my dad likes 'em. Or at least I hope he does, because at Christmas he always got between 10-30 boxes. Nowadays he gets less because we have fewer family members, but it's still a tradition! I typically steal a few for myself because there are so many, even though I don't especially like them. I'd much rather have a truffle, for instance!! But, these are a Tootsie (subsidiary?) product, and they have that nice peanut-free logo on them, which I appreciate more and more every year. They're very very sweet, and the inside has an ice-cream cherry with about a teaspoon of sugary goo. I don't love dark chocolate but maybe I'd prefer the milk chocolate if I ever had 'em. Either way, these are a pleasant treat but I certainly wouldn't want hundreds of them!
Overall
Cost: 6/10 (About 4$ a box at Weis)
Taste: 7/10
