Halloween Candy - July 2023

Round 4 for Halloween Candy in July, and this year it’s not in August. How about that?

Like always, the grocery store chains seem to be the first ones out of the gate. The other week, I noticed the pallets out in the seasonal aisle. I snooped around and may or may not have torn away some of the plastic wrap in order to get a better look. Nothing really stood out, and the same old faithfuls appeared to be the standard course.

Not too much later, everything was out. Or maybe I was at a different store and it had been out for a while. Either way, I did find a few things that were new, or at least new to me.

Fortunately, the stuff of interest was varied, so I wasn’t left with a huge pile of just chocolate, or just gummies. The downside is that I can’t skip on taste testing after assuming all subsequent pieces of chocolate will taste like the same scented wax as usual. I didn’t really need to taste test anyhow, but I felt like they should be opened, and then once opened, I wasn’t going to just throw them away. Perhaps the remainders of the packages will end up disappearing into the compost pile, but one sample from each does need its time in the limelight.

Up first, is a new edition of Sour Patch Kids. It’s apple harvest this time, which is appropriate. The bros over at Leftover Pizza Club had a poll in their chat regarding the Apple vs Pumpkin debate, and Apple swept the results without much trouble. I’m okay with that, since seasonal Pumpkin is seldom the gourd in of itself but rather some nutmeg concoction. My only issue is that Cranberry reigns supreme, and a battle between that and Apple would be something I’d munch popcorn to.

And funny I’d mention that (aside from setting up my own foreshadowing and payoff) as one of the flavors here is indeed not just Cranberry, but Cranberry Apple. It brings me back to the juice, Crantastic, which is still Cran Apple since all juice is basically apple juice, except Apple Juice, which is made from pears for some reason. Well now it’s all corn syrup and bug shellac extract, but I meant back in the day. This is a nostalgia site after all.

The final two are Apple Cider and Caramel Apple. I can get behind the caramel one, but Apple Cider seems almost self-referential. Then again, maybe it is that elusive apple juice that is actually make from apples.

I’ll admit right now. I have no idea the first thing about Harry Potter. I recall watching the first movie and thinking one of the school teachers was played by Trent Reznor. I won’t listen to reason and believe otherwise, but that’s about the limit of my interaction. Around that time, I was teaching a summer school class in web design, and some of the kids were making fan websites. It was a sliver of time where the nerdy kid with the glasses became the class champion, whom all praised and looked up to. Before we praise this moment of table-turning justice, he let the power get to his head and started excluding those who couldn’t recite the rules to that broom-soccer game. We were so close to a utopia.

The candy is normal chocolate kisses with quotes on them. Some are sigils and house shields or something. The quotes are in a dialect too. “Oi’ ‘arry. Yer bloidy brum ees cheeten in the Queedeesh.”

Moving on…

The Gerry Delly chocolates are matched only by Lindt in their ability to rack up calorie counts without much effort on your part. The bite-sized nature is surely to blame, but so is the varying flavor assortment. You have to try them all.

The Fall Assortment is, again, three flavors, but this time only one is truly Fall themed. Caramel Apple is on point and nothing I have any issues with. However the other two are just regular chocolate and regular caramel. I’d be a little more lenient if they also had the fall wrappers, but no, it’s just the standard release. There’s no guarantee that these are even recent. For all we know, they are overstock from seasons past.

I’m not sure why I picked these up—it was probably just to pad the overall haul. I think I grabbed these either last year or the year before, and there’s nothing to distinguish them aside from the foil wrappers. Despite the graphics, they aren’t pumpkin flavored. But that’s actually the saving grace and would have been docked even more points if they were. It’s sort of a lose/lose scenario.

Now not everything need be a new flavor or novel gimmick. Sometimes just a new shape and color will do. In the case of HallowMallows, we have both and a nifty name to boot. There’s really two purposes for these: s’mores or just filling the entire brim of a mug full of hot cocoa.

It’s not really cocoa season, so these will surely be stale by the time it is. I probably shouldn’t have opened it. That was an oversight on my part. At least I still have unopened boxes of the Monster Cereal from last season. That will help with anything I make in mid-2024.

More Caramel Apple! I knew this was the year we finally move on past pumpkin. Sugar Babies are a candy that are sure to pull out any loose fillings in your mouth, but with some careful gumming, you can sort of dissolve them slowly. Being some sort of caramel anyway, I’m guessing they only needed to add an apple-flavored coating to complete the combo.

I do like the side-opening on the box. It’s in the same vein as the DOTS, in which you can close it after popping a few out. And on the topic of DOTS, we got the Ghost ones back, but let’s cross our fingers for the blood orange bats—and maybe the candy corn edition if we’re more into nostalgia than cuisine.