It’s not easy to find innovation in mints nowadays. How many different round mints in rectangular tins can the market sustain, really? That’s why I was so pleased to stumble on the “Great Bite” product line. They have some of the coolest packaging and product shapes I’ve come across in a while. The tins, the round sour packs, the Tic-Tac-like packs - all have a “bite” taken out of them and so do the candies themselves.

The mint tins are your typical Altoids tin shape and size, but the top left portion of the tin is bitten off. Each mint inside is about the size of a Life Saver (with no hole) and a portion of the mint is bitten off too. This theme continues across the whole product line. The mints (and tins) come in peppermint, spearmint, and orange and all taste great except the peppermint - it has a strong licorice taste to it that even my seven year old daughter picked up on (which isn’t good if you dislike the flavor of licorice). The orange was especially tasty and hits you immediately with a strong orange kick.

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I first ran into Popsters at this year’s All Candy Expo. As I walked by I grabbed a sample and was blown away. Popsters are mini caramel popcorn balls coated with milk chocolate, dark chocolate, or a peanut butter. The mini popcorn balls range from roughly the size of a whopper to the size of a jellybean. They aren’t skimpy with the coating and the ratio of coating to popcorn is just right. The popcorn adds a nice flavor and crunch to the Popsters.

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There has been a lot of news in the world of candy in June. Here’s a quick summary of all the news with links to the press releases and a quick comment on each:

• Introducing Cotton Candy - With New Awesome Flavors! - Cotton candy in Hot Tamale and Mike and Ike flavors
• New M&M’S® Ice Cream Treats Bring Colorful Fun to the Freezer - M&Ms plus ice cream = yum!
• Special Edition The Dark Knight Reese’s and Kit Kat Fly Into Stores To Celebrate Debut of Highly Anticipated New Batman Film - limited edition Batman candy!
• Sugar Free Fruit Stripe Gum - I wonder if the flavor lasts longer than 3 minutes?
• My M&M’S® Faces Make Any Moment Picture Perfect - put your face on M&Ms!
• Schakolad Says “It is polite to play with chocolate…” - interactive chocolate parties
• Dale and Thomas Popcorn Debuts Popsters® at 2008 Fancy Food Show - I’ve tried these and they’re fantastic - here’s our review of Popsters
• MIKE AND IKE® Lemonade Blends™ Presents $100,000 To Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation - great company and great charity. Kudos to Just Born!
• The Hershey Company Provides Sweet Support For Team U.S.A. with “Taste Of Victory” Promotion - USA! USA! USA!
• Jelly Belly Fans Invited to Create New Jelly Bean Flavor! - Candy Addict mentioned in the press release! Holy cow! Girly Beans
• The Hershey Company Turns Back Time To Introduce New Young & Smylie Premium Soft Licorice - old licorice brand is back

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We recently reviewed Loud Truck Gummies and found them to be quite tasty and full of vitamins and energy. As a special treat for our Candy Addict readers, Loud Truck has given us some great Loud Truck items to give away. We have some Loud Truck Gummies, a green Loud Truck ballcap, and a green long-sleeve Loud truck t-shirt. (The hat and t-shirt are AWESOME and I wish I could win them.)

So here’s the deal - we’ll have two winners - one will win Loud Truck Gummies and the ballcap, one will win Loud Truck Gummies and the t-shirt. To enter, email us at DELETED with a subject of Loud Truck Gummies Giveaway (if you do not use the correct subject, your entry will not be counted). In the email, put your Candy Addict username (if you don’t have one, register to be a Candy Addict user), the email you used to register on Candy Addict, and the name of the country that the guarana used in Loud Truck Gummies comes from (you can find this on the Loud Truck Gummies website).

Send this email to us by midnight EST on Sunday, June 29th. Two winners will be chosen at random from all correct entries.

The fine print
Prizes can be sent to US addresses only. Entrants must be 18 years of age or older. One entry per person, per email address. Offer void where prohibited. Not responsible for lost, misdirected, or unread e-mail. If you don’t reply to the winning email in 2 days, your prize will be forfeit and we will choose another winner. Entries must be received no later than midnight EST on June 29, 2008. Two random entries will be chosen as winners from all correct entries.

• Loud Truck Gummies website
• Candy Addict review of Loud Truck Gummies

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If anyone missed my appearance on TV as a candy expert, it’s on YouTube now - take a look.

• Video of Candy Addict on CNBC [on YouTube]
• Recap of how it all came about (with pics)
• Photo gallery of being on CNBC
• Candy Addict review of CrackHeads Candy

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We’ve just added three more writers to our staff! Meet Laurie, Nick/Nico, and Robby:

From Laurie:

Hey all you out there in Internet Land! I’m Laurie, and I’ve been an all-around foodie and Candy Addict since childhood. I’ve been able to indulge the foodie side of my personality in my day job as a cookbook editor, and now I get to explore my Candy Addicted side as a writer for this fine website. Chocolate, gummies, weird ethnic candy with names I can’t pronounce – I love it all, and now I’ll be able to share it all with you, the reader! As the only Canadian currently writing for the site, I also hope to be able to provide some insight into the mysteries of Canadian candy. (Did you know Smarties are chocolate in Canada? Madness!)

From Nick/Nico:

My real name isn’t Nico, but he’s my enigmatic candy persona. More stylish than I, Nico sips cappuccinos and drives a black Lexus. When someone pays seven dollars for a 3 oz. chocolate bar, that’s him - not me. When someone thinks it’d be great to make coffee-flavored fudge for all his friends at midnight, that’s him - not me. And when someone jumped up and down about the chance to blog about sweets for the greatest candy site of the new millennium, that was… oh wait, that was me. Fact is, we’re both glad to be here, and I’m eager to read your comments about my toothsome explorations.

From Robby:

Salutations! (I like to use that word whenever I get the chance.) Candy and I go way, way back, and I have the dentist bills to prove it. As a kid, I adored candy for its innocence of flavor and the pure embodiment of fun. But as I grow older, I have come to be fond of candy in new ways, the way a bottle of wine gets better with age.

Candy for me is no longer about the taste (O.K., that’s a lie, but it’s not just about the taste). Candy is about biting into a Snickers and instantly I am three-years old, living in a yellow duplex in West Los Angeles, and my father has just handed me a piece of something and he says, “I know you’re just going to like this.” I love candy for its smells, textures, and associations, each piece I ever tried being an edible journal entry of what I was doing the moment I first tasted it, like when I discovered the flavor blue raspberry (swimming at Rancho Park’s city pool).

I look forward to sharing my memories, thoughts, and new experiences with you other awesome addicts out there and hope to get a taste of yours along the way.

Please welcome them to the staff and look for new candy articles from each of them soon!

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Making great looking letters and numbers with candy has been a problem in the past, but not so any more. Here is a product called Letter Ice (and the numbers are called, appropriately, Number Ice). They are silicone letter and number molds. They are great for ice, jello, butter, chocolate, shortbread cookies, muffins, lollipops, etc. I made some lemonade ice cubes with them and my daughter loved them and I made a “7″ cube to put in her drink on her 7th birthday.

I didn’t get to try making some candy with them - I’m more of a candy eater than a candy maker. The pictures on the website do make it look easy to do though. The only problem for me is that for me to spell CANDYADDICT I would have to do multiple batches (2 C’s, 2 A’s, 3 D’s) or buy multiple mold sets. The company is currently looking for a distributor so hopefully we will see these in stores soon.

• Letter Ice and Number Ice website

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Nestle/Wonka doesn’t have a lot on the way for us in 2008, but what they do have packs a punch:

• Wonka Giant Chewy Nerds - we reviewed Giant Chewy Nerds already and they are fan-freakin-tastic. In stores now for $0.69-$0.89.
• Wonka Tinglerz - Remember Nestle Buncha Crunch? They were small, bite-sized pieces (globs) of Nestle chocolate and crisped rice. Imagine those but now add in popping candy and you have Wonka Tinglerz. We tried them at the All Candy Expo and they were quite good. Look for a full review from us soon (we have pre-release bags of them in hand) and look for them in stores around the end of September, 2008 at a price of $0.69-$0.89 fro a 1.8 oz bag.
• Nestle Chunky Dark Giant - A 4.5 oz dark chocolate bar with peanuts and raisins and scored into four pieces. “Great to share.” Available end of September, 2008 for a retail price of about $1.29.

• Wonka at Candy Addict
• Nestle at Candy Addict
• nestle.com
• wonka.com

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Hershey’s has some great candy hitting stores during the rest of 2008. We’ve already reviewed some of them and thanks to Hershey and the All Candy Expo, we have samples of many of these so look for reviews of these soon. Here is some quick info on the upcoming candy from Hershey.

• Hershey’s Bliss™ – Hershey’s Bliss individually wrapped chocolates feature a smooth, creamy texture for an indulgent personal chocolate experience. Hershey’s Bliss is now available in Milk Chocolate, Dark Chocolate and Milk Chocolate with a Meltaway Center. Hershey’s Bliss chocolate will welcome Raspberry with Meltaway Center to its line in December 2008.
  Candy Addict’s review of Hershey’s Bliss
• Starbucks Chocolate™ – When coffee dreams, it dreams of chocolate.™ Distinctive, artistic and handcrafted, Starbucks Chocolate combines the highest quality chocolate with Starbucks® coffee, tea and coffeehouse flavors. Product offerings include: truffles, tasting squares, signature bars, and chocolate-covered coffee beans. Now available where groceries are sold.
  Candy Addict’s review of Starbucks Chocolate
• Twizzlers® Pull-n-Peel® Cinnamon Fire Candy – New hot cinnamon flavored Twizzlers offer consumers a bigger, bolder licorice flavor. Now available.
  Candy Addict’s review of Twizzlers® Pull-n-Peel® Cinnamon Fire Candy
• Reese’s® Select Clusters – Reese’s Select Clusters wrap pecans, peanuts, peanut butter and caramel in milk chocolate. Individually wrapped, Reese’s Select Clusters will be available in August 2008.
• Hershey®’s All Natural Extra Dark Chocolate with Pomegranate and Infused with Raspberry Flavor Assortment – Hershey’s Extra Dark delivers velvety smooth, rich dark chocolate from a select blend of cacao beans for just the right balance of taste, aroma and sweetness. The line will add two new flavors including Pomegranate tasting squares in June 2008 and a Raspberry-infused flavor assortment in December 2008.
• Cacao Reserve by Hershey’s® Truffle Crunch – The latest addition to the Cacao Reserve by Hershey’s chocolate line, Truffle Crunch delivers a three-layer tasting experience that begins with an intense outer layer of rich chocolate surrounding a silky center of creamy chocolate and delicate cacao bits from the heart of the cacao bean. It’s a deliciously unexpected flavor adventure in 35 percent Milk Chocolate and 65 percent Dark Chocolate. Available August 2008.
• Jolly Rancher® Doubles – A new twist on Jolly Ranchers, Jolly Rancher Doubles combines two bold Jolly Rancher flavors. Combinations include: Cherry-Orange, Grape-Apple and Blue Raspberry-Watermelon. Now available.
• Good ‘N Fiery™ Candy – A new twist on an old favorite. The Good ‘N Plenty® and Good ‘N Fruity® family will welcome a new member with a hot cinnamon flavor – Good ‘N Fiery. Available December 2008.
• Hershey®’s S’mores Snacksters® – The Hershey’s Snacksters line expands with the addition of Hershey’s S’mores Snacksters – a delicious combination of graham cracker cereal squares, mini marshmallows and Hershey’s Milk Chocolate chips housed in 100 calorie packages. Available June 2008.
• Ice Breakers BURN™ Mints – A new mint variety will join the Ice Breakers wellness line delivering a combination of flavors and ingredients designed to enhance the mind, body and spirit. The Peach-Mango flavored Ice Breakers BURN Mints provide a unique, tasty way to add the B complex vitamins of Thiamin, Niacin, B5 and B6 to the day. Available June 2008.
• Ice Breakers® Chewy Sours – New Ice Breakers Chewy Sours deliver an intense sour flavor and exhilarating mouth experience. The soft, chewy fruit-crystal center is wrapped in a crunchy candy shell. Sugar-free Ice Breakers Chewy Sours will be available in two flavors: Strawberry and Pomegranate Lemonade. Available June 2008.
• Ice Breakers® Ice Cubes® White Chewing Gum – The power of whitening gum will bring an extra blast to the cool cube shape of Ice Breakers Ice Cubes Chewing Gum. Frosted with a proprietary process, the sugar-free gum is an extra-cold, refreshing alternative to stick and shell gums. The cool cube shape, reflective of an ice cube, reinforces its refreshing, ultra-cold and now teeth-whitening benefits. Ice Breakers Ice Cubes White Chewing Gum will be available in Wintergreen Splash and Mango Kiwi Cooler flavors. Available December 2008.
• Breath Savers® Strong Mint Menthol and Energy Mint Caffeine – The popular and powerful Breath Savers Mints adds two new varieties. Breath Savers Strong Mint Menthol takes breath freshening to a new level while Breath Savers Strong Energy Mint Caffeine offers a “boast of energy” with a touch of caffeine. Available December 2008.

Reading through this list of upcoming candy from Hershey makes my mouth water!

• Hershey’s coverage at Candy Addict
• Review of Hershey’s Bliss
• Review of Starbucks Chocolate
• Review of Fire Twizzlers
• Hershey’s website

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While surfing the interwebs, I ran across this homemade video. Funny stuff. I thought for sure he was going down the Diet Coke and Mentos road but not so.

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