Kit Kat Chunky review

Another Friday, another regular review. Please enjoy one of my favorites today with a look at Kit Kat Chunky.


Walking the Candy Aisle rates Kit Kat Chunky - 5 / 5

Kit Kat is a Nestle product (except in the US where its made under the Hershey company's Reese imprint). For more on Kit Kat please check out their site http://www.kitkat.com/  and of course you can always watch the classic original Kit Kat review right here! Stay tuned for more next time :)

The Big Bar Line Up - Dove and Godiva

Today we're back with the Big Bars, and we're starting to run through them now. I think probably one more post'll do it. For now though we're looking at the small entry into the big bar market by Godiva and Dove.

Starting with Dove, I should say I have a weird thing about them. I think the only time I've ever eaten a dove bar was for a review here on the site. No you didn't miss it. Although I shot the review it is one of the handful of 'lost' Candy Aisle episodes. And since I never got to officially review it, I feel kind of mixed about it. Maybe these big bars are the way to go though. Lets have a look at their offerings.

Yup. That's nothing to write home about. I mean I'm sure its all fine, but they could add some variety to the mix couldn't they? Are these the bars that will sell the most? Seems like these are the most generic ideas they could find. Maybe I'm cynical though.... I guess I just don't see why someone is buying this over a Lindt or something else right beside it.

At least Godiva has a very specific type of chocolate eater in mind. They are playing directly into the dark chocolate and gourmet chocolate connoisseur world. Something I admittedly know very little about... (I'm an everyman here people). Anyhow, lets have a look at what they've got.

One Milk variety, and then its right into the Dark.

Frankly I'm a little surprised that they don't have anything higher than 85%. Those are already serious bars and I certainly don't think I could handle anyting stronger... but those dark chocolate aficionados can be very demanding.  This is at least in part probably a good alternative to the Lindt offerings though.


Anyhow, next time we'll pick up the remainder big bars for a final post on this topic. Until then I'll see you in the aisle.

Crunchie review

We're back again with more UK Chocolate up for review, today it's time to look at a favorite of mine, the infamous Crunchie.


Walking the Candy Aisle rates Cruchie - 5 / 5

Great stuff! this is one you really have to check out. For more on Crunchie please check out Cadbury's site http://www.cadbury.co.uk/ And for more reviews, please check out our library of over 100 reviews on the aptly named Reviews Page. And if you're interested in allof the 5 star candy we've looked at have a gander on our YouTube page for the best of the best, and please while you're there Subscribe :)

Aero Mint review

Today we get back to basics with a review of the Aero Mint bar.


Walking the Candy Aisle rates Aero Mint - 4 / 5

Aero is of course a Nestlé product and as such you can learn all about it on the interwebs at http://www.aerochocolate.co.uk/, they are also in the Book.

Jelly Belly Ice Shaver and more!

It was just about a year ago that I posted about seeing the Jelly Belly Electric and Manual Ice Shavers in my local Target. Well, now that Summer 2013 is ramping up it looks like the ice shavers are back, and now with accessories! I spotted this at the local Wal-Mart this past weekend.

Interesting that last year they only had the single ice shaver, and now they've got a double, but I think it probably makes more sense if they're trying to sell this as a party novelty. I mean who wouldn't want a Jelly Belly Snow Cone?

Looking at the back we get a few bullet points on the device. Although I see it has two syrup dispensers I don't think you can make two different kinds of snow cones at once.

It wasn't until I went to Target the next day that I actually saw the original single nozzle electric shaver and the old manual shaver... so archaic.

I also saw these at Wal-Mart.

Of course you can buy extra cups sold separately.... sigh. I guess the hard plastic ones with the curly straws are the way to go for long term use; but how on earth are you going to stack those in your cupboard?

Now this is the most interesting thing to me. This is not part of the snow cone experience. This is in fact a way to make Jelly Belly freezies. Or popcicles, or icees, or Mr Freeze, or whatever you call them in your neck of the woods. (I guess here we should call them Lickety Sips (tm)). There were instructions on the inside of the wrapper but since I didn't buy it it I can't be sure of the process. I'd have to guess though that they suggest using the same syrup you make the Snow Cones out of and mix it with water then freeze. I'm interested in this though since I've always been partial to popcicles.

Finally we've got the flavors.

For some reason Wal-Mart didn't have the Berry Blue. I thought perhaps it had been discontinued but the I saw it at Target the next day.

I'd love to see more in this realm. How about some more uniquely Jelly Belly varieties? Where's my Tutti Frutti, wheres my Marshmallow, and yes I'm even saying where is my Buttered Popcorn?

If you start making those then you may just have a sale on your hands. Until then I think I'll keep walking down the aisle.

Fry's Turkish Delight review

Today we continue our look at all things UK candy with another, yes ANOTHER chocolate Turkish Delight bar.... I can't believe there are two either. Full of Eastern promise here is Fry's Turkish Delight.


Walking the Candy Aisle rates Fry's Turkish Delight - 2 / 5

As I mentioned in the video this is a Cadbury product, for more on this and all things Cadbury please check out their home on the web at http://www.cadbury.co.uk/

Be sure to stay with us here at the Candy Aisle for new UK Candy reviews every Tuesday, and other reviews every Friday. Or for all of our past reviews check out the Reviews Page.

Godiva Gold Ballotin review

Here we go again with another interesting review for you. Today we've got a look at Godiva's most popular offering the Gold Ballotin box.


Walking the Candy Aisle rates the Gold Ballotin - 4 / 5

For more on all things Godiva please visit them on the web at http://www.godiva.com/

The Big Bar Line Up - Ritter Sport

Today we continue looking at the so called Big Bars in the candy aisle with a step into the interesting world of Ritter Sport.

This is a bit of a weird one. Firstly, Ritter Sport is a German, in fact it may be the most widely spread commercially available pure German chocolate. Despite their reputation alongside the Swiss and French for some of the best chocolate in the world the Germans don't export too much prepackaged chocolate, and other than Kinder (which is actually the German arm of Italian chocolatier Fererro) I believe Ritter is the German chocolate seen here in Canada most often.

The word "Ritter" mean nobility in German, and the "Sport" comes from the fact that the creator apparently wanted a bar that could fit easily into the breast pocket of a sports coat. So all of the Ritter Sports feature the same form factor, small and square. In fact they've really run with the 'square' angle in their marketing. Small is a bit of a misnomer too because despite being square Ritters are thick and on a whole s good, so rich, and so creamy that a bar is more than enough. Really I couldn't imagine eating a whole bar of Ritter at once anyhow, they are just such a delicacy.

While Ritter Sport bars are found in Canada the States and lots of other countries they are often not found precisely in the Big Bar section of the store. They are more commonly seen in their own display pop up.

This may seem excessive, and I'm sure it costs an arm and a leg to send these out to the stores, but what great marketing. You may see pop ups for other chocolates at certain seasonal times of year but Ritter Sports are in these all the time, and it makes them stand out like no other. That said, maybe because of the investment in floor space, you might not find a Ritter pop up in your local 7-11. If you can find them, you should find a lot of them, and a lot of different varieties, but sometimes finding that pop up at all can be tricky.

I've only reviewed one Ritter Sport before here on the Candy Aisle, the Ritter Sport Espresso, which now that I look for it I can't seem to find in real life again. Please check out my review of that right here. But now lets have a look at the line up for Ritter Sport, here in the Great White North.

Starting with a few simple flavors Ritter is known for rich and creamy chocolate.

And then they've got the specialty Dark Chocolate.

And the specialty Milk Chocolate.

They've got a few nut mixes too. It seems like Ritter specializes in really good basic mixes, and I think that serves them well.

They all seem like sort of simple ideas, but these next ones are unique, especially on any mass scale.

Definitely interesting stuff here. Finally here are two flavors I think might be unique to Ritter. Not that they're so revolutionary, in fact I think they're great ideas that maybe should be obvious, but I can't think of anyone else to really feature these flavors in this kind fo form factor. Like I said, its very interesting.

Although I know there are more out there. In fact the Ritter Sport website lists something like 30 different flavors available, these are all the ones I see commonly here in Canada. Let me know if you've got a favorite Ritter Sport flavor or have anything totally off the wall from them in your neck of the woods. I'm hoping to review a few more of these soon on the Candy Aisle.

Thanks for joining me, and I hope you'll stay tuned for another look at the candy aisle big bars soon.

Philly Chocolate

I'm just not sure this is really necessary...

I mean I like chocolate as much as the next guy. Heck probably more so.... but really...

In a way I get it. Its not much different than eating Nutella. BUT I don't eat Nutella for breakfast, and I do eat cream cheese, so putting this in a breakfast setting seems wrong somehow. ANDis it really such a far stretch from cream cheese with lox to cream cheese with chocolate. I mean cream cheese with fish included is a little grosser than chocolate on an intellectual level, yet that doesn't bother me.

I suppose to each their own. Enjoy it if you get it, and let me know how it tastes in the comments. I think for my money though, I'll pass.

Thorntons Strawberry Flavour Fondant Pig review

Today on the Candy Aisle Thornton's has struck back again for our ongoing series of reviews on UK and British candy. Please today check out this look at the Strawberry Flavour Fondant Pig.


Walking the Candy Aisle rates Thornton's Strawberry Flavored Fondant Pig - 4 / 5


Thornton's is an independent chocolatier and can be found on the net at http://www.thorntons.co.uk/

Please stick around the blog for more. Regular reviews up every Friday and UK candy reviews up on Tuesday, Until next time, why not watch my old review for the Thornton's Vanilla Fondant Mouse.

Awake review

We've got an interesting one up for review today. It's the new caffeinated chocolate bar: Awake.


Walking the Candy Aisle rates Awake - 2 / 5

For more on all things Awake please check out their website http://www.awakechocolate.com/. Let me know what ou think about caffeine infused chocolate in the comments.

M&Ms ads - the 90s

A few weeks ago I posted a long and involved post talking about some of the evolution of M&M advertising on television. I encourage you to go read that post first. It was really fun writing the post since I got to parse through a ton of my favorite old M&M ads. Today I thought I'd follow up with the next part of the story and have a look at the more modern M&M ads of the 90s.

M&Ms themselves are really fascinating, and the ads have gone through a lot of changes over the years. But the 90s are characterized by some really dense advertizing. The M&Ms were becoming legitimate stars in their own right, and the advertizing and products went in a number of interesting directions. When last we left off the year was 1992 and M&M had just celebrated their 50th anniversary, and introduced both Peanut Butter and Almond varieties. And just to note the ads I'm really talking about here are all centered around the M&Ms characters, not the commercials with just humans :)

As I said, M&Ms were so popular now that they really seem to have had multiple ad campaigns running concurrently. In some cases you could still find old 80s style M&M commercials featuring M&Ms in pure cartoon settings.



But M&Ms also in the late 80s into the early 90s created a lot of commercials without their mascots entirely. I'm not sure if these were meant to appeal more to adults since they obviously at some point realized the true value of the mascots and basically stopped doing commercials without them, but its interesting nonetheless.

Additionally they made the big transition around this era. It was becoming more and more common to see the M&Ms interacting with real humans. And often not just any humans but celebrities.


That's Daisy Fuentes, model and MTV VJ.



And the incomparable Robert Pastorelli of Murphy Brown fame.

Also since I forgot to mention it earlier M&Ms started featuring Christmas and Easter seasonal bags in 1986. They had pastel colored seasonal M&Ms for Easter-time, and red and green for Xmas.

 

And...

 

Here's my absolute favorite Christmas one :)



Probably the next big innovation to M&Ms came in 1995 when they ran a campaign to vote on the next new color of M&M to be introduced.



The vote was actually to replace the tan colored M&Ms which were being discontinued. As you can see from the funny ads below featuring Wings star Steven Weber and the M&Ms the winner was a new favorite of mine, Blue.



And here's another funny one.



Interesting as far as I can tell Blue was not as of yet associated with a specific flavor, unless it was Almond. Its hard to determine exactly when that happened.Currently all of the different M&M colors are associated with certain flavors, but I don't think that was always the case.

Moving on though, in 1996 M&Ms decided to branch out again, this time with M&M minis.



These little guys have been giving Red and yellow a hard time ever since.Its funny, the Minis are kind of like a cross between a swarm of kiler bees and a crazed Looney Tunes character.

Here's a great example of the kind of pranks the Minis pull.



And I know this is skipping ahead a bit but I love these Mini commercials from the early 2000s as well and they fit into this same category :)



Yeah, of course Red rides the bus.



I LOVE this one. Talk about Looney Tunes!



And of course this is a great example of Red and Yellow just getting tossed around. Pretty typical stuff for the era.

Now it gets a bit tricky around this part but by the late 90s both Ms Green and Orange had also been established as M&M personalities. Unlike Blue these were soft and ongoing changes to character since both colors had been around for quite a while.

Starting with Green, lets have a look at some of her early appearances. She is of course the first woman M&M and they really played up the sexy angle. I mean A LOT.



She's also always had a real air of celebrity to her.



Was that inappropriate? I'm honestly not sure how to take it. Now I know this one is from much more recently, but how about this...



And then of course there's this one final one, my personal favorite.



Now that's pretty funny.

When Green was introduced she was associated loosely with Dark Chocolate, but now she reps for Peanut Butter, Mint, and Coconut. Although with that I have to wonder why Orange isn't on Peanut Butter anymore?

Orange on the other hand is the neurotic part of the M&M gang. He got a personality pretty early on but it wasn't until the introduction of Crispy M&Ms in 1999 that he found a calling and got his own full ad campaign. Here's a great ad with Orange and Halle Berry.

 

Love it. This guys always cracked me up and I wish they would've found more for him to do in those early days. While I liked Crispy M&Ms (they were discontinued Stateside in 2005) after the initial burst there wasn't much advertizing support for them. And so it wasn't until Pretzel M&Ms came along much later that Orange got a chance to shine again. For now though lets look at a few more ads featuring Orange from the late 90s.



Talk about neurotic.



That's another really fun one. And finally lets have one with your friend and mine Patrick Warburton.



Oh Puddy...

As the M&Ms launched into the 2000s they were of course the official spokescandy of the  Millenium. And yes they may have been a bit early on it...



And what do the M&Ms get paid anyhow?



Oh Red and Yellow... you really can't help but love these guys. By this point they've fully developed the Laurel and Hardy routine and are just riffing some great jokes.

And once the M&Ms got into the new Millennium properly things got even bigger for them. While other companies like MacDonalds the cereal companies had tougher and tougher times selling the public on their cutesy characters, M&Ms simply didn't. Their focus on fun, and funny irreverant evolving humor made them stand out and become even bigger stars that any reasonable person would've thought possible. These guys are up there with the biggest spokespeople in the world, and its great to see how they continue to work in a modern setting.

Next time we'll delve into the M&Ms megastardom of the 2000s. Until then, lets not forget how great the candy actually is. Great candy and some stellar advertizing. Its certainly a winning combination.

Starbar review

Today we continue our look at UK candy with the Starbar.


Walking the Candy Aisle rates Starbar - 5 / 5

This is a fantastic candy bar and I think everyone ought to give it a shot. For more on the Starbar please visit Cadbury's page dedicated to the bar right here.