Lindt Lindor Peppermint Cookie review

Around Christmas I happened to come across the Lindt Lindor Peppermint Cookie chocolate and wanted to share my thoughts.

Take a look and see what you think?  If it is good as the original? If you are not subscribed yet head over to the youtube page and sign up for new reviews

Lindor Caramel with Sea Salt review

The number of Lindor seems endless and while I thought I had reviewed them all I came across a new (or perhaps one I just missed) recently and wanted to share my thoughts!

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Lindt Lindor Sea Salt review

Over the holidays I came across a Lindt treat I had not had before.  It was part of the festive special chocolates from Swiss Chalet (something my Canadian friends will know!)  Take a look and see what you think!

In case you missed it here are a few other Lindt videos.

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Lindt Lindor Caramel review

Here we've got yet another Lindor up for review, its the Lindor Caramel.


Walking the Candy Aisle rates the Lindor Caramel - 5 / 5

Yup, this one is great. Go get it!For more, please visit Lindt & Spruguli online at - http://www.lindt.com/swf/eng/products/lindor/

Lindt Lindor White Chocolate review

We've got a delicious one for you today. Its time to look at Lindt's Lindor White Chocolate.



Walking the Candy Aisle rates Lindt's Lindor White Chocolate - 5 / 5

Awesome! I know! For more on Lindt & Sprüngli please check out http://www.lindtusa.com/

The Big Bar Line Up - Wrapped

In case you missed it over the past month or so I posted an extensive look at some of the 'Big bar' chocolates available while walking the Candy Aisle here in Canada. I know it was more of a survey series but I liked all the pretty pictures and even just taking a closer look at them gave me a better understanding of what the various players are trying to achieve.

Does this mean I'll be eating more big bars down the line? I hope so. There are some really great offerings out there, especially from companies like Lindt and Ritter Sport. And hopefully that will translate here to the blog as well, in added reviews on some of the more interesting stuff.

For those who would like to check out the series of posts here they are in one handy dandy list:

Cadbury Dairy Milk

Hershey

Lindt

Ritter Sport

Dove and Godiva

Remainders

It seems like such a short list of posts but believe me it took a very long time to compile these lists with all the pictures involved.

I hope you do take the opportunity to go back and check out any of the posts you may have missed. They're fun looks at whats on the shelves right now. There's some great, and some definitely no so great looking stuff out there. Thanks for reading all :)

The Big Bar Line Up - Remainder

So if you've been following along with my series of posts on Candy Aisle Big Bars you know that we've covered a lot of ground. But there are really SO many more big bars that we could talk about. There are whole blogs out there that deal with this topic. Granted once you pass a certain point it seems like most of the big bars are more for the Fair-Trade, Whole Foods crowd than regular candy aisle walkers like myself. Now I know that there are a lot of chocolates out there for that market and its great, but I'm more interested in the everyday stuff. So what I've gathered here for today's post is a reasonable sampling of some of the remaining big sized candy bars I've seen some-what commonly around town, or at least in regular, popular stores.

I'm interested to know if I'm missing out on the one line of chocolates that I simply must try or at the least should have heard of, so if you've got something that I didn't cover in these posts, please feel free to let me know :)

Lets start with the two 'other' bars that in Canada you'll find everywhere.

Caramilk is fantastic. Just check out my review. So its no wonder that its a staple of the Big Bar section of every store here.

Neilson's Jersey Milk is an interesting one here in Canada. They are a Canadian company that's been around for just over a hundred years. As you might guess from a name like Neilson's Dairy, they make milk, and milk products. In Canada you can find them in the biggest national grocery chain (Loblaws) and these chocolate bars made by them most everywhere else as well. Jersey Milk chocolate is practically a Canadian institution. As a kid these were probably the most prevalent fun size candy in everyone's bag at the end of Halloween night. The company has a longstanding relationship with Cadbury Canada, even owning their Canadian operations for a decade or so. A few of Cadbury's Canadian chocolate bars like Mr. Big and Crispy Crunch even were sold under the Neilson logo for a time. Jersey Milk, along with the others were all sold back to British Cadbury in the late 90s and this bar is now produced by them (only it retains the Neilson branding). I haven't personally had one of these in quite a while, and I'm looking forward to reviewing it soon!

Now these next two are new but they're very heavily "candy bar" influenced, and the kind of thing you'd see in any regular candy aisle, so I thought I should mention them now.

Who knows if wither of these bars will stick around, but I'm interested in trying them. Sometimes the form factor can really matter. I think both of these could be significantly different in this larger form.

Here's a weird one right?! I can't say that I've ever seen a straight up Nestle Dark chocolate bar before... but here it is. Straight from the local dollar store (meaning it could be an import) with honey and almond pieces. Very interesting.

Talk about BIG bars, that's a 400gm bar! Although I'm not familiar with Waterbridge this is one of a few things I saw at Wal-Mart.This is apparently their Belgian style chocolate while this next Mountain Range themed line is Swiss.

I found the Waterbridge Mountain Range line up at my local Lowes and think simply based on packaging alone that I'd prefer to go with it than the Belgian Style ones I saw earlier.

Here we have another Canadian institution found in the Dollarama :( Laura Secord are not known for having big chocolate bars in stores however so I don't feel too bad. Somehow this must have slipped into production and ended up here. Laura Secord is known for having almost boutique 200 chocolate retail locations across Canada. They are a really wonderful very high quality chocolatier perhaps best known for boxed chocolates and I'm certainly planning on getting some of their stuff onto the site here soon!

Here's two that I know virtually nothing about at all... Although that Heritage bar sounds alright. Apparently Jacquot is a very well regarded French chocolate, and the only thing I can see online about Heritage is a listing for something produced by Mars Canada... which doesn't seem like the same thing as this...

Another Dollarama special the Rocher Blanc comes in Milk and Dark and has nice packaging. I believe its French, but can't bank on that.

Cote D'Or is a brand I'm not too familiar with, but I've got something from them in the works for a review soon. All I can say is that I found these two Dark Chocolate beauties at a grocery chain called Metro here in Canada, and I LOVE their little elephant logo. Adorable.

PC is a brand every Canadian will be familiar with. If you want more info just check out this post for some thoughts of mine on the line. Probably not something I'd buy, but I knew this had to exist somewhere...

Next up we're going into the world of Fair-Trade. Here is a line of chocolates that I've been told are very good. This is the Canadian chocolate brand Camino.

I'm not one to go in for Fair-trade stuff too often since I don't feel like I can justifiably afford the cost, but since this is a well respected Canadian brand I thought I should mention them. And hey lets not forget, Cadbury's Dairy Milk is also officially Fair-Trade.

There's are LOTS of environmentally friendly brands out there nowadays. How about these ones:

Endangered Species Chocolates, with the very desirable website http://chocolatebar.com/ have exactly the story you'd expect... 10% of proceeds, all organic, not fair-trade (but this is about the animals not the people or financial equity), and all the other good stuff you want from your socially responsible chocolate company :/

I should probably stop talking about this stuff, since I'm sure to say something to annoy someone.

Of course I skipped a lot of stuff here. It seems like everyone has an in-house brand now as well. Wal-Mart has Great Value which for my money is actually pretty decent chocolate. There's also nationally here in Canada the Carnaby line at Shopper Drug Mart, as well as their lower end Life brand, out west Safeway has their Select Line. And there is Simply Foods, No Name, and you'll even see Milka or big bar Ghiradelli around here sometimes. Really there are about a zillion others, but this is a god enough place to stop.

Before I wrap up I think I should include a few pick ups of brands I've mentioned in earlier Big Bar Line Up posts. Here are some late entries into the Hershey, and Lindt posts.

I'd definitely like to try that Hazelnut Mousse...

So there you have it. Big Bar chocolates are interesting and a world I haven't really delved too deeply in. Frankly taking these photos for this series of posts is probably the most I've looked at them in my life. There are just too many other things to get done and if I'm personally buying a chocolate I know I'd rather go for a standard chocolate bar. Less cost, less size, better value on the spot.

For those interested though, maybe I should make a few exceptions and start reviewing a couple of these... especially the more 'candy bar' style ones... Let me know what you think and thanks for joining me on this walk down the candy aisle.

The Big Bar Line Up - Lindt

Today we're continuing our look at some of the Big Bars you'll find in your local supermarket. These are the "premium" chocolate bars that you'll see beside the everyday chocolate bars. Here in Canada Lindt is undoubtedly the best represented company in the Big Bar section. There are A LOT of Lindt chocolates here, and that is probably because they really don't have any standard size chocolate bars. Besides their copious entries into the seasonal chocolate realm if you want to eat some Lindt chocolate going into the Big Bar area of your store will be the only way to do it.

So with that said let's have a look at what Lindt has to offer. And we'l start with the standard straightforward Swiss Classic line.

These three bars under the Classic branding form what I'd say is the core for Lindt's line up. Milk chocolate, milk chocolate with hazelnuts, and white chocolate. Its simple direct packaging and I like it, but there is one fun alternative available as well.

Here we have the Lindt standard dark chocolate packaging, and this is my absolute favorite package in their line. It looks like something I might find a golden ticket inside. Just elegant, and sophisticated. Almost like a bank note, or some prestigious certificate. Nice job on this al around.

The milk chocolate, and milk chocolate with hazelnuts also both come in a 300 gram size. Another good idea. I like the fact that this also makes no bones about the nuts. These are whole roasted hazelnuts; this is serious business.

Next we'll move onto the Lindt main flavor line. These bard fall under the Excellence brand and will certainly have some of most people favorites. I'll say there are so many here that at the least you can't look at them and not be fascinated to try some of them. I mean we've probably all tried Mint chocolate, but how many of us have delved into chili chocolates?

So here we start with the simplest of bars. Extra Creamy Milk Chocolate, as well as Milk and Dark Almond, and Crunchy Caramel. Note the packaging, including color and font differences between the Milk and Dark Roasted Almond varieties. And I have to say I love the way the splash the crunchy caramel behind the bar on the label. Very appealing. Very eye-catching.

Now we've got the "Intense" flavors...

Other than the mint these flavors all heavily feature a sour or tart element. And Mint is intense in its own way.I'm interested that they don't have a Lemon or Lime in here, I bet they would do well among the Cranberry and Orange.

Here are a few other very interesting flavors. I'm definitely a fan of the Sea Salt. No I haven't tried it before, but its one of those things that I bet would be great. Like remember when there wasn't such a thing as Sea Salt (or Salt and Pepper) flavored chips? When they were first introduced I know I thought it was crazy... but then once I tried it, everything came crashing into focus. Of course its a great idea. And I suspect balancing the sweet chocolate with a salt would work too.White chocolate with Strawberry is also a great idea. Strawberry goes great with chocolate and is hardly ever featured in bars.

Now here's a case where I should have read the back of the packaging. I haven't confirmed it but I have to assume that these chocolate are actually from Ecuador and Madagascar. What that means specifically to the taste.. well I don't know. They both have rich soil and are known for Coffee and other delicious treats Although I didn't think there was too much industry on Madagascar I would suppose they've got good crops of cocoa. I'm not sure... do you think people out there, I mean the connoisseurs would have a particular favorite country? I'm certainly not educated enough on this stuf to know.

Moving down the Excellence line we finally come to the selection of Dark Chocolate. Well the stand alone dark chocolate at least.

Doesn't 90% seem like overkill on the Dark Chocolate? I know my mom eats a square of dark chocolate everyday for her... is it heart or blood pressure... anyhow there are people out there who must want this or they wouldn't make 4 different skus for it. Still, I feel so out of the loop on the Dark Chocolate train that I'll have to just say this seems like an awful lot, but I suppose they wouldn't keep it around if it didn't sell.

Lindt's next biggest line up is their Creation brand.

Everyone loves Chocolate Mousse right? I have actually had the milk chocolate version of this bar, and I have to say, it is absolutely fantastic! Interestingly the Milk Chocolate Mousse also comes in an alternate packaging under the Petit Desserts brand. My guess is that this was an old brand name since it was the only iteration in the line up.

Two more entries into the Creation line round out the selection.

I like that these two exist. Creme Brule is a great dessert that doesn't get enough press. People even know Flan more than Creme Brule and I'd put it up against that garbage anyday. Even most Dulce Leche or Tiramisu cakes really.

Moving on to the last few imprints from Lindt we come to the 150 gram Les Grandes line.

Here we find Almond as well has Hazelnut Milk, and Hazelnut Dark. These are Grandes not only because of their size, but also the amount of nuts. So this is where you go if you find your Swiss Classic is a little too light on the nuts for your tastes. These bars seem like they're for serious chocolate and nut fanatics.

Onto the Passion line up.

Now these two have me a little baffled. They are complicated blends, especially the Nougat Latte Macchiato and to me at least the packaging suggests that this is for a different audience than the other bars, but why exactly? I mean did Lindt want something more... Starbucks friendly? more earthy? More refined? We all know they've got great chocolate, it seems to me this branding is all about marketing. That said, I wonder if the look might throw some people off. Actually seeing the bar is a bit weird for Lindt, and the colors are sure to rub the average supermarket consumer wrong. Maybe it really is designed for the coffee shop... that's all I can think of here.

Finally we come to the last entry into Lindt's extensive line up of big bars, and it is of course the bar form of Lindt's most popular confection the Lindor.

I'd be interested in seeing some of the other Lindors transformed into bars as well, but for now this will have to suffice.

So this is pretty good stuff.all around. As you can see Lindt is VERY busy in the aisle with their big bar line up. Looking on the Lindt USA website I see that there are a few selections listed there that I did not see in the aisle, including: Sweet Dark Chocolate, A Touch of Vanilla, Toffee Crunch, a Dark Coconut bar, a Dark Strawberry, an actual Cocoa Nut bar, a 99% Dark Chocolate bar and more...

Could this be a case of over-saturation?  It seems like a lot to me, but hey I suppose they wouldn't keep it up if they didn't keep selling.

I'll be back soon with another look at the Big Bar Line Ups.