Burglar with Sweet Tooth? or Just Absent-Mindedness?

We'll probably never know whether some housebreaker was feeding a sweet tooth or a Westport, CT, homeowner is close to the absent-minded end of the alertness scale. Why, it's even possible that Santa visited a local home a couple of weeks early, didn't find the traditional milk and cookies, and so raided the residents' sweets...

Organic but not Orgasmic: Surf Sweets Jelly Beans

Surf Sweets Organic Jelly Beans

One of the kids had a tasty beer (Lagunitas Doppel Hefewiezen) he said he’d picked up at the local Whole Foods Market. Given their recent claim that they’d lowered prices and experience with their reasonably well-stocked beer department, I stopped by a few days later. I didn’t get that beer; though I did find a couple of others from the brewery and – the point of this entry – picked up some Surf Sweets Organic Jelly Beans.

T'Ain't Cricket to Throw Jelly Beans!

From the news of the weird... most Yanks will probably never understand cricket, which may well be the only game in which the scores are higher than an NBA blowout. Sure, there are balls and bats and fielders like there are in baseball, but what the heck is a "sticky wicket" or a "googly"? We can rest assured, of course, that our cricket-fan brethren are probably equally nonplussed by "dinger" and "Texas-league single."

I Scream, You Scream, We all Scream...

Starburst Ice Cream Flavors Jelly Beans

I try to always pick up some new jelly bean versions every “day after Easter,” but this year the pickings seemed to be a little on the slim side. I did get some that claimed to be Laffy Taffy flavored, but most of the rest were the usual suspects. Recently, though, I happened on a new offering from the folks at Starburst: Ice Cream Flavors. At first they were only available in 12-ounce bags, but lately I’ve seen some in little 8-ounce “ice cream cartons.” Cute…

California Woman Sues Jelly Belly for Using Sugar…

I’m not the sort of person who automatically considers every court action filed against any business anywhere is one of those so-called "frivolous lawsuits," but you know some of them just have to be filed by people in search of a financial payday instead of some kind of “justice.” Feel free to make up your own mind on this one, which was recently reported in a “Men’s Health” blog post:

Californian Jessica Gomez has filed suit against the Jelly Belly jellybean company for using sugar in their Sport Beans but not “telling her” that they had. Yes, it’s true: according to the lawsuit, Gomez read the list of ingredients on the back of a package of the company’s Sport Beans and found “evaporated cane juice” instead of  “sugar.” Instead of reading the remainder of the nutritional information, which according to my exposure to the product says that each one-ounce packet of the beans contains 17g of sugar, she assumed that they were sugar-free. Heaven only knows how many of the packets she ate, but at over twenty-one bucks a pound ($1.35/ounce), we’d hope it wasn’t many…

Gomez – and potentially millions of others, since the attorneys have constructed a class-action suit – feels sufficiently aggrieved that she wants Jelly Belly to pay up for their “sin.”

Yeah, I can agree: those Sport Beans cost far more than they’re worth (but, then, most products in this field are ridiculously expensive). But I have to say that if you’re so unconscious that you can’t figure out from the nutritional information on the package that there’s sugar in it, you just might deserve whatever happens to you. That’s especially true if you’re (pretending you) are conscientious about how much sugar you consume. Just like if you can’t figure out that coffee made with boiling water is hot…

copyright © 2017 scmrak

Swedish Fish Jelly Beans: Tasty but Monotonous

Swedish Fish Jelly Beans

The day after Easter I did what I almost always do: I hit every store I could find in hopes of picking up some jelly bean brands I hadn’t already gobbled… errr, reviewed here. This time out I had a little luck: at my local Meijer, I ran across a bag of Swedish Fish Jelly Beans. No kidding, the company that sells Swedish Fish – Mondeléz International of New Jersey? is that in Sweden? – makes little red beans, in Mexico, natch, and sells them under the Swedish Fish banner. Not one to pass up a new brand, I dug in…

I had some disappointment right off the bat: first, the beans are all “gourmet-sized,” as if they were intended to compete with Jelly Belly beans. Second, they’re all red – cherry, I guess, or whatever flavor the original Swedish Fish gummies are. Even though, according to their website, the original fish are available in an assortment, that’s not the case here. Third, like the Life Savers beans I had a couple of weeks ago, they’re oddly misshapen and rarely have the classic kidney-bean shape. I wonder if they’re made in the same Mexican factory as the Life Savers…

As for the beans themselves, the (always) red shell is fairly soft and strongly cherry-flavored. It surrounds a somewhat mushy central gel that’s off-white and flavored mainly by sugar. It takes quite a bit of effort to separate the shell from the center, if that’s your bag, and once that shell is gone the filling tastes pretty much like chewing gum that’s past its prime.

I’m kind of underwhelmed by the bag, but perhaps it’s because I ate the whole bag by myself instead of sharing them – fortunately, I took a couple of weeks and I had open bags of other brands going at the same time. I would not, however, buy them again unless Monteléz decides to fill them with an assortment of flavors: all cherry, no matter how much I may like it, gets boring pretty quickly.

copyright © 2017 scmrak

More Like a Pillow than a Life Ring, but Still Tasty

Lifesavers Jellybeans

Easter has come and gone, and I’m on my way out the door to load up on half-price jelly beans: yah-yay-yay! But before I go, I thought I’d share a quick glimpse into a brand I don’t normally see except this time of year: Lifesavers Jellybeans (yes, they think it’s one word). I picked up a bag last week in a pre-Easter sale at my local grocery, and here’s the “tale of the tape,” so to speak.

They’re made in Mexico (what? that's a surpise?) for the Wrigley company of Chicago – go Cubs… The 14-ounce bag contains six flavors, not unlike a roll of Lifesavers candy. The big differences are that there’s no pineapple in the bean variety, and the green beans are “green apple” instead of lime. Like gourmet beans (think Jelly Belly and Gimbel’s), the gel center is has the same color and flavor as the candy shell, though the flavors are a bit more artificial.

The six flavors are cherry, lemon, green apple, orange, strawberry, and grape (cherry is scarlet, strawberry is pink). None are black, which is fine with me. The candy shell is quite soft compared to many other brands, and I find that the gel center is mushier than I prefer. The flavors, however, are sharp and well-defined without being tart or sour like some other brands I’ve sampled recently. Do note that the green apple is, as is common for the flavor, more tart than other flavors. One oddity is that the candies don’t have the classic bean shape; instead they tend to be like little flattened ovals. Many, at least in my bag, were somewhat misshapen and quite a few were stuck together. I don’t know that this is representative of the brand – perhaps I should get another bag after the holiday…

The irregularities in the shapes notwithstanding, these are tasty. I would personally, however, prefer a more robust texture instead of the soft candy shell and the mushy gel center. For taste, four stars; for texture, three – and that averages out to 3½ stars in my book. As they say, your mileage may differ!

copyright © 2017 scmrak

The Taste of SweeTarts Without the Tart

Wonka Laffy Taffy Jelly Beans

Every year around Easter the shelves of my local stores start loading up with different varieties of jelly beans. Besides the usual gourmet stuff (JellyBelly, Gimble’s) and the peg bags that I buy in an emergency, I start seeing other names on the bags; especially names of other familiar candies. Last year it was Jolly Rancher and Starburst, this year for the first time I found “Laffy Taffy flavored Jelly Beans.” So I bought a bag…

The classic candy Laffy Taffy comes from Wonka; the same people who give you SweeTarts. The company’s actually a division of Nestle®. This brand of beans’ relationship to SweeTarts came as no surprise to me once I’d tasted a few… Laffy Taffy jelly beans come in just four flavors (banana, grape, cherry and apple); in pale pastel colors that correspond to their flavors (yellow, lavender, pink, and green). Texturally, the candy shell bears a striking resemblance to the texture of the company’s SweeTarts, and – except for grape, which to my knowledge is unknown in SweeTarts – pretty much has the same flavor. The chief difference is that the beans aren’t as tart.

The flavor is all in the shell, which surrounds a mushy off-white sugary gel – the gel is merely a neutral sweet flavor. The shell is crumbly and a little grainy. As for any resemblance to Laffy Taffy flavors, I can’t comment – I haven’t eaten the stuff in decades.

When it comes to jelly beans, I find the texture of this batch lacking. The gel center is too soft and mushy, the candy shell too crumbly. The flavors are slightly better, though limiting them to just four makes a 14-ounce bag rather cloying (for the record, I paid $2.50 for this bag). At least they don’t include licorice…

All told, this is not a brand I’ll seek out next year.

copyright © 2017 scmrak

Mike and Ike Shrink their Candy to Jelly Beans: Yummmm...

Mike and Ike Jelly Beans - Assorted Fruits

Over more years than I care to admit of my jelly bean addiction, I’ve realized that – like many things in this world – the beans come in three different categories. At the bottom of the pile are the cheap-o varieties, like the bulk beans shipped from Mexico and packaged under several different store brand names (e.g., WalMart’s Great Value beans;or the peg candy sold with the Sather label). At the top of the pile are, of course, gourmet brands like Jelly Belly and Gimbel’s – I hope to find other varieties some day.

Want People to Stop Stealing Your Jelly Beans?

Jelly Belly Bean Boozled 4th Edition

Something like twenty years ago, back when Jelly Belly jellybeans were pretty much only available in specialty shops, my in-laws gave me a box of weird-flavored varieties. I think the release may have had something to do with the first Harry Potter book, but I may be wrong. About the only flavor I remember from that set was “snot.” Well, years later, I happened to find a “remaindered” bag of Bean Boozled 4th Edition beans, and decided to give them a try. I guess the notation on the bag that it “contains weird & wild flavors” should be considered a warning.

The 1.9-ounce bag contains ten flavor pairs – visually identical beans, one of which tastes good and the other is nasty – of which the first two are new pairs in Bean Boozled Number 4. By color, the pairs are (icky flavor first):