When the dragon breathes...

Brach's Dragon Jelly Beans

Brach's dragon jelly beans

With Easter only a few days away, I’m having a heckuva time keeping up ith all the different bags of jelly beans that show up on store shelves. At the moment, there are three different open bags on the shelf and a fourth is waiting to be opened. And I haven’t even bought any Unicorn Jelly Beans yet!

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):

We Know Who Makes This Store Brand!

Kroger Private Selection Gourmet Jelly Beans

If you’re old enough to remember the “generics” craze back in the eighties, when groceries sold canned peas marked only with a bar code and the word “peas” on a plain white label, you know about store brands. They’re not new, of course – the Kenmore appliance brand at Sears has long included units made by Maytag, Frigidaire, and other well-known brands. In groceries, store brands are no longer just plain generics, now bearing hifalutin’ names like “Safeway Select.” But who makes ‘em? That’s often nearly impossible to tell, but we stumbled across not one but two store brands of “gourmet jelly beans” lately for which there is no doubt.

Does Macy's Tell Gimbal's? Bet They Eat 'Em!

Gimbal's Fine Candies Gourmet Jelly Beans

If the company website is to be believed, the Gimbal family has been the purveyor of fine candies in the San Francisco area for four generations, though no word on how long they’ve been making Gimbal’s Fine Candies Gourmet Jelly Beans or whether they or that other company just up I-80 (Jelly Belly®) started making little beans with strong flavors first. Gimbal’s offerings are the typical mini-sized beans one expects to find with the “gourmet” label, although there’s no company name printed on the shell.