American Sweets/Candy Review

| |

Sweets featured in this review:

  • Airheads Bites Paradise Blends (£1.99)
  • Bottle Caps (£2.00)
  • Gobstopper (£2.00)
  • Hot Tamales (£2.00)
  • Jolly Rancher Bites (£3.49)
  • Jolly Rancher Hard Candy (£3.49)
  • Mike and Ike Mega Mix (£2.00)
  • Mike and Ike Mega Mix Sour (£2.00)
  • Mike and Ike Mega Tropical Typhoon (£2.00)
  • Mike and Ike Mega Berry Blast (£2.00)
  • Nerds Rainbow (£2.00)
  • Swedish Fish Mini Tropical (£2.00)
  • Warheads Lil’ Worms (£2.00)

Lots of American Sweets
Lots of American Sweets.

TL;DR

Jolly Rancher Hard Candy is top tier stuff; all the flavours are very nice and I’m looking forward to buying them again, 10/10.

All the Mike and Ike candies were very nice and I wouldn’t mind buying them again. Same goes with the Airheads Bites, although at £1.99, they are pricey for such a small bag, 9/10.

The rest were of a mixed bag, though the Hot Tamales were simply the worst candy I’ve ever tried. I’m glad I mixed them with all the other candies in a Tupperware as that made them easier to tolerate. I personally wouldn’t be buying those again.

American Sweets in a Tupperware
Sweets in a Tupperware.

Airheads Bites Paradise Blends (£1.99)

For a soft candy with a hard shell, they tasted very nice. Their shape reminded me of Mentos mints, but the Airheads Bites were softer and tasted better. My only real complaint would be the £1.99 price tag which is way too damn high for what you’re getting. Overall: 9/10. Would buy again if it was less than £1.

Airheads Bites Paradise Blends
Airheads Bites Paradise Blends

Bottle Caps (£2.00)

The idea of having soda (or fizzy drink) flavoured candy is quite neat. Having tried a bag of Haribo Happy Cola and MAOAM Stripes and Joystixx I was expecting a similarly positive experience but with a hard candy.

Sadly, all the Bottle Caps tablets had a similar taste to each other making them hard to distinguish from one another. Additionally, they tasted like medicine and was not pleasant to consume. Would not recommend: 4/10.

Bottlecaps
Bottlecaps

Gobstopper (£2.00)

Just like the above. Gobstoppers are a neat idea. The different layers and flavours for each gob is awesome. I’ll even say that at one point, I even went to the mirror to see if the colour has changed (and yes, they do!). For a hard candy though, they’re average: 5/10.

Gobstopper
Gobstopper

Hot Tamales (£2.00)

These are possibly the worst candy I’ve ever tried. Although, I can see why someone would like them as they do have a strong spicy flavour. But they aren’t for me: 2/10 I’m glad I mixed them with other candies as seen in the TL;DR above.

I will give them credit as the packaging is the best looking of the lot by far (and is the main reason why I picked them up).

Hot Tamales
Hot Tamales

Jolly Rancher Bites (£3.49)

awesome twosome as they say. I’d like to see them introduce a 3-flavour variant, but keep the consistent naming scheme 😏

Anyway, both the Cherry-Orange and Watermelon-Green Apple were nice and sweet. Though, I preferred the taste of the Watermelon-Green Apple a bit more. I do wish there were more flavours in the range. Having just 4 seemed limiting. I think Raspberry or Grape flavours could’ve been added. Overall: 7/10.

I would buy more of these, but with the price tag of £3.49, it’s a little too high for my liking. Another thing, why does it say “ENLARGED TO SHOW DETAIL” on the packaging? What detail exactly? Why do we need to know this? Do people inspect their candy in the US? I find this quite odd.

Jolly Rancher Bites
Jolly Rancher Bites

Additionally, the Cherry-Orange combo doesn’t quite match up colour wise on the packaging.

Jolly Rancher Bites
Colour matching gone wrong.

Jolly Rancher Hard Candy (£3.49)

I’ll make this easy, so here’s a tier list. Overall: 10/10. I enjoyed all the flavours which is very rare for any candy. And yes, I’ll be buying more of these despite the high price tag.

  1. Grape
  2. Cherry
  3. Green Apple
  4. Blue Raspberry
  5. Watermelon

There you have it. Grape is my favourite flavour of the bunch. Watermelon also tasted very nice and I wouldn’t mind if I had an entire bag full of them either. But Grape? Grape is top tier.

Jolly Rancher Hard Candy
Jolly Rancher Hard Candy

Mike and Ike Mega Mix (£2.00)

Another very nice candy with a good variety of flavours. Bonus points for any awesome flavour combinations you can make as well. This is a solid: 7/10, with the only downside that they are too sticky which is annoying.

Mike and Ike Mega Mix
Mike and Ike Mega Mix

Bonus content of two examples that came out “wrong”:

Gobstopper
More things gone wrong.

Mike and Ike Mega Mix Sour (£2.00)

Similarly, the sour mix is pretty… well, sour! I’d say it’s a smidge tastier than the Mega Mix, and it’s what I’d choose between the two. This one is definitely worth the £2 asking price. And for whatever reason, these aren’t as sticky as the Mega Mix. Overall: 9/10.

Mike and Ike Mega Mix Sour
Mike and Ike Mega Mix Sour

Mike and Ike Mega Tropical Typhoon (£2.00)

This is almost the same as the Mega Mix. In fact, 3 of the 5 flavours can be found in the Mega Mix. I personally wouldn’t go for another box of the Tropical Typhoon. But unless you only like the flavours found in Tropical Typhoon, the Mega Mix is a better deal. Still, this was a good mix of flavours: 7/10.

Mike and Ike Mega Tropical Typhoon
Mike and Ike Mega Tropical Typhoon

Also, here’s a picture of a cool barcode design I noticed:

Mike and Ike Mega Tropical Typhoon barcode
A cool barcode design.

Mike and Ike Mega Berry Blast (£2.00)

Now, similarly to the Tropical Typhoon, 2 of the 5 flavours in the Berry Blast can be found in the Mega Mix. And to make things a little confusing, both the Berry Blast and the Mega Mix boxes are of almost the same shade of blue. I’d still go for the Mega Mix in this case, but I enjoyed the Berry Blast as much as the other Mike and Ike sweets: 7/10.

[No picture as this was purchased after I already took the photos and was too lazy to do a retake]

Nerds Rainbow (£2.00)

These are… weird. Are you supposed to eat the little grainy things one by one or are you supposed to dump a handful of them at once? Or perhaps, there’s another way I haven’t figured out yet? (yes, I know this is mentioned on the packaging). And speaking of packaging, these also say “ENLARGED TO SHOW DETAIL” on the front… as if there’s any detail to show. I mean, each piece is about the size of a grain of rice; there’s no detail to be shown here.
Either way, I don’t think I’d buy another pack, but they were quite nice. I can’t really fault them: 7/10.

Nerds Rainbow
Nerds Rainbow

I did find this rather “large” grain compared to the others:

Nerds Rainbow
It was still pretty small though.

Swedish Fish Mini Tropical (£2.00)

These were a bit rough texture wise. Plus, my pack only had a handful of fishes, so they certainly weren’t worth the £2 I spent on them. And taste wise? Uninspiring at best: 4/10. I’d wouldn’t another pack of these.

Swedish Fish Mini Tropical
Swedish Fish Mini Tropical

Warheads Lil’ Worms (£2.00)

These again, were uninspiring, and even more so. All the flavours tasted like… nothing. Just sugar and a whole lot of blandness. This is only a little better than the Hot Tamales: 3/10. For £2, any of the Mike and Ike packs are a better deal.

Warheads Lil' Worms
Warheads Lil’ Worms

And that’s that. Hopefully, I’d get to try out more American sweets and have a chance to write another review. If you have any suggestions, just shoot me an email or comment on this article. Cheers!

Previous

Kailh BOX Jade

Durock T1 Silent Shrimp

Next

2 thoughts on “American Sweets/Candy Review”

  1. I bought a Large bag of Jolly Ranchers ( 1lb. Bag) N to my disappointment there were Only ONE Watermelon 🍉 flavor ( my favorite besides Peach). Bag full of Cherry….my least favorite! This is heart breaking 💔😢. Y’all Wrong!

    Reply

Leave a comment