Internet, I'm in Scotland! Oh boy!
And what's the first thing you do when you visit a foreign country? Of course! You try all the weird candy there!
Here's what I bought today:
Because they are the weirdest sounding, I had to start off with the shrimps & bananas.
And, um, they're disgusting. They have the consistency of circus peanuts. The bananas taste like banana flavored candy, which is my least favourite (with a u because I'm in the UK) flavor anyway, but they also dissolve in your mouth in a really unsettling way.
The shrimps, thank god, are not actually shrimp-flavoured. They are still gross.
Next I tried the Chew-Its, which are kind of like
Now & Late
rs, but way, way stickier. They come in blackcurrant, strawberry, and fruit salad. The fruit salad was a little weird, but I liked the other two flavors, even though I typically hate blackcurrant.
Rowntree's Fruit Gums are as boring as their name.
They come in orange, lime, lemon, strawberry, and blackcurrant. WHAT IS UP WITH ALL THE BLACKCURRANT, BRITAIN? IT'S GROSS. PUT IT AWAY. They're just generic fruit gummies, but really hard and kind of unpleasant to chew. They hurt my jaw.
I wanted a break from all the fruity candy, so I went for the chocolate buttons.
They're just plain milk chocolate circles. Classic and tasty.
Crunchie is described as "milk chocolate with golden honeycombed centre." I don't know what I expected exactly, but I was seriously confused when I took my first bite. The "golden honeycombed centre" is really, really weird. It grew on me eventually, but is not something I would buy again.
The StarBar is peanuts and caramel in a peanut nougat covered in milk chocolate.
I don't really see the necessity of having peanut nougat AND peanuts, but it was a perfectly fine candy bar.
The Double Decker is a god among candy bars. It's a layer of rice crispies and a layer of nougat covered in milk chocolate. Gigantic and delicious, for only 68 pence. They are made in Singapore and all the nutritional information (why even include it? it's candy) is written on the back in English and Arabic.
Someone told me when I bought it that they didn't really like the Twirl, and it does have kind of a strange texture. It's milk chocolate layered in weird twists that create a lot of air bubbles and then coated in more chocolate. Ultimately, despite the interesting shape, it's just straight-up chocolate. And there's nothing wrong with that.
Wispa is also straight up chocolate, but "aerated" with little air bubbles throughout to make it lighter. I don't know what's up with Brits and having holes in their chocolate, but it's perfectly fine, albeit weird in texture.
Aero's are seriously weird looking, but taste pretty good. I unknowingly bought the mint flavor because there is no indication of this other than the green bubbles on the wrapper. It's that same aerated chocolate, this time mint flavored and with bigger bubbles, covered in milk chocolate.
I could barely manage to eat the Highland Toffee because it was so sticky it felt like my teeth were being pulled out. Tastes like... well, toffee.
Fruit Salad tastes like Laffee Taffee.
It claims to be raspberry and pineapple but I seriously doubt anyone could taste the nuances of those two flavors. It just tastes like pink chewy goo, which is what it is.
WHAM may be even weirder than Shrimps & Bananas.
The first flavor, sour cherry, is a really sticky pink taffy-like substance with "tongue-tingling coloured crystals," which are like weak pop rocks. I must add, it was not at all sour.
The other flavor I bought was brew.
Yep, that's right, beer-flavored candy. It was bright orange and, weirdly, sour. Much more sour than the sour cherry flavor. I'm scared.
So if you ever find yourself in Scotland, go for the Chew Its, an Aero bar, Chocolate buttons, and DEFINITELY a Double Decker, but stay away from candy that's supposed to taste like alcohol or fish. That's good guidance for life anywhere, not just overseas.
I know this was a long while ago but as a Brit I have to clarify that Brew isn't actually an alcoholic flavour. It comes from the flavour Iron Brew, or typically known as the drink Irn-Bru. It's meant to have a gingerish after taste, from ginger beer, which also isn't an alcoholic drink. :)
ReplyDeleteBritish candy/chocolate for the win!
It's funny, coming from Canada, because we have half of these, and the others are just as strange to me. But I can't believe the USA doesn't have Aero or Crunchie, both are common as heck in Ontario. Which is how you would've known the green Aero is mint, they were just brown for 50 years. Now suddenly they are green, orange, etc. All gross. Only eat the OG brown ones. Funniest part is we have those bananas, but I have never heard of a shrimp. Weird.
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