N Candy AA II: Round of 64, Flight 4
by Sarah D. Bunting
Updated bracket is here. Confused? Click here. Polls for Flight 3 close 11:59 PM ET on Tuesday.
1 Twizzlers/Nibs vs. 16 Liquorice All-Sorts. I would really love to vote for the bottom seed, because I extra-love black licorice, and in a perfect world, I wouldn’t have to choose between the perfectly textured, densely chewy Nib and the annoyingly spelled All-Sort. Sorry, Crown territories. [“Don’t you mean ‘Liquorice All-Barfs’? Black licorice is one candy that actually makes my physically ill. Meanwhile, Twizzlers are my absolute favorites.” —Keckler] (At Candy Mountain in Toronto, I didn’t have to choose; their bulk Nibs came in red and black.) But choose I must, I suppose, and I choose Twizzlers. You can use them as straws, and they offer a chocolate flavor. Also, almost everyone else hates black licorice. We’re done here.
1 Twizzlers/Nibs vs. 16 Liquorice All-Sorts
- Twizzlers/Nibs (83%, 801 Votes)
- Liquorice All-Sorts (17%, 165 Votes)
Total Voters: 966
Loading ...8 PayDay vs. 9 Dots. PayDay’s late-’80s ad jingle, accompanied by animated footage of gorillas and elephants freaking out on a sugar high, is a horrendous earwig. “Totally nuts! Totally nuts about Paaay-DAAAAAAAY!” The PayDay itself is really good, though; it’s like peanut brittle, but fatter (PayDay is sweeter than the Planter’s version), and it’s not everyone’s thing, but I like them. Dots, however, can shut up, especially the “fun” size, which comes in the tiny boxes that frequently contain only one measly Dot, or two Dots fused together like Chang and Eng…Dot. Not that you want more Dots than that, because it’s like chewing a wad of rubber cement, except less tasty. [“Nooooo! Dots are my go-to movie candy! Their lime is the best lime candy I’ve ever had. But I agree on the fun size asshattery.” —Keckler]
8 PayDay vs. 9 Dots
- PayDay (68%, 636 Votes)
- Dots (32%, 293 Votes)
Total Voters: 929
Loading ...5 Kraft caramels vs. 12 Nips. Ooh, a tough one. I like a Nip well enough (hew), especially the coffee flavor, and Nips come in enough varieties that it could carry the day — but I’m voting for Kraft caramels, which have the perfect consistency and shape (aw, teeny cubes!) and fetched a premium in the post-trick-or-treat trade market. Their only down side: the wrapper sometimes got caught in a fold of caramel (hew) and I had to waste precious time extracting it. (…Or to risk my life by eating it anyway. Hey, I was in a hurry!) I also associate Nips — wrongly, I know — with those creepy chocolate Riesen ads where the grandma seemed to be having inappropriate feelings about her grandson and her candy. Hew.
5 Kraft caramels vs. 12 Nips
- Kraft caramels (77%, 735 Votes)
- Nips (23%, 216 Votes)
Total Voters: 951
Loading ...4 Swedish Fish vs. 13 Cow Tales. We probably should have listed Cow Tales and bull’s-eyes together; a Cow Tale is basically a bull’s-eye in braid/tube form. (Or in strawberry form…? I can understand the caramel-apple flavor, I guess, kind of, but the strawberry verzh is baffling to me.) I love me a bull’s-eye, too, but for some reason, the proportions in a Cow Tale are somewhat off. So is the spelling: why “Tale”? It’s supposed to look like a tail, obvi; are children meant to enjoy it while telling stories around the campfire?
It’s not like Swedish Fish actually come from Sweden either, so that isn’t a hair worth splitting, in the end…and yes, we considered putting the Fish in the Gummiverse, but I maintain that SFs taste different from their Gummi/Haribo equivalents. I sprained my jaw trying to chew a stale Fish (hew) last year, but I still love those sweet little guppies. I’m betting y’all agree (and that many of you are grossed out by the “crème” — hew — in Cow Tales). [“Wait, Swedish Fish aren’t Swedish?!” —Keckler] [“Wait…are they?” — Bunting]
4 Swedish Fish vs. 13 Cow Tales
- Swedish Fish (80%, 713 Votes)
- Cow Tales (20%, 181 Votes)
Total Voters: 894
Loading ...6 Jelly Bellies vs. 11 Chuckles. Jelly Bellies will win handily, no doubt, and I don’t dislike them — well, the popcorn ones are deeee-sgusting — but I don’t really care that much about jellybeans generally. I like the big white vanilla ones, I like the black licorice ones, and the others, whatever. Chuckles, I actually buy, even though the green one is clearly some kind of stealth marketing campaign for Lysol. What busted corner of the Edison, NJ flavor lab did that thing creep out of, seriously? “Okay, the mint/lime combo isn’t quite working, but if we add a top note of mercurochrome, the kids’ll love it”? All the other Chuckles rock my world, however, especially Big Black — and if you feel strongly about the absence of spearmint leaves or orange slices, 1) I love those too, and I’m sorry, and 2) you are hereby given leave to vote for Chuckles in their stead if you would like.
But they still won’t win. Sigh.
6 Jelly Bellies vs. 11 Chuckles
- Jelly Bellies (86%, 811 Votes)
- Chuckles (14%, 132 Votes)
Total Voters: 943
Loading ...3 candy corn vs. 14 Laffy Taffy. If we could rank things higher than 1, I would have ranked candy corn there. It is so good; it is so perfectly chewy. It has a hint of creamsicle to it, and you know how I feel about those. Laffy Taffy, meanwhile, is stupidly named and tastes like dirty Tupperware regardless of the flavor (except, strangely, for the banana kind, which can usually be counted on to be the most revolting of any given candy style). And when you do find yourself forced by mid-afternoon-snack circumstances to settle for an LT, it takes heroic acts of laparoscopy just to get the goddamn wrapper off. [“I can’t eat Laffy Taffy after seeing my older sister barf purple into the tub post-grape-LT-binge.” —Keckler] I know some people super-hate the corn, but come on.
3 candy corn vs. 14 Laffy Taffy
- candy corn (67%, 648 Votes)
- Laffy Taffy (33%, 316 Votes)
Total Voters: 964
Loading ...7 fruit slices vs. 10 Lemonheads/lemon drops. Lemonheads are fine, I’ve got nothing against them, but I just ordered a five-pound bag of the little kosher fruit guys from Candy Direct. This is called “dinner.” I defy your petty judgments; end of discussion.
7 fruit slices vs. 10 Lemonheads/lemon drops
- fruit slices (52%, 499 Votes)
- Lemonheads/lemon drops (48%, 452 Votes)
Total Voters: 951
Loading ...2 Starburst vs. 15 Choward’s Violet. I really like the CV gum, despite its tendency to deflavorize milliseconds after it’s moist enough (hew) to actually chew on; the candy is just okay. But Starburst is straight-up brilliant. I remember when they introduced the cherry flavor and how much discussion that caused among me and my friends, because we prized the strawberry ‘bursts above all others, and we looked forward to an equally transporting experience with the new pale-pink ‘burst cube. It’s not as good, but it’s one of the few cherry-flavored candies I can stand, and if you tuck a lemon Starburst into your molars and drink a vodka tonic through it, friends, you are in for a treat. It wouldn’t surprise me if Starburst won the whole shooting match; it wins here handily.
2 Starburst vs. 15 Choward's Violet
- Starburst (97%, 948 Votes)
- Choward's Violet (3%, 34 Votes)
Total Voters: 982
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Tags: barfing food Keckler N Candy AA
This is all awesome, but I have to wonder: How is it that we have Choward’s Violet (and really, what IS Choward’s Violet?) and yet nowhere in this competition is the tootsie roll featured? Or the tootsie pop? This is a minor travesty.
(And tootsies aren’t chocolate.)
Strawberry Starbursts are totally the best flavor. I save them for last. I’ve never even heard of Choward’s Violet but Starburst wins anyway.
Since my caramel creams/Cow Tales aren’t going to win their brackets, I hope candy corn and Kraft caramels do. I’ve already expressed my love of the mixed bag that has the mallowcreme pumpkins; I can eat an entire bag in one sitting. And while I love caramel creams, caramel in general is one of my favorites (hence my preference for Milky Way over Three Musketeers), so I hope something caramel makes it far.
Payday v. Dots? “Will kill me” vs. “blech.” Dots are all hard and chewy at the same time (hew) and the flavoring is actually bland, and those little boxes are bullshit. (“The food is terrible, and such small portions!”) But I can’t vote for Payday due to the allergy, so I sat that out.
Everyone loves Twizzlers except me – the straw-like factor is actually a deterrent. They taste like plastic.
1. I’m pretty sure Swedish Fish are actually made in Canada.
2. Was anyone else disappointed when Starburst, whose motto used to be (still is?) “The Juice Is Loose!,” didn’t cast an exonerated O.J. Simpson in their commercials? No, no one?
Tootsies are in fact chocolate.
I’m resigning myself to the fact that Nips won’t make it past this round, but I still voted for them in support of all coffee-flavored candy (The coffee/cappuccino variety of those Chupa Chups suckers are the shizz).
Oh, I do love those fruit slice candies – I love the rind detail, and the lime and pink grapefruit flavors are my absolute faves.
I’m part of the 0.0001% of the population that actually thought the buttered popcorn Jelly Bellies were not-TOO-nauseating, although I can barely eat five or six before I’ve had enough of them (the jalapeno ones can fuck off and die). I fucking LOVED the “recipes” that they came up with for mixing flavors (2 lemon+1 toasted marshmallow=lemon meringue pie), and I like how they made the watermelon ones red on the inside and green on the outside. JB’s all the way.
All-knowing Wikipedia claims that Swedish fish do in fact originally come from Sweden, more or less.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swedish_Fish
But you know, it’s Wikipedia, so take that with a grain of salt.
Anyone ever tried the garlic Jelly Belly? Hurrgoghk.
THANK you for the popcorn Jelly Belly hate. Early on in my relationship with my now-husband (like, our second date or something), we got a bag of mixed JBs at the outlet mall or somesuch and I wasn’t paying attention and ended up with at least two of the popcorn ones in my face in the car on the way home. I had to roll down the window and spit them out because there is nothing on earth fouler than that flavor. Nothing.
He told me later on that that moment was when he decided to marry me. :)
I love black licorice, though I don’t like the black Twizzlers. Mom and I used to fight over who got the black jelly beans.
I have never posted a comment here before but I finally had to. I cannot believe I had to make the anti-Sophie’s choice between Twizzlers and Liquorice. As a Red Vine purist, I cannot in good conscience vote for the abominable Twizzler. But in my pyramid of hatred (in which cherries and anything cherry flavored enjoy the dubious honor of sitting alone at the top of things I loathe the absolute most) black licorice flavor is definitely right up there on the second tier of that hatred polyhedron. While I’ve voted in all the brackets so far, I ended up having to abstain from that vote entirely in protest.
I think I am not the target audience for this bracket, as I am mostly a chocolate purist when it comes to candy. Why bother having candy if there isn’t chocolate in it? Too bad I wasn’t reading the website when the all-chocolate bracket happened. It would have been regular style Sophie’s choices almost every day. (Unless there was coconut or cherries in the chocolate. Why would someone do that to perfectly good chocolate???)
I am astonished how many of these I’ve never heard of. I’m a Canadian! I thought we’d homogonized everything by now. Okay, I knew that you guys were totally wrong about what smarties are, but I thought most of the rest would be familiar. I’m going to guess at least a third of these aren’t found in western Canada. There – I’ve learned something today. Thanks!
GOD I haven’t had such an intense Starburst craving in YEARS.
Jelly Bellies versus Chuckles? Candy Corn versus Laffy Taffy? Are you trying to give me a stroke?? And what happens when it gets narrowed down to Candy Corn versus Jelly Bellies? Have you even thought of that? HAVE YOU?!
I think I may need to lay down.
While I will concede that Tootsies are technically chocolate, I submit that they taste nothing like chocolate whatsoever and therefore fall into a candy no-man’s land kind of like tomatoes with that whole fruit vs. vegetable debate.
@AntiLeah, I did the exact same thing! “Ha! Twizzlers, I’ll just vote against you…oh. OH.”
Also, I HATE Swedish Fish. Talk about learning disappointment at an early age – I thought I was getting a gummi bear, but bigger. Awesome, right? I could not have been more wrong. Waxy, tough, no flavor…blech.
But I LOVE Starburst, and I might just have to get a pack tonight and try your delicious cocktail, Sars. It’s got to be better than the time in college when we chased warm cheap vodka (Popov, ugh) with Starburst, right?
OK, I’ve reached my breaking point. I’m going over to the campus store to buy some candy…
Also, I never had a problem with Riesen commercials before, but now I’m never not going to be able to see granny-incest implications when I see them. “Thanks,” Sars.
@Lynne: I agree. At best there’s a cocoa “note” in it. But we had to concede to the official site’s use of the word “chocolatey.”
(Also, we might as well just admit now that we completely forgot their entire existence for the chocolate round. Maybe we can have a separate up-and-down poll for Tootsies and Jordan almonds, which we also forgot by mistake.)
The package of Swedish Fist that I just happen to have right here confirms that they are, indeed, made in Canada.
Wow. You REALLY don’t want to know what Swedish Fish are actually made from. I’m surprised that the “nutrition” facts aren’t just a picture of a doctor laughing at you.
Am I the only one who can’t remember the difference between Starburst and Now and Later? Aren’t they both small square individually wrapped chewy fruit-flavored candies, or is my memory playing tricks on me? I don’t think I’ve had either since about middle school, though, so I might be way off.
They must come from Sweden, they sell them at Ikea.
I would argue that chocolate Twizzlers aren’t chocolate either. Talk about a childhood disappointment.
I’m not all that much for candy corn, but I had to vote for it over Laffy Taffy. Laffy Taffy is the changeling baby left in the crib that used to hold Tangy Taffy. Anyone else remember Tangy Taffy? It was sweet, it was just the right amount of sour, you could freeze it and eat it in chunks or just savor it over the course of an hour. And then one day it was gone, and convenience store clerks kept trying to convince people that Laffy Taffy was really the same thing. *sigh* I regret not buying that five-year-old box of Tangy Taffy at Sam’s Club when I had the chance.
Had to laugh at the sister-barfing-Laffy-Taffy-into-the-tub story, because I was once at a party with a Laffy Taffy-lovin’ boyfriend who downed a few giant bars of the stuff & then proceeded to overindulge in vodka and…well. Let’s just say he passed out in someone’s recliner with a bright pink stained shirt, and I never let him live it down. But because I am gross, I still totally love Laffy Taffy. Sorry.
Can we also talk about how wrong chocolate candy corns are? My now-husband totally barfed a bunch of those over a balcony in college. (Wow – just now realizing I dated a lot of guys who regularly barfed candy. Hm.)
ALL-SORTS! ALL-SORTS!!!
That is all…
@Kathryn: Tangy Taffy…one summer, that was all I ordered from tuck. Grape was best.
@Jenn: I guess anything that claims it’s two things is neither, or nothing.
@PippiStardust: Sounds like earwax-flavoured Bertie Botts. Try the cotton candy flavour instead.
And with that, I just realized that cotton candy isn’t playing in this carnival. The hell?
PayDays over Dots? Really? I’ve had a vendetta against PayDays ever since that one time My granddad gave me one and it ended up yanging out the metal wire on braces and we had to drive the hour to my orthodontist to get it fixed and an hour back with my granddad chiding me about breaking my braces even though he was the one who gave me the candy bar in the first place. But it turned out my granddad and my orthodontist were old school hood friends and now my granddad felt extra guilty. It was all a big mess.
Also my Dots are my third goto at movie theaters, meaning if I’m not in the mood for Reese’s pieces and their out of gummy bears, we go for Dots. And my husband is the only person in existence who actually prefers the big weird homogenized dot to the separate ones. He’ll spend the bulk of the pre-movie time mashing up a big pile of them to jam them in his mouth…
I had to give my vote to Laffy Taffy. They are about equal to candy corn for me, both delicious, but they come with wonderfully bad jokes!
Jelly Bellies got my vote. When it comes to Easter jelly beans though, the Starburst ones are the best by far! Probably because Starbursts are so damn good themselves.
Candy corn is of the devil. Little ugly flavorless traffic cone. May it never infect anyone’s trick-or-treat sack again!
I can’t remember if it was actually Jelly Bellies, or some other brand of jelly bean, but one awesome childhood memory is getting like a pound bag and challenging my sister to eat all the hot cinnamon ones at one time. Which she did. Wacky hijinks ensued and it was AWESOME.
I love love love the popcorn flavored Jelly Bellies! I frequently buy big bags of just that flavor and eat them by the handful.
I love Choward’s Violet 4-eva!! I thought I was the only one!!
Oh, wait.
I AM the only one.
Candy corn for the win!!!!!
I may or may not have bought two bags of Brach’s Autumn Mix when it went on sale at CVS in August. And I may or may not have a small portion of it’s contents on my desk at work right now.
I used to love the Twizzlers, I have very fond memories of drinking Coca Cola through the long ones. Nowadays not so much. However I have no idea what All Sorts are so the Twizzlers got my vote.
Candy corn makes its appearance! Now is the perfect time to post this link, to candy corn jello, “a creamsicle-like concoction of orange jello and a sweetened condensed milk based gelatin”. You know you want it. http://tinyurl.com/2bszrx3
Does anyone else remember those commercials about opening a Starburst with your mouth? I spent an entire field trip (and a roll of Starbursts) teaching myself how to do that when I was about 11 or 12. I feel like it had some kind of “good kisser” connotation at the time. I can still do it, it is my gross go-to party trick.
Was anyone else lucky enough to have candy companies come to your school to try their stuff on you? I distinctly remember trying bubble gum from a toothpaste-like tube. Ack! But way cool!
C’mon Lemonheads, you can do it!
@Morgan, I haven’t heard of a lot of these either, though I’ve lived in the States for over 30 years. My formative candy-eating years though were spent in the Maritime provinces so I guess the border has something to do with it.
Oh, Morgan, I totally feel you. I’m always ecited to read the brackets when a new poll starts only to realize that I’ve never heard of half of the entries. Laffy Taffy? Chuckles? Smarties that don’t have chocolate in the middle?? The hell?!
Swedish fish are made in Canada? Really?? Are they sold here? Because I couldn’t identify a Swedish fish if my life depended on it. Swedish berries? Right there with you. Swedish fish? No clue.
Does this set the record for most appearances of “hew” in a TN post?
This flight is my worst. I voted, grumpily, for PayDay and fruit slices. I am very fond of Dots (haters to the left, but give me your Dots first) and Lemonheads. And as one of the few who like black licorice, in small doses, I will also eat a box of Crows if it is given to me.
I am okay with Swedish Fish winning. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to Cumberland Farms to buy one or twenty Cow Tales and sob.
Let me just say this: Candy Corn flavored Hershey’s Kisses? Are a thing. And they are, mysteriously, better than BOTH regular Candy Corn AND regular Kisses.
I loooooooooove black licorice. Love it. But now I’m all in a dither, deciding whether to get All-sorts or fruit slices when I inevitably can’t take all this suggestion anymore in an hour or two and have to make a run to the candy store.
Let me just say this: Candy Corn flavored Hershey’s Kisses? Are a thing. And they are, mysteriously, better than BOTH regular Candy Corn AND regular Kisses. OH MY GOD ARE YOU SERIOUS??!!?
Thumbs up for Jelly Belly, and not just because they give you free samples on their factory tour (though the stuff in the gift shop is waaay overpriced).
I once bought a bag of the garlic flavored jelly beans from a Jelly Belly factory store as a joke. For my brother. Who loves garlic. (I also bought him real garlic for his real Christmas gift. What can I say, I drive through Gilroy on my way to my parents’ house.) It was a huge bag – same size as they sell Belly Flops in – 2 pounds maybe? Or 5? He proceeded to eat the entire bag within the week. With my nephew (3 or 4 at the time) also declaring them delicious. Shudder. And now they ask me to bring them more all the time. But I have never again seen them at the outlet store in Gilroy. I assume because they are *gross* and my brother and his son are psychotic for liking them.
@myself – By which I mean, candy corn flavored Hershey’s Kisses really exist? You just blew my mind. I totally believe you that they’re better than either candy corn or regular Kisses.
Now I reeeeeeeeally want some candy corn. A really lot. And I’m stuck at work today and thus cannot have any. Boo-urns.
I hate every licorice-flavored candy in existence EXCEPT all-sorts. I have no idea why, maybe it’s the frosting-like candy on them? Though, I toss out the all-sorts that are licorice jelly with the nonpareils on them, because GUMMIES SHOULD NOT TASTE LIKE THAT EVER.
Lemonheads can suck it; I loved them but a Lemonhead was responsible for the eventual cracking of a molar. I know the Lemonhead didn’t really do it (I had a pin-sized cavity on the outside that got in and made my tooth the equivalent of a geode), but association alone is enough for me.
MMM! Cow Tales! I love the almost flaky creme in them; one of the few caramel-based candies I like!
@Wehaf: OH MY GOD I AM TOTALLY TURNING THOSE INTO JELLO SHOTS FOR MY HALLOWEEN PARTY.
…sorry, just…yeah, excited.
I can’t believe they make garlic-flavored jelly beans. But I wonder what they would taste like combined with the popcorn-flavored beans.
All this discussion makes me want to reread “Candyfreak.” (Which, if you haven’t read it, is an awesome book. And the author’s last name – no kidding – is Almond.)
I’ve always thought that Choward’s Violet tastes like soap. I wonder if that’s an enzyme thing, like people who think the same of cilantro. No vote there.
I just wanted to say that I was running errands today and wound up stopping to mix my own bag of Jelly Bellies (watermelon, orange sherbet, and sizzling cinnamon) and then on to the grocery store where they had Starburst AND Skittles halloween bags on sale. Regular Starburst and fizzing Skittle will consume my weekend.
Um, I saw Swedish Fish for sale at IKEA last week. Case closed.
A Toronto IKEA. So…okay, maybe not so closed.
@JennyB: Swedish Fish have red ones that taste like the Swedish Berries, but there are also green, orange, and yellow ones with their respective flavours. (Yellow is yuck.) I also think Swedish Berries and Big Feet are the same. And…Sour Big Feet? The BEST.