Category Archives: Hard Candy

It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year… for Candy Lovers

It’s official, pumpkins are rolling into local stores, haunting attractions are springing up, scary costumes are filling up the shelves, and spider webs are accepted as house decorations. This could only mean one thing; Halloween is just around the corner! Whether this year you’re the one trick-or-treating or the kind neighbor handing out candy, they key ingredient to a spooctacular Halloween is candy. Candy Direct has everything you need to awe your trick-or-treaters and your own taste buds from Jelly Belly Pet Tarantulas to the traditional candy corn. Wondering what little Frankensteins, superheroes, princesses, and mummies love the most? Chocolate is clearly the preferred choice. Of the $1.9 billion sold in Halloween candy each year, $1.2 billion is on chocolate candy alone.  This year, get ready with Candy Direct and their great selection of bite size Snickers, Reese’s, and Milky Ways, oh my! Trick-or-treaters are hungrier than ever for a sugar rush so start getting ready and let us help you get ready for our favorite time of the year.

This Blog is Intern Approved!

Alina Serrano (the newbie)

And the Pucker-Up Award Goes to…

Sour Candy… just reading these two words together can make your mouth water, your lips pucker, and your eyes squint and tear up. Sour candy delivers high intensity flavors to your taste buds that always leave you wanting more. As a kid or maybe even as adults, sour candy not only provides a tingling sensation but it also provides a challenge… how much sour can you handle? As an expert in sour candy and their levels of sourness, a beginner may want to start with Sour Patch Kids or Shock Tarts so that just in case the sour is too much to handle, the sweet aftertaste can mend your scalding tongue. For our intermediates we can move on to extreme sour Smarties or sour Pop Rocks for a little more explosive feeling. Finally, if your tongue and your senses permit it, for your final level you can move on to Warheads or Too Tarts tongue sprayers (use precaution, we don’t want a sour coma). If you think you have what it takes to be sourly invincible visit us at candydirect.com and show us how much sour you can handle!

Bring it on…

This Blog is intern approved!

Alina Serrano (the newbie)

One PEZ at a time

Who would have ever thought that candy could be used as an anti-smoking device? Apparently PEZ did, more than 60 years ago. PEZ started out as a company in Vienna, Austria that produced mints. With the growing concerns with smoking, PEZ started promoting their mints as a way to quit smoking by packaging them in a dispenser that seemed to look like a lighter. The little plastic container was a great success and this gave the company a great idea. PEZ continued using the dispensers but decided to target the younger consumers by adding characters to them such as Popeye and Mickey Mouse. The different character dispensers became very attractive not only to children but to adults as well. Today thousands of collectors spread around the world and believe it or not, the winning bid for the world’s most expensive PEZ Dispenser was $32,205! If you’re trying to start a collection that could be worth a lot of money later on, why not PEZ dispensers?! You don’t have to look far, starting your collection is just a few clicks away. Candy Direct offers a variety of PEZ dispensers including Lion King, Hello Kitty, and Ice Age character dispensers. Even if you’re clinging to your favorite PEZ dispenser, Candy Direct can help refill it with your favorite PEZ flavors such as cola, regular and sour fruits. Come take a look at our PEZ dispensers and refill flavors available at candydirect.com!

This Blog is Intern Approved!

Alina Serrano (the newbie)

Tootsie Pops – Lollipop Candy

Getting in the Middle of an All-Time Favorite: Tootsie Pops

“How many licks does it take to get to the Tootsie Roll center of a Tootsie Pop?” There’s absolutely no doubt that the question has been around for quite some time. Made popular in both the 70’s and 90’s, Tootsie Pops are well known not just for that catchy slogan, but also for their exceptional flavor.

Unlike a lot of other pops on the market, a Tootsie Pop stands out for being the only one with a chewy chocolate center. Against flavors like cherry, orange, grape and many others, the chocolate at the core offers a sumptuous contrast to the fruity sweetness—there is absolutely nothing else like it!

Since there’s no other treat like Tootsie Pops, why not share this taste of nostalgia with this generation’s trick-or-treaters? They’ll love the wide variety of flavors this particular pop has to offer, as well as the thrill of finding out how many licks it takes to get to its chocolate core!

New sizes, prices, and no shipping and handling costs!

Have you ever been shopping for your favorite candy on-line and thought to yourself, “What in the world do I need 5 pounds of candy for?!” You know that when you shop in bulk you save money, but it has never seemed practical to buy 5 pounds of candy for personal or family consumption. Not only is there a good chance that some of it may go bad, but you also have to pay the increased shipping fee, which sometimes can be as expensive as the candy itself!

Well look no further, CandyDirect.com is here for you! At CandyDirect.com we now offer more conveniently sized bulk candy. Your favorite candy is now available in sizes approximately equal to 2.5 pounds! And do you want to know the best part of this promotion from CandyDirect.com? Shipping is included! Can you believe that?! It is like a dream come true! No longer do you need to worry about ordering 5 pounds of bulk candy. You or your family can easily eat 2.5 pounds of your favorite candy!

What’s even more amazing about this promotion from CandyDirect.com is that if you want to try something new and do not want to pay an outrageous amount for it, we have separated the candy by price. That’s right! Candy now available in approximately 2.5 pound bulk bags for under $20, under $30, and under $40! There are even some below $15! This promotion is cleverly called the $20, $30, $40 deal!

Let me say that again so you fully grasp how amazing of a deal this really is: Your favorite bulk candy is now available in more convenient sizes! (Approximately 2.5 pounds) And it is available, with shipping included, conveniently bracketed by price, under $20, under $30, under $40!

This unbelievable deal might not last forever, so make sure to order your favorite candy in bulk, at a reduced price, with shipping included! Unbelievable!

Easter Candy – Something New

Mix it up this Easter with new Ideas

Easter is right around the corner and if you haven’t stocked up on candy then you might find yourself in a tough spot. We all know that there are some popular Easter candies that just seem to run off the shelves themselves leaving us looking puzzled as we try to decide between green marshmallow peep bunnies and regular Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups. This year, why not think outside the egg? Colors can be your best friend and with a day like Easter it is easy to think of colors that are appropriate. Spring colors are always a big hit and pastels really give you that Easter look without being overly suggestive of the theme. Some great products in these colors are available all year round so they might be more readily available than most of the themed candy you’re used to seeing, and don’t be afraid to get creative! Think of all the unique candies that you can have to make your Easter celebration delightfully surprising and a hit! Products like Smarties, SweeTarts, Gum Balls, Jordan Almonds, and Laffy Taffy are available all the time with color specific choices. Imagine being the only person on your block to include Gummi Bears and Twinkle Pops in your Easter decorations. Maybe even try a different brand of Jelly Bean, like Gimbal’s Gourmet Jelly Beans, with more than 40 flavors, you’re sure to find your favorites and maybe make some new ones. Plus, if you’re really aching for something more traditional you can always go with Cadbury Creme Eggs, which are available 8 months out of the year. Jump over to Candy Direct and check out the Color section, there’s even a Pastel Colors subcategory where you are sure to find some creative Easter ideas.

Hannah Montana Disco Ball Lollipop Cover

Miley Cyrus—how did you do it? From the DNA of Billy Ray to little-girldom fame, the world has its eyes (and its pocketbooks) turned to you. Hannah Montana Disco Ball Lollipops are brought to us by the masterminds at Flix Candy. These suckers are nothing special at all. But, hey, you get a plastic disco ball to hang on your backpack or keychain when it’s all done, so you can feel just like Hannah Montana giving a concert with all the glitz and glamour of being a superstar. The disco ball does have an official Hannah Montana logo sticker, which makes it worth more than a quarter to most girls ages 6 to 14. If you’re looking for something a little bit different, try Hannah Montana Concert Candy (chewable microphones), Glamour Guitar Lollipops, or Picture Ring Pops. Millions of viewers and concert-goers can’t be wrong—this little girl’s got star quality and the ability to sell anything she puts her name and likeness to.

Once I pried open the shiny, disco ball cover, the lollipop inside was nothing to write home about. Its strawberry flavor was a bit dull, and the candy itself was only slightly bigger than a Dum Dum. The inner wrapper was plain white—no glitz at all. All in all, you’re paying for the image with this candy, and image is pretty much all you get. I would never buy this candy myself, but I know about a million and a half little girls who would. So hats off to Flix Candy and Hannah’s savvy agents for bringing the goods to the goody-goody consumer. Based in Niles, Illinois, Flix Candy is big into licensed candies, with Care Bears, WALL-E and Disney Princess candies all in the repertoire. They also market candy to boys, like their Box of Boogers, Gummy Bugs and superhero licensed brands.

Sorbee Crystal Light Hard Candy

 

The popular diet drink has made its way to the candy aisle! Crystal Light Sugar Free Hard Candies are relatively new to the market, released by Sorbee, a Philadelphia-based sugar-free product developer. This product’s availability is good news for calorie counters who can’t seem to release their sweet tooth. From the image on the wrapper, you can tell this is a candy meant to please adults, not kids. There are no cartoon characters here—just the familiar label and giant images of fruit on the Pepto-Bismol pink, 3-ounce bag. Advertising 50 percent fewer calories than regular hard candies, these Crystal Light lozenges boast less than 7 calories per piece. How’s that for diet candy? Sweetened with Splenda, the candies are also kosher, utilizing natural and artificial flavors.

The star flavor out of this package is Orange. Tasting like an orange popsicle, this flavor is smooth and bright, with a bit of tang to it—and not the orange drink. Strawberry pretty much tastes like a diet drink, so there are no surprises here. With a hint of chemical to the flavor, I found Strawberry to be overwhelmingly strong and too fake in the taste department. Cherry and Raspberry are almost indistinguishable in color, with the latter being a shade lighter. Cherry tastes a bit like wax lips you’d wear at Halloween and Raspberry tastes like Lip Smackers raspberry chap stick. Take that as you will. What I do like about theses hard candies is the individually-wrapped packaging style, perfect for tossing in your bag. The candies themselves have a nice shape to them, like LifeSavers with the middle filled in.

Overall, these candies are okay if you’re on a diet, but don’t expect to enjoy them more than you would a Jolly Rancher or a bag of fruity LifeSavers. You may just get hooked on Orange, though.

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Flix Batman Push Puppet

The Flix Batman Push Puppet is candy with a bonus. The entire topper is a Batman toy (his arms wave up and down when you push on the base) that you can save after the candy is long gone. Kids are crazy about this candy product because it just screams “play with your food.” But the packaging is so complicated that you’re lucky to even get the candy out of the tube—I couldn’t open this for the longest time. Once you do get it open, you’ll be able to remove the toy topper and fill your mouth with candy in the shape of bats. With their great, sugary crunch, the tiny bat candies are about the size of Tic Tacs and come in shades of grays and purples. I couldn’t really distinguish a flavor—just tasted like sugar in my opinion. But that’s okay, because these candies are more for looks than anything else. The novelty of eating your favorite superhero is enough for most to pick it up off the shelves and buy it.

Specializing in novelty candy and licensed candy brands like Disney, Flix Candy Company is based in Illinois. Their candies make a wonderful gift for a special occasion (whether that’s a birthday, Christmas or Easter), and you won’t go broke trying to buy a candy that has a toy in the same package. The company also sells High School Musical and Hannah Montana candies for the next generation of kids destined for superstardom. It’s hard to resist these products for their familiarity. (C’mon, Batman would never make a second-rate candy! His powers must extend to candy….) But they’re not like some of the old favorites, like Peanut M&Ms or Jolly Ranchers, where you’re just destined to come back for more. All in all, Flix Batman Push Puppet is worth a shot, so long as you don’t have to fly halfway across Gotham to buy it.

Ricola Refreshers Herb Drops

As if Switzerland hasn’t brought the world enough marvels in candy and sweets, they’ve also brought us Ricola—a natural alternative in throat drops. Ricola Refreshers Swiss Herb Throat Drops come in two flavors: the popular LemonMint and the lesser-known Elderflower. The ingredient list is impressive—these natural mints include herbs like horehound, mallow, elder, hyssop, lemon balm, linden flowers, peppermint, sage, and thyme. Being sugar-free, the throat drops have the added benefit or relieving minor sore throat.

I tried the Elderflower drops first—I was pleasantly surprised by these throat lozenges. Each drop is oval-shaped and packaged in a pocket-sized container. So what does an elderflower taste like? It carries a hint of citrus and a touch of floral flavors—but I really can’t describe the overall taste. Perhaps it’s a bit like Clark’s Teaberry Gum? Quite tasty indeed, these throat drops are long lasting and they have a smooth texture that doesn’t leave your teeth feeling filmy like some other cough drops do. It’s also not overwhelming in the menthol department, so you’ll enjoy a nice, enjoyable taste without feeling like you have breath more powerful than a dragon’s.

LemonMint is another popular flavor sold by Ricola, and rightly so. This throat drop is pleasant to taste and naturally refreshing. It tastes more like a fresh lemon rind than your typical lemon-flavored candy—you could easily picture how nice the scent would be if you could bottle it up and spray it around your home for a whiff of lemony freshness. Personally, I’d go for the Elderflower if given a choice of the two—but why not stock up on both? You know you’ll go through bags and bags of these the next time you have a sore throat. All in all, these throat drops live up to the name—they are truly refreshing.