Ever been to an “It’s Sugar” candy store? They’re the ones located in all the best high foot traffic tourist locations. Still not ringing a bell? They’re the ones who sell giant boxes of one kind of candy, like Laffy Taffy or M&M’s. They’re also the same people who sent us a 5 POUND keg of delicious Albanese gummy bears last year. Still foggy? Well, …they’re the ones who make these: Dinglebearies.
Its like someone laid up the fattest fastball, right down Main Street, and turned me into Babe Ruth. Or like my volleyball teammate set me up for the ultimate spike, to the guy on the other team who’s 5′ 2″. Maybe this is too easy, but WHO THE HELL WOULD NAME A CANDY AFTER A TURD??? I’m genuinely perplexed by this, but as we know by now, the proof is in the pudding (note: any pudding/poo cheap shot is purely unintentional and simply a byproduct of our comprehensive understanding of tired American idioms). If the candy tastes good, then the name becomes a cute story.
But they don’t. At all. I’m still not convinced that ANY chocolate covered gummy bears need to exist, as I’ve never had a good one. These aren’t mediocre, they’re bad. I suspect it’s because the bears themselves are not high quality. Which is again, vexing. Albanese gummy bears, the ones It’s Sugar uses for the keg of bears, for their little gift boxes, and for another product coming up in this review, are outstanding. They are the only gummy bear that can go toe to toe with Haribo and frankly…and I know this is heresy…I think I actually prefer them to Haribo. The flavor are absolutely on point, and there’s 12 of them for a great variety. Their only downside is that they’re way too soft, so they require aging. No big deal.
The question remains though-why didn’t they use Albanese bears for the Dinglebearies? As it is, the main flavor I come away with is that of a Raisinet- a chocolate covered raisin-for every bear. I can only imagine how tasty the pineapple Albanese bear would be shrouded in chocolate, but I guess I’ll have to wait on that. If, for some reason, these actually ARE Albanese bears…then my only explanation would have to be the chocolate somehow is deadening their taste. Either way, I don’t like these, and we need to move on. It should be noted though that Matty Guru tried these as well, and his whole family enjoyed them-and so did he so this could be less of a slam dunk than I thought- but for me, they’re not an option.
To better things: WAY better things. The sugary folks were kind enough to send us a new product they’re carrying- giant Sour Patch Kids:
check out their size compared to the original kids:
I actually used to buy large boxes of individually wrapped giant SPK’s, but they definitely didn’t include the watermelon and blue raspberry flavors like we have here. Honestly, I can’t tell how many flavors are here, but there’s at least 6. Bravo, team, Bravo. I’ve never seen these in a bulk bin- hell, they’re so new, I can’t even find much information on them EVEN WHILE UTILIZING MY COMPUTER, CONNECTED TO A PHONE LINE, RUNNING AT 14.4k BAUD! I’M TOTALLY SERIOUS!
But these are flipping great. I actually like them more than the regular sized kids, because there’s more surface area, thus more potential for it to stiffen up and harden. There’s nothing better than a stale big sour patch kid-trust me on this. If you can handle the exercise in will power, after you buy a sack from It’s Sugar, put half in an open ziploc and stash it in a dry place for a few months. Yes, I said will power was involved here. It’s worth the wait if you can handle it. These things are built for the nuclear holocaust, so it takes quite some time for their jelly consistency to harden I tried throwing them in the freezer for extended periods of time, but that didn’t work at all. Air plus time is the only way to go.
Finally, we get to the breakfast cereal portion of our review. And what does a Candy Guru pour their milk over every morning? Why, these of course.
You seem like you’ve never eaten candy for breakfast before, that’s weird. Actually, if you’ve ever had Captain Crunch, Fruit Loops, or any other sugar cereal, you effectively have had a bowl of candy. So why not these? Decidedly un-weird is the fact that this box includes a delicious 1.5 pounds of the aforementioned almost perfect 12 flavor Albanese gummy bears.
I can’t say enough about these bears- be it in a keg or cereal box , or even in bulk by the flavor (another benefit of the It’s Sugar stores, if you have a bad tangerine/grape fix, or just like a few flavors), these bears are most definitely legit. I tried to find all 12 flavors, but could only see 11 with distinct differences. I’m only going to beat this drum one more time, but seriously folks-if you haven’t tried Albanese 12 flavor bears, you have to. And this box of love certainly isn’t a bad place to start.
Oh, I almost forgot- they were kind enough to caution against some of the biproducts of shoveling them down in the morning with milk:
GUYS, THESE MOGHT CAUSE BEAT-BOXING AND RAPPING. I’m so in.
Here’s the deal with It’s Sugar stores: they’re popping up everywhere, and they have a fun sense of humor. They’re specialty is obviously rebranding popular candies into giant sized boxes and novelty items, and…people dig that. Especially tourists walking around in San Francisco or Monterey (I was just in Monterey and I think they have a city ordinance that says there has to be a candy store every 80 feet-there’s TONS and the It’s Sugar was by far the most crowded). It doesn’t matter what time I go into an It’s Sugar store, it’s always busy. And there’s always something I like there, sometimes in their bulk bins, sometimes on their shelves. Check them out, and definitely pick up some of these quality bears while you’re there.
I like “questioning everything”. I definitely need more of that. I think…?