Marissa offhandedly mentioned that I should do candy reviews while sitting on a sunny bench outside of BonBon on the lower east side one Saturday. I needed a licorice restock and was anticipating wanting some Valentine’s sweetness, and while at the store, I thought: why not be a brand loyalist and try BonBon’s propietary candy, a sour wild strawberry fish. Their very own swedish fish.
These are delightfully tacky - they don’t stick in your teeth but have a decent pull and chew. The sugar coating is surprisingly fine and powdery meaning no threat to hurting your mouth as you chase fish with fish. It is a balanced sour and sweet sugar coating.
The overall gummy flavor is complex and unique - not your typical strawberry. I will say the branding and name is more of a mouthful than it needs to be - Sour Wild Strawberry? Doesn’t roll off the tongue. On the bag they are described as “Raspberry-dashed Sour Wild Strawberry”, and the berries on the bag even read as blackberries at quick glance - berry confusing (sorry). Ultimately the important thing is how it tastes, and it succeeds there.
Each fish is a bit thicker and wider than a traditional Swedish fish, or even other licorice fish that I’ve had, making each bite feel resplendent and generous. Big boys but not overwhelming.
There is a story on the back of the bag about “the young man” - assumingly someone connected to BonBon catching his first fish off of a Swedish island. Lines like “This moment became his Madeleine cookie of youth” leave me a little perplexed. I’m not sure how it all connects.. I’m actually really open to knowing more and connecting more to the founders of BonBon, but there is a vaguery here that runs amiss. I see the attempt to personalize but its clunky and confusing.
Even if you arent a big sour-head, the elevated details on these will impress.
7/10 - most points reduced for lack of marketing finese.
This beautiful little box of brought me an unfamiliar delight: I think I finally encountered an licorice I don’t like. I picked it up from Un Posto Italiano in Park Slope, a fancy Italian market and cafe with imports and sandwiches that I met Emily at for an early Sunday morning coffee. They had stacks of these licorice packages that looked like packs of cards (which they also have at the store, the Scopa Neopolitana varietal).
There was an assortment of Amarelli flavors, many in the mint-y profile, which is not always my preference with licorice (I enjoy them but just don’t crave), so I grabbed both this Calabrian Clementine Favette, as well as the All’anice Colorizia, which are like colorful hard beans, candy coated with a slightly chewier minty center.
I didn’t know what to expect with the combination of citrus and black licorice, but it is citrus season, and I have been in the seductive throws of a huge bag of juicy juicy cara caras as of late. I was completely unprepared for the level of bitterness in the Clementine Favettes.
These are hard candies, small like teeth made of mica. Its a good thing they are small (smaller than my pinky finger nail) because the flavor is so incredibly overwhelming, there is only so much you can take. I am challenging myself try a third one as I write this, and I know I will regret it. I have a cara cara nearby.
It is coated in a bitterness that is astringent like how some salty licorice can taste like ammonia. Its different and worse. In the front of the mouth, I can find some floral notes, but once it hits the back of my throat, it drips like an orangey poison. The candy is actually now stuck to the top of my mouth - horrible. You need to slowly suck on these. That is the primary issue with them, the bitter citrus compounds the bitter licorice and is SO concentrated, and there is absolutely no sweetness to be found. And absolutely NO juiciness. It is almost tanic, and dry in my mouth. I bet you could make a weird tea with this. It would be more tolerable to eat a raw citrus peel, IMO.
2/10 - points for novelty, packaging, and as Marissa put it: upsetting the pain/pleasure binary
I could see myself doing more of these! I am eating a lot of candy. Sound off in the comments if you think you would like either of these candies, or if you have a candy you think I should try.