Sugar Savvy

So, I spotted two new ones at Dollar Tree last night.

Coconut, it seems, is the new black. Caramel is so 2006, don’t you know.  (Okay, that’s a lie. I love caramel and will eat it until I no longer have teeth.  And at that point,  I’ll just suck on it…)
I had pretty low expectations with these, but was compelled to give ‘em a go. And at 2/$1, the risk was pretty minimal.

I’ll cut to the chase:

Nestle Crunch with Coconut

Based on one of last year’s Limited Edition of the Crunch, which featured a liquid caramel as the special ingredient, I was expecting something similar with the coconut. In other words, I was picturing some sort of Hawaiian Tropic-esque fluid coconut center to come oozing out from the square of chocolate upon biting into it. Not so. In fact, I’m not sure if I would even have discerned a coconut addition had I not been looking for it. The flavor was very slight. I would never typically buy a Nestle Crunch in general simply because there is so many better chocolate bars out there – even in the “junk chocolate” category. I’m not sure why anyone would buy this – it’s not good or bad. It’s simply a (thick) Nestle Crunch.

100 Grand with Coconut

I had similarly low hopes with this one, especially due to the fact that I had sampled the Crunch bar first.  I was, however, pleasantly surprised. The guest star here arrives in the form of actual shreds of real coconut within the normal crispy, caramel-y center. Not only did the coconut add nice texture, it actually lent itself in a positive way to the overall taste. The coconut makes sense here and is not simply a gratuitous addition, as so often is the case with limited edition candy bars. Imagine biting into a Brach’s Neapolitan followed by a 100 Grand chaser. That’s what this is. I like it – a lot. The only improvement I can think of is to marry the 100 Grand Coconut with the 100 Grand Dark; this would be a match made in drugstore candy heaven.

Let me know if and where you spot these elusive ones. I’m interested to know whether or not their marketing is regional. I JUST noticed that these are not, in fact, labeled as “limited editions”, so perhaps they will be hanging around for awhile. In any case, I’m beginning to think that Portland is a test market city – we seem to get all the strange ones, good and bad.