Candy Bar Lab

While scanning the candy assortment at Blockbuster this past weekend, something unusual caught my eye - a Pop Rocks brand chocolate bar. It’s been years since I’ve eaten Pop Rocks, but I think I remember liking them at the time. My first thought was that this is probably a strawberry flavored Pop Rocks center covered in chocolate. I think the red lettering on the wrapper threw me off because upon further investigation of the wrapper, I could not find any indication of a flavor other than chocolate. I’m not convinced that mixing Pop Rocks with chocolate is a good idea, but I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to try this candy bar out.

Structure
To my surprise, this is in fact a molded bar with the carbonated sugar crystals (Pop Rocks) incorporated throughout.

Texture
Overall this is most like a Nestle Crunch. The crystals are small and crunchy. The chocolate is dry and crumbly - pretty terrible. This is really cheap chocolate. It’s probably been sitting on that Blockbuster shelf too long and the carbonation must have decayed the chocolate in the packaging. What’s the half-life of Pop Rocks? Hold on a second… what the hell is this? A few seconds after biting in, I feel what I believe to be an aneurysm. There are bubbles exploding in my brain. And it won’t stop. I experience a full 20 seconds of unpleasant popping in my cerebral cortex before it starts to die down and settle in the back of my throat. That was not cool. I put the bar down and ponder for a moment what just happened. I’m hesitant to go back, but I can’t let one bite suffice. Maybe it just caught me off guard. I prepare myself and take a second, smaller bite. And once again, I’m bombarded with crackling bubbles.

Taste
The little chocolate flavor there is vanishes within seconds. The crystals are completely flavorless, which is what makes the whole thing so weird. With each pop, no flavor is released. There’s no citric acid or anything else to counter the sensation. I imagine this is what Crystal Drano tastes like.

Verdict
This is without a doubt, the worst candy bar I’ve ever had. I couldn’t make it past the second bite. A half hour later I’m still feeling a little sick. Needless to say, I won’t be recommending this bar.

Tags: carbonated crystals, milk chocolate

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 14th, 2008 at 3:54 am and is filed under Candy, Negative, Review, United States. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.