I refuse to start this review by talking about Lord of the Rings. Or Russell Crowe. Or Peter Jackson in general. Nor bungy jumping or Polynesia or Maori. Because you see that would be what you’d expect an American would write about when reviewing candy from New Zealand. But I won’t.
RJ’s Licorice Twists were brought to me from an old California friend who relocated in New Zealand about 12 years back, had a family, and came back to Cali to visit. She loves these things and thought I would too. And I think I do… not sure still.
The overall candy piece is pretty big – about the size of half my thumb, so I had to bite pieces in half and didn’t feel comfortable slamming the whole thing in my mouth.
AS you may know, the Gurus love us some licorice. We like it solid, if not hard. We like it a bit salty and tend to favor the way the Europeans go at it. The licorice of these RJ’s choco twists are not that. They are super soft (not my thing usually), like the texture of gummy fruit candies you would put in your kids lunch. (You know the ones, where the companies add Vitamin C or some other ‘healthy’ ingredient so we all just agree to pretend they’re good for little people?)
Then there’s the chocolate inside of them. Also not great. Smooth, not quite creamy, more like the texture of soft marzipan without the grit. I can’t tell if the chocolate is actually “good” chocolate. It seems a bit pedestrian. It’s not too sweet, though, and I like that.
Dangnabbit there’s something about these that I like! I just can’t put my finger on it. Because there are a ton of things I would change if I was RJ: make the licorice harder. Add some salt. Make the chocolate have more cocoa flavor.
Yet I can’t really stop eating them. And I’m not sure if it’s because I like to overeat candy. Or if it’s because I’m reviewing them and just need to take a new bite every few minutes so I can properly describe them. Or if it’s because they are so not my thing that I’m confused why I keep eating them, so I keep eating in the hopes I’ll wake up from this bewildering state!
Something unique here. Something worth eating. Something that keeps … drawing me back … to the bag.
Like Gollum to his Precious.
I absolutely detest black licorice but was given a package of these by a friend and have decided these are the exception to the rule for the exact reasons you didn’t like them! I like soft licorice rather than hard and the combination of chocolate & not too strong licorice makes them very edible – too edible but the absolute pick of the lot IMHO is the Mango filled with white chocolate. I thought I only ate one piece but then the bag was empty and that was the only package I had. Sometimes gluttony really rots! Now I am searching for someone that sells the Mango Twists in Canada but so far…..it’s a lost cause. I’ll keep searching though.
Yo, this baloney!
I just searched on amazon’s Canadian site and they’re there! Go get ’em, kid!!! They actually sound pretty yummy.
Thank you for that – I didn’t think of checking Amazon! To be honest; I am not a fan of mango at all but mango and white chocolate – AMAZING.
you’re cute. good review. agreed.
Two things I normally wouldn’t eat together but, I’m with ya, I like these! I just wish individually both were better tasting.
Like 99.87% sure Russell Crowe is from Australia, ya dingbat.
He’s actually FROM New Zealand. Next time you decide to call me wrong. Check out Encyclopedia Britannica, or go to a library to check. If you happen to have a computer, you can do a web search too. And then you’d find this: https://www.google.com/search?q=russell+crowe+where+is+he+from&oq=Russell+Crowe+where&aqs=chrome.1.69i57j0.8798j0j7&sourceid=chrome&es_sm=119&ie=UTF-8