First of al, I have to apologize for our recent lack of reviews. What can I say? The holidays screwed me up, I’m tired, I’m fat, I have personal problems, I’m lazy, etc. Now, back to work…

We all know Haribo, or “The ‘Bo” as some around here like to call it, right? The inventors of the Gummi Bear, this German candy company can more or less do no wrong in our eyes. Their specialty? Gummies. And not just your garden variety crap-ass gummies you find in line at the grocery store, either. Nope, Haribo is committed to pushing the gummi envelope.

Folks, there’s never been anything more important than this.

Seriously! When it comes to gummies, there’s NO confectioner that can even stand near Haribo. The reason is that they produce an assload of different flavors-I mean, really different from one another. We’ve reviewed a few here on the Candy Gurus, but we haven’t even scratched the surface. The thing they do that we haven’t seen duplicated by any other company is their attention to consistency. It’s one thing to make cherry gummies, sour gummies, assorted citrus gummies, etc.-anyone can try their hand at that (and they’d probably lame out on the flavors). Haribo has different taste profiles for their different selections of gummies.

Gummi Bears? Hard, solid, thick. Clown fish? Creamy, softish at first, but dense and hard as well. Fruity Pasta? Chewy, soft, but with a bit of resistance. Twin Cherries? Seriously hard. And now we come to Fruit Salad-which are both very soft, and very chewy, but in a different way than any of Haribio’s other candies.

Haribo Fruit Salad is a mixture of 6 or 7 different flavored and sized fruit shaped gummies. They’re not sour per se, but they are dusted with a bit of citrusy sugar on their outside. And like I said, they’re not tough or overly chewy-in fact, they’re pretty soft when you bite into them. However, the dusty coating on the outside (combined with probably sitting on a dock in storage crates for a few weeks) gives the outside of these candies a nice aged feel. This results in an initial hard, chewy bite, that opens up into a soft explosion of flavor.

And as far as flavor goes, Fruit Salad is among the best of the Haribo family. There’s lemon, orange, and grapefruit wedges, cherries, apples, and at least 2 other flavors I can’t put my finger on. But dammit, the flavors are incredible. My brother is offically an addict, and I’ve pretended to keep my habit under control all these years. But when Cost Plus had a Haribo sale this mnth for a buck a bag, I went off. And then I went off eating them late at night. And then I ran out.

So there you have it.

I’m pretty sure that these are a very unique gummy-no one’s making anything like this, and for that I call them dumb. Because people rip off every crappy gummy around- how man iterations of “sour worms” have you seen in your local drugstore? A lot. Just be happy that Haribo exists, and for fooks sake, pick some of these up the next time you want to push the flavor and consistency envelope.

Every time one of you eats Haribo Fruit Salad for the first time, my brother grows a new pair of wings.

Bottom Line: Different, yummy, addictive. You have to try them.