I'm welcoming myself back to the productive world with a handful of what is pretty much the only new Valentine's candy we received at CVS this year: Raspberry Hugs. The bag describes them as "Kisses* Milk Chocolate Hugged by Raspberry Flavored White Creme." Raspberry isn't one of my favorite flavors (although as far as berries go it beats blueberry for sure) and though I don't condemn it entirely I'm also not a big fan of fruit and chocolate together. But I was interested in what Hershey would do with the combining of the raspberry and white "creme" flavors and knew as soon as I opened the case that I was going to have to try them. It is also worth noting that the packaging was part of what drew me in; the bag is a delightful lavender shade and the wrappers are pink. However I do have a bone to pick with the way Kisses are wrapped, which I will address at the end as it has no actual bearing on the taste experience of the product.
After my initial tasting, it took me two days to figure out what the raspberry white creme reminds me of. The raspberry flavor is obvious but also rather subtle; it's definitely one of those things you taste more through your nose, if you know what I mean. I'd dare to say someone with any degree of nasal congestion would be unable to detect the raspberry flavor at all. It's like when you're breathing in you taste mostly the white creme, then when you're exhaling you taste the raspberry flavor. But to remark on the raspberiness of the creme I'd actually give it more of a tutti-frutti-berry title than raspberry. It was this revelation that led me directly to my two-day-awaited epiphany: it tastes like Fruity Pebbles! Not exactly, but definitely reminiscent. Ah, nothing like the Eureka! moment.
So we have this subtle-but-evident fruity flavor which is more pleasant than I expected and, I find, pretty addictive in its inability to be precisely named. Fruity Pebbles is the closest comparison I can come up with, but it still doesn't hit the mark exactly.
Now that we've addressed flavor, we should discuss Hug consumption techniques. If you like to savor your creme in anticipation of the milk chocolate center, you'll taste mostly the milk chocolate once you reach it. But if you bite right into it and just chew the whole thing together, the two layers blend very nicely. Have you ever had something with two or multiple layers, and found that consuming more than one layer at once was actually unpleasant? I can't really think of anything off the top of my head that does this aside from Gobstoppers (grape into orange is pretty awkward even if you don't hate citrus, which I do) But anyway, not important because this is definitely not the situation here; these Kisses are delicious no matter how you eat them.
Some people may not enjoy the fruity flavor, but as far as how it combines with the traditional Hershey's milk chocolate I say the blend is pretty flawless. If you're a chocolate lover and these are the only chocolate in the room, I promise you'll have no trouble popping one after another after another, even if you're not nuts about the raspberry creme. They're still Hershey Kisses, though I'll warn you that if you strongly dislike the fruitiness you will NOT enjoy the aftertaste as this is when the creme flavor really seems to dominate the most. 4.5 Stars, minus half a star only because while they are still delicious, they'd be my last choice in a pile of different Kisses.
Now for the aformentioned packaging complaint: Hershey really needs to address the Kiss wrappers. It could be as simple as adding an extra fraction of a square inch to the wrappers; I imagine it would be difficult and not particularly cost-effective to seal each individual kiss. But I've been noticing many of Hershey's other products making this change and would like to see it brought both to the Kiss and the Cadbury Egg(for those who are unaware, Cadbury is now manufactured and distributed by Hershey in the US.) Both are wrapped in such a minimalist fashion and with such thin foil that parts of the candy itself become exposed, and while I'm not exactly a germophobe I do find this to be disconcerting and am always sure to root through the Cadbury Eggs for one that is still fully foiled. Pretty much everything else seems to have been switched over to a secure plastic wrapper, which is a huge relief to me as I've always abhored the traditional foil wrapped with the annoyingly loose paper wraparound label. Annoying to stock, easy to damage, and hardly moisture-protecting or weatherproof. Plastic is not invincible, but it sure stands a better chance than delicate foil and flimsy paper. I'd purchase a Cadbury bar now before a Cadbury Egg simply because the bar's wrapper guarantees its freshness while the egg's doesn't. At least Kisses come in a bag that keeps them fresh, and I suppose as long as no one's rubbing their hands all up in your candy dish an exposed Kiss or two won't do anyone any harm. But as a candy that is frequently used as a "Help Yourself" kind of candy, I do think some attention should be paid to ensuring fewer breaches in the armor.
I felt like I could taste it. Which does good for my diet. Really nice use of descriptive words it keeps it fresh :)
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