I already revealed in my last blog post that I loved the taste of turkey. I also really like candy corns.
So when I learned that Brach’s has released Turkey Dinner Candy Corn, sold exclusively at Walgreens, I had to give this a try.
I didn’t necessarily expect them to be good. I recalled the time they were giving out these pizza-flavored Dum-Dums lollipops at the bank, and I tried one. I like pizza and I like Dum-Dums, but the combination of the two was not all that appealing. Some flavors just shouldn’t be sweetened. I suspected turkey dinner flavors were among those.
But I thought these candy corns might make for a good blog.
The purchase
When I learned these would be available a few weeks back, I stopped into Walgreens, but they didn’t have them in stock yet. I had mostly forgotten about them until last week, when my wife went there for another purpose. Luckily, she is almost always a good sport when it comes to my tomfoolery, so she picked up a bag without even being asked to.
Her account of the purchase was amusing. While ringing up the sale, the clerk said she had tried them. When my wife asked the clerk how they tasted, she just looked at her and didn’t say a word. We assumed this meant she was following the old adage, “if you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all.”
They both apparently had a laugh following the silence.
The test
It was time for the taste test, but I was the only member of the family adventurous enough to try them.
The candy corns came in six flavors, according to the packaging: green beans, cranberry sauce, roasted turkey, stuffing, sweet potato pie and ginger-glazed carrots. But there was no guide to what each flavor looked like, so there was an element of mystery.
It wasn’t too difficult to figure out what the green candies were supposed to be. I tried it first. Same texture as regular candy corns, and yes, they were very green-beanish in flavor, with the added sweetness. Not awful, but not something I’d rush out and buy again.
The red ones were the cranberry sauce flavored candies. These were the best of the bunch, which does make some sense since I like fruit-flavored candy. I’m not 100% sure if cranberries are a fruit – maybe we should ask Ocean Spray CEO Tom Hayes. But anyway, I’d eat more of them.
The other four were somewhat of a mystery because there wasn’t a lot of variation in the coloring.
And at first, I couldn’t discern what flavor was what. When my family saw a confused look on my face and asked what the next candy corn sampled was, all I could think was it tasted kind of like dust. After trying all four remaining flavors, I was stumped. I’ll try again later. After all, we had just finished supper and my taste buds might have been confused.
On the next try, I nailed it. The first piece tasted like a blend of sugar and ginger. That would be ginger-glazed carrots. Time to move on.
I tried the next piece, and I had no earthly idea what it was. It still tasted a little bit like dust. The mystery remained, so it was time to try another one. That was the turkey-flavored one. It had a pretty stout flavor, kind of like drinking the broth with sugar mixed in. Like I said, I love turkey, but I’ll stick with the real thing.
The final piece was very spicy. It kind of tasted like stuffing would, which I also really like, so that’s the call I made.
That led me to believe the mystery flavor must have been sweet potato pie. I tried sweet potatoes as a child and disliked them so much I haven’t tried them since, so I don’t really know what they taste like. If the candy corns accurately replicated that taste, my sweet potato abstinence will undoubtedly continue.
The conclusion
While I will continue to be a consumer of Brach’s candy, this will probably be the last bag of the Turkey Dinner Candy Corn I’ll purchase, unless they go on clearance for like a nickel a bag.
I’m glad I tried them, because while they were not necessarily delicious, it was fun.
Thanks, Brach’s, for making this little bit of pre-Thanksgiving fun possible.
