Candy Kittens - Sour Grape & Wild Strawberry

Last year I reviewed Candy Kittens Sour Watermelon and Eton Mess, the thing that let the bags down most (apart from Sour Watermelon being quite dull) was the price and the fact they were a Waitrose exclusive. I spotted three new bags in Sainsburys this week and OK they're slightly smaller but they are a much more reasonable price too. 

Candy Kittens are a bit of a fancy bag of sweets, or gourmet candy to use their own terms. The sweets are all naturally flavoured, gluten free and made using real fruit juice and natural ingredients. 

I tried Sour Grape first, Grape isn't a flavour I've noticed is used too much in our sweets, I wonder why? 

All the varieties I've tried have the same somewhat soft but still chewy texture and are quite large for this style of sweet. 

The grape sweets aren't too vibrantly coloured but that's what I'd expect with natural ingredients. 

I could smell the grape, they smelt sweeter rather than sour and the taste was along the same lines. It's quite mild and not really very sour but it's still a lovely flavour. If you're specifically looking for the grape then this isn't a sweet to be eaten a couple at a time as the flavour doesn't build up enough but by the bagful it was pretty decent just lacking the sourness, I guess that's again to be expected with all natural flavourings. 

Rating 6/10 

I tried Wild Strawberry next, I'm not sure what makes them wild according to Candy Kittens they're rarer and much more fun than the original though? 

These were much brighter than the grape but looking at the flavourings used (radish, carrot, blackcurrant, apple, tomato, pumpkin) bright red is probably a much easier colour to replicate. 

I knew these would be getting a higher rating before I'd even eaten one. The strawberry scent was evident before I'd even completely opened the seal and it was a lovely, sweet, fruity strawberry. 

The taste did live up to expectations here and it had a beautiful, naturally tasting strong strawberry flavour that was just as good from the first one I ate to the very last.

These also had a fizz to them that I hadn't noticed was missing from the grape, overall a delicious little sweet! 

Rating 8/10 

Candy Kittens

I'm not even sure why I bought these to tell you the honest truth - I was in waitrose, saw they were new and had fancy packaging and fell for it! Not that there is anything wrong with these sweets, though they are at the pricier end of the sweetie scale, but I hadn't realised this is because they are a 'gourmet candy' made with natural flavours, colourings, real fruit juice, gluten free and come from quite a conscious company.

It's funny a while ago I was tested for coeliacs and while I was waiting for the results I shopped around and there wasn't many options for gluten free sweets. Now I know I'm fine to eat wheat and gluten and there are options everywhere, this can only be a good thing though.

The sweets actually look lovely, they're presented really nicely and the packet is 100% what made me buy these. They are large sweets and you get a decent amount in each bag. The watermelon ones look more sugary than they are though, I don't think this is a bad thing, it was nice to have sweets and not end up with what I call furry teeth afterwards and sticky hands.

Sour watermelon

As soon as you open the bag you can smell the watermelon, I even said to the greedy one (my partners new name after eating a tub of lotus with his HANDS) "wow smell these!". The watermelon flavour is great and they've got that spot on but sadly there was a distinct lack of sour. 

If these weren't so expensive I would buy another bag just to check I didn't get a dud but mine were seriously not sour at all, if the bag said fizzy watermelon these would be getting an 8 or maybe higher.

Rating 6/10

Eton Mess

Eton Mess is a dessert consisting of strawberries, meringue and cream, there isn't really much information available about these sweets, just more of a blurb about the company and their values on the back of the pack.

When I opened these again there was a very strong, nice smell. I don't know if I could call it an "Eton Mess" smell, there were definitely berry smells but it smelled more like bubblegum to be honest. That said it's not a bad thing they smelled lovely!

The sweets look very fancy and it felt a shame eating them. They're more rubbery and chewy than the sour watermelon but I actually liked that, they're a nice old school style sweet. The flavour was just as the smell - nice, fruity and pretty sweet.

I preferred this bag out of the two, and I would buy these again. A good sweet that tasted as it should have!

Rating 7/10

If you do have to eat gluten free though, and you don't mind splashing out a little more (£3 for 150g on the site or special offer at the moment £2.50 in waitrose) then I would recommend these as they are a nice sweet, just don't be expecting any sour!