The red gum that's just pure cinnamon or something. Plus it's spicy. Ew. Just ew
Probably these little lychee candy things I had years ago. No fruit flavor at all. Tasted as though someone mixed powdered blackboard chalk and sugar.
Chocolate brandy beans.
They always seem to be made with cheapest shittiest chocolate as well but that brandy liqueurs inside is revolting enough on its own thread the chocolate is usually completely forgettable
The Harry Potter bean things which has awful flavors mixed in, like puke etc.
Twizzlers.
I tried them in the US and it just felt like I was chewing on a piece of plastic.
On the other hand, unlike most of the people in the comments, I love licorice.
Delicious, delicious carnauba wax...
I tried Hershey's (American chocolate) before and it tasted absolutely disgusting. it will never ever come remotely close to Dairy Milk or Galaxy
I haven't actually tried this but my friend did.
The disgusting Harry Potter every flavour beans. They had jelly belly jelly beans that tasted like dirt, grass, booger, vomit, ear wax, and others I can't remember.
I've only tried one, blind, it was worms. Never again. That was over twenty years ago and I still gag just thinking about it.
Licorice. Anise flavored candy. It's disgusting.
Maryjanes? (Very old yucky candy, not cannabis related)
Hersheys "chocolate". I spit it out, and a bit embarrassed, asked "could it gone bad during the flight?"
Well, obviously this stuff does taste like vomit, and Americans seem to be OK with that. Explains a lot about American behavior. If chocolate here would taste like that, we probably would have more mass shootings, too.
Hersheys used to be our only choice. However now that we have better choices, many of us are waking up to chocolate as a good thing (other than the sugar rush). It can be hard to get over the price and quantity difference though.
Luckily, we are spoiled for choice here. German, Swiss, Belgian, English chocolate all around. And no Hersheys anywhere.
I'm allergic the something they put in mass produced milk chocolate over here I think. Idk what it is, I've no allergies I know of. But if I have a Hershey Kiss, my throat burns a little after, feels painful.
This doesnt happen when I have good dark chocolate, it's only the garbage mass produced chocolate. US chocolate wasn't always this shitty, but it sure as fuck is now. I doubt there is much actual cocoa in it these days
I tried some matcha mochi once. It didn't really taste good, but the worst thing about it was that it was just boring.
If I had to choose between leather belt flavoured licorice and vomit flavoured Hershey's. Licorice wins everytime.
Ever had Dutch licorice? All the salt of a thousand oceans in one little bite.
I've tried the licorice thats made with ammonium chloride.
I love love love, licorice. Theres a store by me that often carries international candies and goods. I saw salty licorice there, and it sounded good, so I bought a little bag of the stuff made in one of the nordic countries, it was a bit ago, I don't remember which one.
Driving home with a piece in my mouth and I taste it. Why do I taste cat piss? Wtf? My face sours, and ammonia comes to mind. My nose flairs, I spit it out. I get home and search up ammonium chloride, which I found on the package lable. I'm horrified what I find. It is processed with ammonia. WTF
Salty licorice might be good, but y'all can keep the ammonium chloride stuff, I'm good. Taste like cat piss smells
Salted liquorice.
I had a Norwegian friend who waxed lyrical about this stuff. So when I saw it for the first time in a shop, I grabbed a packet to nibble on while waiting for my train.
Plain black liquorice is delicious and salt makes everything taste better, and the Norwegian seemed like a nice, relatively normal person who enjoyed other things I liked. This was a low risk choice of mid morning snack, I thought to myself.
I was wrong. So very wrong.
This stuff tastes like it was peeled off the bottom of a shoe after walking through the city all day. It's not salt either, it's freaking ammonium chloride.
To paraphrase the Wikipedia:
The mineral is commonly formed on burning coal dumps from condensation of coal-derived gases. It is also found around some types of volcanic vents. It is a product of the reaction of hydrochloric acid and ammonia.
And Scandi's put this on liquorice and like it. Even the kids. Madness. It took my all not to heave into a bin after trying it and like six cups of black tea to get the taste out of my mouth.
I gave the Norwegian the rest of the packet and he laughed at me while I watched him eat it because I looked so horrified.
ammonia
I like black licorice overall, but your description reminded me of my own worst candy experience. I brought these black licorice cat coins at World Market. The cat shapes were appropriate in the worst way. They tasted the way cat pee smells. It was completely unexpected and overpowering. I looked at the ingredients, and there was fucking ammonia in them. Horrifying. I will never understand how anyone could enjoy a candy that tastes like snacking out of the cat box.
Sounds like something that would pair well with Almond Roca for a litter box themed party.
Droppies! They're an acquired taste. I worked with a lot of Dutch people at one point and they were always bringing them in. There was one kind I swear that had a powdered coating it was dipped in which only could have been weed killer.
As a Scandinavian I am ok with this being a general opinion outside of Scandinavia (minus a couple of countries), because that just means there's more for us.
This stuff is like cocaine to me. Liquorice with salmiak is my favorite candy. It's so interesting seeing people who didn't grow up with it dispise it so much. Nowadays I don't but it anymore because I can't stop myself from speed running all the candy once it's in the house.
Swede here, that Norwegian shit is weak. This is what we like.
I’m seeing a lot of black licorice mentions, but there’s a special hell for Läkerol’s menthol black licorice.
This just brings to mind the dreaded menthol filter tipped liquorice roll up. These were never intentionally done, but running out of either ordinary tips or blue rizla would often end up with being the only option.
I quite cigs years ago but for some reason I'm really craving one of these right now, ha ha.
That sounds delicious what
I need to find this
:adds to shopping cart
Related anecdote: When I worked an offshore rotation with people from all over the world, I made an effort to bring candy that I'd never seen outside of Scandinavia. It was always amusing to see people sampling candy I liked when they weren't used to the ammonium chloride branch of flavors.
And once I brought this:
Everybody who weren't Norwegian, Swedish, or Finnish (sadly we had no Danes on board) absolutely hated it. Especially the Americans and Brits.
Everyone except Mario, that is; a Croatian geophysicist. He loved them. His voice still lives rent free in my head over ten years later, saying "Sweet candy is for kids"
A few trips later I brought one of my favorites for basically the same result, but this time with Jim (from Illinois, iirc) complaining that it made his mouth physically hurt:
Mario loved that one even More.
The only thing everyone on board liked was the obscene amount of chocolate my navigator brought every trip.But to answer the question: Twizzlers. I bought some when visiting the US a couple of years ago. It tasted like oily sweetener (as in, clearly not actual sugar). That's when I learned that American and European wine gum are flavored very differently.
Footnote: Durian and durian chocolate is quite alright once you get used to the slight farty smell from each packet you open.
I will defend my rubber flavoured twizzlers til the day I die. Do they taste like you shouldn't be eating them? Absolutely. Will I still eat an entire bag of twizzlers at the movie theater every single time? You betcha.
Yeah, American candy has about the lowest standards. Canada isn't much better, but there's a noticeable difference in the quality of chocolate in common chocolate bars. We once did a side-by-side comparison of KitKats (we live right on the border) and the difference was stunning.
Same in Canada. Everything is fake. You'll see transmission fluid before you'll see any real sugar in the ingredients.
I'm a brit and have loved tyrkisk peber and other "salty" liquorice etc. sweets for a long time. I had a big bag of the hot and sour flavour and was rather sad when I ran out.
If you feel like DMing your name and address to an internet stranger who may or may not send you anthrax spores, I can (claim to) mail you a resupply stash on Monday.
sweet candy is for kids
I vibe w Mario. I haven't had either you mentioned, but they seem my speed. I go for the saltiest licorice you crazy Scandinavians can come up with.
(am an American who warns people off my candy stash, but they still try it and think I'm pranking them)
Sometimes it's a hit. I was going somewhere with an Uber in Houston once, and the driver needed to stop for gas. I took the opportunity to head inside the gas station for some supplies, and while I was queueing and minding my own business while the guy in front of me had his stuff scanned by the cashier, and he suddenly said "Oh, and his stuff too", offering out of the blue to pay for my stuff. (Seriously, does that happen sometimes? I've never heard of it before nor after. He must've been in a good mood). I wasn't holding much stuff, so sure why not, once my initial WTF-factor had worn off.
I gave the guy a tin of Tyrkisk Pepper as a token thank you (I happened to have some I bought at my home airport that I planned on leaving at the head office). When he asked what it was I just said "Scandinavian candy, be careful". He actually liked them.
American or South African chocolate products.
NOT an anti-American/-Saffer thing. They add butyric acid, which tastes like vomit to the rest of the world. (Accurate, as vomit contains it).
Presumably because the market there have been trained to expect that flavour for some reason. To the rest of us, a US or ZA origin is usually a sign to avoid.
Oh my God is that why I taste vomit if I eat a Hershey's bar then drink a glass of water
A colleague came back from the US with a big back of mini Hershey's flavours. Most were ok but I legitimately thought the standard plain flavour had spoilt.
It may have. Certainly one of the many problems with hersheys s how old it can be. It seems to be treated as something that can sit on the shelf forever
Growing up and living in the US and then accidentally learning to taste the butyric acid after tasting chocolate without it made me sad :(
any American chocolate tastes like vomit
Only if you didn’t grow up with it. Also it’s just Hershey (and derivative brands, which is many)
I got a monthly food box for my wife a number of years ago. Each month they sent snacks from a different country.
I can't remember which country it was from, but one month we got some round, hard candies. It was one of the most unfortunate things I have ever intentionally put into my mouth.
I don't even remember the flavor (licorice, maybe?), because my brain attempted to bleach it out.
Everything else was usually tasty, though.
My wife looked it up. It's a hard licorice candy with a salty filling from the Netherlands called Napolean Zwart-Wit (which loosely translates to "tarred scrotum").
That may have been one of the Scandinavian countries. Sorry.
If you have any leftover, plz send.
Edit: Not our fault this time, but thanks for the tip!
Black licorice. Or anything containing black licorice. It’s just fucking disgusting.
Black licorice is just horrific. I try it every once in a while as I age thinking "Old people like this, maybe I'm old enough to like it myself, now", but no. It's still an instant headache/nausea combo at one taste. Ugh.
Only if you feel like punishing yourself for your own science.
Twizzlers black licorice vs panda brand licorice is worth trying just to compare the world of differences that black licorice can have.
Then if you really really hate yourself you can find some other salt licorice. Crazy stuff that is as much more of an acquired taste than the worst cheap black licorice like Twizzlers
Well, licorice is definitely up there.
There's some pralines that with some alcohol based filling that's also really gross.
But I still remember I was a kid and my parents bought these cheese crackers. They were awful, the it was a bit crumbly but they had this really bad taste of something I can only describe as for fungus & cream cheese. I literally had to take a break and concentrate on not barfing even though we just wanted to play tabletop games. I know it's not sweet but that stuff lives rent-free in my head to this day.
At my place of work, one project we worked on involved a lot of contractors from a place based in China. (The project was an absolute cluster-fuck all the way from soup to nuts, but that's a story for another day.) When the project concluded, they sent our office a thank-you gift box of various Chinese snacks.
One of the snacks was a... dried... meat... "candy"... I guess? The taste wasn't "sweet" so much. It tasted like it had been dipped in perfume. And the texture of the meat was hard to describe. Not chewy like jerky, and it didn't have that highly-processed Slim Jim sort of texture to it. Maybe it was sortof freeze-dried or something? I also couldn't identify what animal the meat might have come from. (And I couldn't read the text on the packaging.)
I'm not sure whether it was just an acquired taste or rather a practical joke by the folks at the Chinese company. Lol.
Was it a little cube? A Taiwanese exchange student once gave me a few "fish-tidbits". Holy shit those things were the fishiest things I've ever tasted. Just concentrated chum bucket, instant bad breath. I'm sure that cats would love them, but I'm still not convinced that she wasn't pulling my leg giving me a cat treat or what was essentially a bouillon cube and calling it "candy".
Sounds like meat floss. I’ve never had it, but several variations pop up pretty high when I sort snacks on Yami (Asian snack shopping site) by popularity.
I’ve been meaning to try this - I’ve found it in stores a couple times now, but it just sits on my shelf. I imagine there’s an expiration and it’s long past
Very likely! What I had was formed and individually wrapped in little wrappers like you might expect Werther's caramels to come in, bu the texture does sound similar to that. Neat!
Black Death. Tastes like I’d expect a chemical burn to taste.
One Halloween as a kid we got gummy false teeth. It looked exactly like how you think it would look. I cant actually remember how it tasted, but it want good. Second was some sugar free sour patch kid clones, they mostly tasted like soap.
Turkish delights tend to be terrible. Insanely chewy and sticky, floral and just unpleasant. I also tried some sweet "goat cheese and spice lollipop" candy from mexico i didn't care for much.
Black licorice fucks though. I'll stand with the swedes on this one.
Avoid pretty much anything that has rose water as an ingredient then. That's what gives Turkish delight the floral flavour and you will recognize it instantly.
That being said the Big Turk chocolate bar is such a bad shitty Turkish Delight it's almost edible
Rose water is meh, but the worst part of turkish delights is the gelatin style chew. I also have a mild walnut allergy which makes them taste "scratchy" to me, so i doubt that helped when I tried it.
You actually like salmiak? Or just black liquorice?
Yes to both, although i've only had the salted licorice a couple of times. I'm betting some brands would kick my ass, but so far so good.
Cella's milk chocolate covered cherries. My grams was addicted to them, so I'd bring a box when I visited. I couldn't even stand the way they smelled though lol
That reminds me of brandy beans. So gross
.