So, without further ado, we'll begin with Mars. First you will notice a number of Fling bars lurking around with their let's call it controversial advertising campaign (more on that when we get to reviewing it). It was one of the big new items that I saw a lot of, but didn't hear a lot about. Maybe they're embarrassed. Both of the new M&M's - Coconut and the Strawberried Peanut Butter Transformers tie-in - are represented. I got through a good bit of the first day pretty annoyed that I hadn't found either on the floor (was I not looking hard enough or was it just not in sample form at the Mars booth?), but after the press conference they put on they handed out swag bags and both types of M&M's were there. The new Snicker's Fudge was right there in the press room so I had not problem finding it. The Disney M&M's are probably a decent inroad to getting people used to the idea of pictures printed on their M&M's (which is really a neat, but weird kind of thing). The rest of the bits just accumulated over the course of the two days I was there - some from the swag bag and some just handed out to me.

So Much Mars

The next item is one of those new old things (they released a limited version once upon a time) that is kind of exciting. I like it when a picture can speak for itself as this one does. Sadly, I only made away with one little cup.

Larger than life

Next we have the return of the Nestle Crunch Crisp. I gave it a shot when it was a limited edition offering and found it nice, but not amazing and am interested in seeing if it's changed any from it's earlier incarnation.

It has returned!

Next is a bunch of cute little Dove bits that they were pairing up with wine (I think that was Dove - saw so much I could be confused). They're from the new Promises line of theirs and have some interesting flavors like Tiramisu and Bananas Foster going on. More on them later.

Promises promises.

Cran was more popular than I expected this year and Raisinets are getting in on the action. I thought it would have been cool if they would have cross-licensed with Craisins to create Craisinets. That would have been a neat naming synergy (a word I dislike using).

Cranberry Raisinets

If you were around back when ET came out you will remember the big push on Reese's Pieces. It was kind of a legendary piece (heh) of product placement that worked really well for them. Well, this time there isn't a movie tie in, but a new array of Pieces types. I'm interested in the York Pieces the most, but will be happy to try the Special Dark and Almond Joy as well.

Various Pieces

Just a lone Hershey's Bliss that I picked up at the opening session of the show. I need to do a larger piece on Bliss at some point. I took some that mysteriously showed up on my porch home for Christmas and they went over quite well with everybody. I've been impressed so far so it's probably time I address Bliss properly.

Bliss

I remember having some milk flavoring straws as a kid and they seem to be back again. There were at least a couple of different places with them, but the one that caught my interest the most was this Oreo Sipahh. There was another (Chip's Ahoy?) that didn't sound as good to me so I stuck with the Oreo. If I like it I might seek out the other.

Sipahh!

When I think of raisins Sun Maid is the first name that comes to mind (though not the brand I buy strangely enough) so it's no surprise that they should want to take the strength of their brand and stand it up against Raisinets and the lesser brands of chocolate covered raisins.

Sunmaid

Now these were one of the hits of the show for me, though I'm sure they aren't quite for everybody. They're Flax SuperSnax - they take flax seeds and add some flavoring and make it a neat little snack or food topper loaded with Omega 3. The chocolate version was just the sort of thing I love. The omega 3 via flax was a minor trend I saw at the show and will pop up again.

Flaxalicious

And here we go with more flax seed! NEWTREE, who I wasn't enthralled with the first time I tried them, have a new batch of chocolate with the flax action for that big omega three hit. I wasn't sure what to expect, but the Thym variety really piqued my curiosity and I was forced to try it. Upon tasting I was suddenly interested in the other two varieties as well. I'll take a further look at these in the days to come.

Omega 3 Baby!

Ooh, a new Lindor Truffle! Lindor Truffles are a great gateway chocolate for a lot of people. They're good and cheap and offer a glimpse of the greater world of chocolate that lies beyond a person's experience. They open doors. This one does it with white chocolate, though that's all I'm sure of right now. I'm sure I'll know more once I eat the little critter.

Lindor

Is there a better combination than chocolate and pretzels? Well, I suppose that's a matter of opinion, but I sure like them together and they offered me some samples at the Painted Pretzel booth and I just could not say no. Turns out that they have this neat thing going on where they first coat the pretzel with chocolate and then add toppings (and they have a heck of a list of available toppings). So it's looking like I'll need to give them a little more attention at some point.

Painted Pretzel

And the king of pretzels was not absent from the show. Snyder's of Hanover, as I see it, is the best there is at the pretzel game (the Sourdough Hards are my favorite), but up until now I've never seen them dabble in chocolate. But they do! Somehow they slipped this Fudge Pretzel past out without my noticing it. And it's not like it just hit stores last week either. I guess I just wasn't paying close enough attention. But now I get to try it, so it's all good.

Snyder's

This is one of those items that I don't recall ever seeing before, but can't imagine it would take them this long to make it happen: chocolate Pez. And I'm not entirely sure what to think about it. Not that I won't try it, it's just that I'm used to normal Pez and am not sure how or how well chocolate will translate into the Pez world.

OMG PEZ!

Cary's Toffee knocked my socks off with a surprising toffee: Dark Chocolate Espresso. It's the first time I can remember having an espresso toffee and I really liked it. So they're one of those companies I'm going to have to take a further look at.

Cary's Toffee

Some random Chew-ets action. I don't have a lot to say about these just yet, so enjoy the picture.

Chew-ets

Next up a a couple of little rock styled chocolates. I've always been a fan of candy that looks like rocks so I was happy to see these. The venerable Koppers have rock style chocolates as well, but that's a topic for another post.

ChocoRocks

ChocoRocks Dark

I don't have much to say about these three pieces from Dilettante just yet. I haven't tried them, but did grab some literature on the company and plan to look further into them.

Dilettante

These are just some little sample packs I got from Ferrara Pan. One is mixed nuts, which I'm excited about (I love mixed nuts and adding chocolate to the mix is just win). I don't know what the other is off the top of my head, but we'll figure that out soon enough.

Ferrara Pan

I really am not sure what I've got here. Sure, it says "Georgia's Choice" on the package, but that doesn't necessarily tell me what it is, just who it's from. Whatever it is I'm sure it will become clear in the next few days.

Georgia's Choice

Just a few little bits of Green & Black's chocolate. I don't even know how I ended up with them, but here they are.

Green & Blacks

Ooh, marshmallows with cute packaging? That is so up my alley, even when it isn't chocolate. But GüdFüd have a chocolate variety so I could feel free to try some. I was just going to take the chocolate one, but they wanted me to take more so I grabbed the orange one. They look tasty.

GÜDFÜD

And here we go with some more Marshmallow! This is an old school marshmallow piece from Hammond's Candies. They've been at the game since 1920 and have that cool old fashioned vibe with a layer of cool drizzled on top. I spent a few minutes talking to them about the different things they do and found that they locally source as much as they can - which I think is wonderful - and they hand make their amazing candy canes (one look an you will be amazed - also, since these are old fashioned candy canes they have flavor all the way through unlike a lot of the modern ones). They even make a candy cane with a chocolate core! How cool is that? I have a feeling I'm going to be ordering something from them this fall.

Marshmallow

I have some mixed feelings about this next offering. Caffeine for caffeine's sake is something that amuses me, but isn't the sort of thing I look for in a product. But these products are chocolate covered coffee beans with a candy shell! For something like that I can forgive a little extra caffeine. I'm not sure I can forgive a product name like Crackheads, but I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt right now. The Jitterbeans, though, have an absurd amount of caffeine. One box is equal to 6 cups of coffee, 7.5 cans of Red Bull, or 11 cans of Mountain Dew. That's more caffeine than I think I can handle. Luckily I only have a few of these little beasties to try.

Jitterbeans

This is just another little piece from the people who make those ChocoRocks I showed you earlier. It's got orange and dark chocolate and I like that combo a lot when it isn't overpoweringly orange so I snagged a bag to try.

Fusion?

I really have no clue what I've got here. Sorry. Maybe I'll figure it out, maybe not.

What am I?

This is another one of those things that I picked up along the way and don't know thing one about it. All I can really say is it's from Rausch Schokoladen.

Noumea

Somewhere along the line I got a Seeds of Change bar. I've enjoyed the bars of theirs that I've tried in the past so I can see no reason I won't like this. Quite the contrary - this has cashews and I love me some cashews. Not too sure about mango, but cashews are awesome.

Seeds of Change

These are some little soy critters I picked up somewhere. I'm going to try to figure that out over the next few days. Anyway, they roast up their soybeans (as opposed to frying or something less lovely) and give them a nice coating of chocolate and they are quite nice. Seems a good source of soy to me for those that need it.

??? soy

There were a few protein bars running around the floor and I tend to ignore them as they tend to be less about the chocolate and more about the protein bar. Well, this one is Rocky Road and the promise of some marshmallow action stirred me to grab a sample. Can we have a good marshmallowy protein bar?

Rocky Road?

Hey, more cran action! A nice big bag of chocolate covered cranberry action from Terri Lynn Inc. They do milk, dark and white chocolate covered cranberries and I'm curious to see how theirs stack up.

Yummy Cran

Somewhere or other I picked up a Twix. I'm not a huge Twix fan so I'm not even sure where why or how I got it. Oh, it's a Mars brand, isn't it? I suppose it could have been lurking in the Mars swag bag. Anyway, it's just normal everyday Twix.

Twix

Ooh la la! It's the Waferatto! It's from Landrin and I don't know a lot beyond that. I have some lit to read about them, though, so in theory I'll know more soon. This is their Choco variety which is part of their 2010 Collection. There is some wafer and almond action going on here so I'm probably going to be digging it.

Waferatto

Ah, Werther's Original. The classic turns things up with milk and dark chocolate caramels going on. Seems they're chocolates with little bits of the classic Werther's action sprinkled throughout. I'm really liking the sound of these.

Werther's

Oh there was so much stuff lurking in the depths of the press bag (very nice bag - I was pretty stunned). Whats shown here is not all of it, either. There was some gum and such from Cadbury and three huge, heavy bags of Saltwater Taffy. My back thanked me when I removed those from the bag.

Stuff

This is one of my weak moments. I have never had a Cow Tale. I was curious. I was weak. I took a sample of something non-chocolate.

Cow Tales

And it didn't stop there. The Trident was part of the Cadbury pack in the press bag (I think) and they virtually forced me to take the Man Bait (maple bacon lollipop). The others... well, I was weak. My first love is SweeTarts so the cool display where you could buy Pucker Pieces in bulk had me all curious and I had to take a sample (only one - we'll talk about sample hogs later). The Chewy Lemonhead & Friends was really just me being a fan of the classic and eager to try something I had not yet tried. Beyond this there wasn't much else to feel guilt over, though. I tried to be good. And I mostly was.

Not Chocolate?

Sorry it took so long to get this up, but I've been busy with family stuff and, well, look at this post. It's friggin' huge. I've been sitting here drinking a nice beer (Brooklyn Local 2) and typing for, I don't know, two and a half hours? Yeah, that seems about right. And that doesn't take into account all of the time taking the pictures (which are weak because I largely used macro mode - which in the future will be awesome with the light box) or uploading them all. And it's not like this is my job - this is a personal passion I'm chasing here so the blog tends to come after my day job, my rabbit, and my family. But I've managed to get my act together and get this posted. The next big post should be a semi-stream-of-consciousness piece on the show in general and my thoughts on what is good, bad, and awesome about the show.

G'night y'all!