Vosges Woolloomooloo and Peppermint Candy Cane Bars

If I'm feeling like a splurge, I often turn to chocolate. In this case, my splurge resulted in this Vosges mini bar sampler pack. I bought it on special the day after Thanksgiving last year, and it wasn't a bad deal! The pack came in a bundle of cookie mixes and other chocolates that I doled out as Christmas gifts, but I greedily kept the sampler for me.

Vosges is known for some pretty wild flavors (carrot or Absinthe, anyone?), but the flavors I'll cover in this review are fairly tame. The Woolloomooloo is a slight variation on the winning combination of nuts + chocolate, and the Peppermint Candy Cane bar is perfect for Christmas (or maybe Christmas in July by the time I post this review).

The Woolloomoloo bar smelled like butter and macadamia nuts. It was quite salty from start to finish. The chocolate was soft and just a tad sticky, but it was velvety and had a lovely cocoa flavor. The hemp seeds added a soft crunch, and while I couldn't taste the coconut, it did add to the texture. With the exception of the salt, the flavors were all quite subtle, and the combination of tastes and textures made for an interesting bar.B+

Peppermint and dark chocolate are normally great together, but this bar was too minty for me. The mint was so intense I thought there might have been peppermint oil infused into the chocolate, and it felt chilly on my tongue. The dark chocolate had a nice, crisp snap and the candy cane bits added a good candy crunch without being too sharp. I can't bring myself to give this bar a C because the ingredients were great, but it was hard to get past that chill. Mint lovers only for this one! B-

Vosges website

Tirol Aloha Pack

This is the last of the Tirol I have to review. I saw this cute little bag with a Wallace and Gromit-esque character on the front and was interested, but the real selling point was the pineapple flavor. I love pineapple, so I was really looking forward to seeing how they would handle it.


I liked the muted colors on the wrappers, and even though I'm not usually a fan of coffee flavored candy, I've never tried Kona coffee. Macadamia nuts go well with chocolate, and Tirol does a great job with their plain almond chocolate, so I had high hopes for it.


Kona coffee smelled like coffee and had a toffee-esque caramel inside. The chocolate carried the coffee flavor, while the caramel was bitter and similar to (if not the same as) the caramel inside the plain Tirol flavor. Overall, the whole thing was mildly sweet. It was a nice change of pace, but not something I want to eat all the time. B

Macadamia nut had normal, nice milk chocolate with small macadamia nut pieces inside. It was simple and tasty! My only complaint is that I wish there were more or bigger macadamia nut pieces inside. I would definitely seek out this flavor again. A-

Pineapple smelled just like pineapple, and wow, the jelly center was awesome. It was tender and fruity, like a fruit gem without the sugar coating. The flavor was spot on pineapple, too. The white chocolate on the outside was a little too sweet, but the center was so delicious, I didn't mind. A

A friend of mine said she tried these last year, too, but I saw on the Tirol site that they are a current flavor, so it must be a re-release. The pack was great as a whole, even better for those who love coffee-flavored snacks.

Tirol Website

Meiji Bitter Cookie and Macadamia Takenoko no Sato

I completely forgot to post this review! I took the pictures and at the chocolates in February, and must have moved on immediately. Here I was thinking I'd gotten caught up. Well, better late than never (even though these aren't available anymore).

These were a limited edition winter flavor of Takenoko no Sato, and were larger than the normal size (but it's hard to tell from the picture I took). Each one was individually wrapped, which made it easier not to eat a whole box at once. In Japanese, the cookie portion of this sweet was called horoniga, which means slightly bitter.


The snack smelled like hot chocolate, with a hint of what smelled like hazelnut but was probably the macadamia nut bits. The cookie part tasted very nutty, and had a good crunch. I don't remember if the bitterness came into play at all, but they were not too sweet. The chocolate was smooth and buttery, making for a rich treat.

I think I prefer the normal, smaller size, as these were a little much for me. There's something magical about the texture combination of the regular size which doesn't carry over to the larger size (although I can't say for sure since, to my knowledge, there is no regular size in this flavor). Still, they were quite good and disappeared quickly when I put the leftovers in my candy dish for friends.

B

Meiji Website (Japanese)