Candy Review: See's Candies SOUR BATS

When I first made a visit to the West Coast a friend asked, rather, BEGGED me to bring him back some "See's Candies."  Little did I know how wonderfully addictive I would find their products.  You know why?  Free samples.  Just like a drug dealer the first one's FREE.  "Would you like to try something?" the cute little old lady asked me.  How was *I* to know she was the big bad wolf... I'm off topic again.  Where were we?  Ah yes, See's Candies.

If it's one thing I can say about See's presentations it's that they're CLASSY.  Take their Sour Bats for instance.  A simple clear cellophane bag tied at the top with an orange fabric ribbon with the See's Candies logo and font stamped on it. The bag allows you to see the bats piled on top of one another only obscured by a classic Halloween-themed label in orange with black lettering.  The "S" in "Sour Bats" has some flourish, but doesn't smack of Halloween-overused-clip-art like dripping blood letters.  Flying dynamically in either corner of the "Sour Bats" title are black bats in pairs.  Simple.  Classy.

Yes, yes, yes but how's the CANDYCANDYCANDY?!
The bats are big and thick (check out my quarter scale pic for reference).  As for flavors, there are three:  Berry, Lemon and Tangerine (it says so on the label).   For clarification, although my scanner made one of the bats look red, it is indeed orange.

Detail:  The bats have very little detail on them and I believe that's because of two things: 1) they amount of sour powder on them obscures any stamping and 2) the thick cuts of the gummys makes detail hard to achieve. 

BERRY:  Purple in color, but not grape.  Which is good because before typing this post I've been eating them thinking "Boy this grape doesn't taste grapey."  Now that I have flavor comparison, it's still my least favorite flavor of the pack.  The sour powder overpowers the berry, but if you hang in there and wait for it to dissolve, you get a nebulous plastic like berry.  It's hard to place and not a berry-like flavor I've ever tasted before. 

LEMON:  If wood cleaners have taught us anything it's that lemon is yellow.  And it's LEMONY.  I'd almost say it's like biting into a fresh Myer lemon with some sugar sprinkled on it.  Great fruit flavor and the sour powder really brings it out.

TANGERINE:  When candy makers call an orange colored candy tangerine they'd better be bringing something to the table.  A tangerine candy should have a dry, more tart than orange flavor and this does.  The combination of the sour powder and the candy really gives you a more complex sour tangerine that's quite enjoyable.  My favorite of the bag!

Overall it's a good bag of candy.  Sour Bats are pretty dense (more bite than, say, a Chuckle candy and probably about 3 Sour Patch Kids thick) so I found myself only able to eat so many before having to tie the bag back up and live to fight another day.  The sourness is good-- probably a bit stronger than your standard bag of Sour Patch Kids.

If I had to pick a nit I'd say make the colors brighter (the purple was very dark and the orange and yellows were muted).  But then again how healthy can neon candy be for you?
I'd also enjoy a green in place of yellow for my Halloween colors (maybe a Sour Apple?).
And if having multiple shapes were possible I'd love a mixed bag of tangerine jack o' lanterns, berry bats, and green skulls (or lemon white skulls!).  Again, I'm just making a wish list.  

Be sure to poke around the See's Website to see all their cool candy in classy packaging.  I really enjoy the look of the chocolate marshmallow jack o' lanterns, the milk chocolate jack o' lantern pack, and the black and orange vintage look of the box of the Halloween nuts and chews. 

You can check out all their Halloween wares HERE and their regular ol' chocolates and confections HERE (and when I say "regular ol'" I mean DELICIOUS).