September 9, 2009

Zach ranks Dum Dum lollipop flavors

As I reach the last week of my job, I think the thing I'll miss the most, other than the paycheck, is the jar of Dum Dum lollipops on the front desk as you walk in the office. I started taking one as I left, then two as I left, then one after lunch and two when I left, at this point if I start grabbing handfuls and stuffing my pockets when I leave, I won't surprise myself.

What makes them so great? I really don't know. First of all, they are far smaller than other brands of lollipop, yet still have the same size stick. They also don't have any sort of bubblegum or tootsie roll filling like some other types I could mention. They're just good. They're classic.


The sticks really could be shortened.

So having had such as plethora of these delicious sugary creatures, I'm going to have to inform you, the awaiting public, of the ranking of the flavors.

According to their website, there are sixteen flavors, seventeen if you count mystery. But one time I was watching the Food Network, and the guy from Double Dare explained to me that the mystery flavor is really just the part of the confectionary line where two batches of flavors intermingle and they just call it mystery flavored because they aren't always sure what its going to taste like. It should really be referred to as "Gamble Candy".

(This is a side note, but if I was Marc Summers my pick up line would totally be "Wanna take the physical challenge?")


But without further ado... I will rank the flavors.

16. Strawberry Shortcake
This one gets last place not because its a bad flavor, but because its rather silly I think. The flavor has CAKE in its name. I know you've got all kinds of great food scientists who can make a variety of different tastes for your candy, but you can't make a lollipop taste like cake, it just doesn't work that way. And frankly, even if you can make it taste like, that is far more power than one small candy company can handle. You have a regular Strawberry flavor, just stick to it.

15. Root Beer
I've never liked root beer, this one is kind of just my personal prejudice.

14. Cream Soda
See above.

(It was around here in my list that I realized that my next choice, chocolate, was actually a discontinued flavor, so some of the lollipops in here are old as hell, so really, it's my duty to eat as many of them as I can. But yeah, I can see why they discontinued chocolate flavored. There's already a chocolate candy, it's called chocolate)

13. Cherry
Once upon a time, someone decided cherry was the best flavor and then made cherry the generic flavor of everything, including disgusting medicines and cough syrups. Ever since that day, everything cherry tastes like being sick to me.

12. Bubblegum
I wouldn't be surprised if this one was gone after the next change-of-the-guard. I mean, it tastes like bubblegum, but I thought the fun of bubblegum was chewing it. So then I want to chew the lollipop and then its gone.

11. Tangerine
Not a bad flavor, but you put tangerine into your lineup over orange? That shows some balls. I don't know if it paid off, but it's balls.

10. Grape
Grape lollipops remind me of church. This probably requires an explanation. When I was younger, I used to go to church every Sunday, and by far the best part was that the church office had Tootsie Pops in them and I would always get the grape ones. Why? Because they had the blue wrapper, and blue is the best color ever. Maybe grape would do better on this list if the wrapper was blue.

9. Banana Split
I actually didn't try this flavor. I searched through the whole jar, and then in the bag of Dum Dum reinforcements in the kitchen, they were nowhere to be found. But alas, I am going to give them the benefit of the doubt, and assume that they're so delicious that they were all eaten before I got to the stash. I know what you're thinking, don't I have the same problem with this that I do with strawberry shortcake? Well no, because there's no regular banana flavor, and it's not too much of a stretch to have a banana and ice cream flavor, there's no cake texture involved there, so I'm putting a lot of faith in you, Spangler candy company, that the Banana Split lollipop won't make me look like a fool.

I also discovered here that Pink Lemonade is also a discontinued flavor, Wikipedia says it isn't, but its not on the Dum Dum website, so I'm not going to count it. If you're wondering, its okay, but doesn't really taste like Pink Lemonade

8. Cotton Candy
A respectable flavor that I'm sure nobody expects to be as good as actual cotton candy. But at the same time, I feel like because there's no blue foods, blue has had some affirmative action program in the candy world, and they just add blue flavors for diversity. I'm sure that would cause outrage if ther was some conservative candy expert. Oh yeah, Rush Limbaugh.

7. Sour Apple
This is one that always confuses me. Are they saying that all green apples are sour or this is green apple flavored with sour? I guess there are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio. And yes, I just used Shakespeare to reference candy.


6. Strawberry
It's delicious? I don't know what else to say

5. Watermelon
I always like watermelon flavored candy because its always so vibrant, it's a big flavor. It's easily one of the best fruits that exist, but it so often not in candies because its always thought of as the third red flavor, behind cherry and strawberry. Thumbs up on the inclusion Dum Dums.

4. Blu Raspberry
This has been killed to death that its not a real fruit, but you know what? It tastes good, so I'm not going to bash it.

3.(Ashlynn) Coconut
This will anger some people, because a lot of people don't like coconut for some reason I don't understand. But I think this lollipop was made perfectly.

2. Mango
Hooray Mango! THe only reason Mango is not number one is because I eat the lollipop and immediately afterward want to eat an entire grove of mangos. But its not Dum Dum's fault mangos are so delicious

1. Butterscotch
What? Really? Isn't that an old man's candy? Well yes. I thought for a long time about what I'd put as the best flavor, and to be sure, I had about ten lollipops at about ten am this morning, because yes I am that dedicated to the blog. Immediately afterwards I realized the only one I could still eat would be the butterscotch because I wouldn't die of sugar overload. So butterscotch is the best, not only because its old man candy, but because if an old man can eat one of them, a young man can eat like sixty before he's sick. Not to mention, butterscotch is pretty awesome. It has scotch in the name. If scotch tasted like butterscotch, I would be drunk all the time. And if the recipe for butterscotch was a stick of butter and a bottle of scotch, I wouldn't have been puking all over the place saturday night. I kid of course.

- Zach

2 comments:

  1. this is very funny... except for the puking part...

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