The Good: Taste is appropriately minty, Affordable
The Bad: Seasonal availability, “Crunch” is not terribly crunchy or impressive.
The Basics: Peppermint Crunch is a flavor of Junior Mints that was seasonally available and was a strangely unimpressive candy.
My wife is an amazing woman and she does so much to keep me happy that it is almost inconceivable that there is anything I could gripe about as a reviewer. Still, I find things, or more often, she finds them for me! As one of the post-Christmas shopping trips proved to us, sometimes the goodies being clearanced after the holiday are there for a reason. This comes up because one of the few candies that was still on the shelves at our local grocery store after Christmas was the Peppermint Crunch Junior Mints.
The Peppermint Crunch Junior Mints came to me via my wife, who stuck a box of them in my travel bag this week so that I didn’t go back to my government training without a few goodies. Truly, my wife does love me and she knows my tastes. And while I would not recommend the Peppermint Crunch Junior Mints, they are just a hair below average as opposed to honestly bad. Indeed, they taste good and are mildly interesting, but they are not all one feels they were promised with a name like Peppermint Crunch.
Basics
The Peppermint Crunch Junior Mints are a seasonally-available treat from Tootsie Roll industries. We found them available in a red box that contained 4 oz. of the chocolate and mint treats. The gimmick here is that they are Junior Mints with peppermint pieces embedded in the soft chocolate shell. The box these confections come in is predominately red, as opposed to the usual white Junior Mints box.
The Peppermint Crunch Junior Mints themselves are the same size and shape as a regular Junior Mint. The ¾” in diameter by ¼” thick Junior Mints have a lighter brown chocolate than the standard Junior Mints. The shell is also broken up by tiny red specks which indicate the peppermint crunch pieces.
Ease Of Preparation
Peppermint Crunch Junior Mints are a pretty standard chocolate candy. As a result, consuming them is merely a matter of opening the cardboard box they come in and removing one (or a handful) from the box.
Taste
Opening a box of the Peppermint Crunch Junior Mints is to invite the smell of chocolate and peppermint into one’s nose and it is a delightful enough scent to make a true chocolate mint fan salivate.
As for the taste, here the Peppermint Crunch Junior Mints leave the consumer unimpressed. The chocolate is very mild and is more waxy than actually flavored in any way that would indicate chocolate. Moreover, the shell is broken up by the peppermint crunch pieces which themselves are more a texture than a distinct taste. Below the soft chocolate shell is the usual white mint center that reminds one of a peppermint patty. The center tastes exactly like a standard Junior Mint and the gimmick with the shell is mostly just a gimmick.
Instead of being a real crunch that one gets when they bite into the Peppermint Crunch Junior Mint, there is a slight tension, it’s like getting a Crunch Bar with less of the puffed rice pieces . . . one would feel like it wasn’t crunchy enough. Such is how it is with each and every bite of the Peppermint Crunch Junior Mints. They taste fine and familiar, but they are nothing new or special and the reason to try them is the promise of something more than the regular Junior Mints.
Nutrition
Peppermint Crunch Junior Mints are a candy, so their nutritional value is pretty minimal. That said, the 4 oz. package has approximately three 15 piece servings. Each serving contains 3.5 grams of fat, which is about 5% of the RDA. Predictably, Peppermint Crunch Junior Mints are high in calories with the fifteen pieces netting 170 calories. That’s 12% of the daily carbohydrates. There are no real nutrients in these candies, the closest they come is 2% of the RDA of iron.
As well, the candy is candy from the ingredients. The waxy nature of the chocoalate probably has a lot to do with the excessive use of confectioner’s glaze, though the main ingredients are sugar, semi-sweet chocolate, and corn syrup.
Storage/Clean-up
Peppermint Crunch Junior Mints come in a resealable cardboard box, so as long as one keeps them in a cool, dry place they ought to last. Putting them in heat or sunlight is likely to cause them to melt and ruin.
Overall
Ultimately, Peppermint Crunch Junior Mints are good, worth picking up once to try, but are unlikely to be hunted by anyone when they fall out of the marketplace.
For other candy reviews, please visit my reviews of:
Russell Stover Urban Collection
Licorice Jelly Belly jelly beans
Ghirardelli Peppermint Bark
4.5/10
For other candy or food reviews, please visit my index page!
© 2011 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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