I came across a post a few days back titled, I thought rather pompously, ‘The World’s Very Best Chocolate Bars, Ranked’. I jumped right into the mega-post to see where my personal all-time faves landed. And was disappointed to find some of them not there at all…
Only in Canada, you say?
I freely thieved the above slogan from Red Rose Tea, which used it with great success through the 1970s and beyond. But in this case, I’m referring to my all-time fave chocolate bar: Nestlé Coffee Crisp (see photo, top of page)…
Yes… It’s only available in Canada. But It’s loved the world over! Proof comes from my own, first-person experience. A friend from the US, getting ready to drive home after a visit here in Canada, asked if I knew where the nearest candy wholesale house was. I was ashamed to say, I didn’t. My interest in candy has waned to the point where I consider it a now-and-then novelty. Another ‘you may be old if…’ affliction?
Anyway…
It turned out he wanted to pick up a CASE of Coffee Crisp bars to take back with him. We resorted, logically, to the Internet to find a source. And immediately found that COSTCO carries a whole passle of popular candy bars in case-lots:
Note that this is a BIG case, containing 48 ‘regular’ sized bars! The price was listed at (C)$73 – which works out to just $1.52 per bar. That’s a heck of a discount! (If you love Coffee Crisp as much as I do…) The current single-bar price at any store near me is $1.99 to $2.49, depending on the retailer. When I was a chocolate-addicted kid, the price was $0.10…
The rest of my fave list
Presented in no particular order… (The number in brackets after each name is its place in the source-post list.)
Oh Henry! (44)
Canada and USA – Featuring: A caramel-nougat centre studded with peanuts.
Mr. BIG (58)
USA – Similar to Oh Henry!, switching the nougat for vanilla wafers. Featuring: vanilla wafer biscuits covered in caramel, peanuts, rice crisps and a delicate coating of chocolate.
Almond Joy (45)
USA – “This coconutty bar is almost identical to its older sibling, Mounds […] The only difference is that it’s topped with almonds before being coated in dreamy milk chocolate.”
Bounty (22)
Canada – A sweet, chewy coconut centre, topped with dark milk chocolate. In direct competition with Mounds – which is probably why it’s no longer sold in the US.
Cadbury Dairy Milk Fruit & Nut (29)
Various – “The bar first appeared in 1926, combining classic Dairy Milk chocolate with a mix of juicy raisins and chunky almonds.”
Hershey’s Milk Chocolate (4)
Various – Equally beloved along with Cadbury’s Dairy Milk and Nestlé’s Classic Milk Chocolate. Your basic grid of chocolate squares perfect for sharing or savouring.
Aero (23)
Various – Once a stand-out novelty, for it’s ‘millions of bubbles’, making it uniquely ‘light and airy’, this bar always entranced me and my childhood friends by how it almost magically melted in your mouth…
Mars (2), Milky Way (18)
Various – Pretty much identical bars from competing makers, featuring big thick, gooey-chewy nougat centres, topped with caramel, and enrobed in classic milk chocolate.
My take
As for the bars on my fave list that didn’t make the source post list at all… Nielson’s Pure Milk Chocolate (Canada), was conspicuously left out in the twilight zone with my beloved Coffee Crisp. There were a couple of others… But after a thorough search of the Internet, I’ve been forced to conclude they no longer exist!
Meanwhile… The US-originated source post named Snickers ‘The World’s Very Best Chocolate Bar’.
Nonsense.
~ Maggie J.