The Five Worst-Named English Candy Bars

Top to bottom: Curlywurly, Drifter, Topic, Kit Kat Senses, Twisted (click on image to enlarge)

Last weekend I reported on my visit to the London Candy Co., and described in superficial detail its confectionary offerings. You didn't think I'd leave empty-handed, did you?

Rather, I picked out five candy bars with the stupidest names, intent on trying them and rendering a critical opinion. The store demonstrates how much more vital and competitive the English candy bar industry is than our own, with chocolate companies constantly inventing new products, and giving them extreme names. Here are my tasting notes.

1. Curlywurly -- Configured in a lattice, so that it resembles a garden trellis turned on its side, the Curlywurly is a terrific candy bar. Lightly coated with milk chocolate, the lattice is constructed of some kind of toffee/caramel, that delivers a serious chew, and leeches saltiness into your mouth in an intense manner. I'd go up to the UES just to buy this, though I probably won't have to -- I've seen it various places downtown, too.

Top to bottom: Curlywurly, Drifter, Topic, Kit Kat Senses, Twisted

2. Drifter -- Shouldn't you be afraid of drifters? Aren't they the ones responsible for serial killings and a whole range of grifts? This Drifter is a bit wimpy by comparison, a double-bar Kit Kat knockoff that has a pronounced malt flavor. Good quantity of candy for the buck, though. Or pound.

3. Topic is as dull-tasting as its studious-sounding name. It's a cousin of the Snickers, but with a more caramel-y nougat, and fewer peanuts. (Actually, I can't really tell what kind of nuts are in there.) This is not the kind of bar to induce a craving.

4. Kit Kat Senses -- With a name like a graduate seminar in animal psychology, Kit Kat Senses aims at fucking up your sense of what a Kit Kat bar should look like. This one is made of five little boxcar bonbons that often detach from each other in the package. The candy has virtually the same flavor as the double Kit Kat bar sold here, only the chocolate seems a little lighter. Basically, a disappointment. It's one of six Kit Kat configurations sold at London Candy Co.

5. Twisted -- Would that it were, in some fundamental way! I dreamed it was some sort of licoricey mess covered over with white chocolate, or maybe wasabi chocolate. Instead, it's just a Cadbury egg, with the filling installed inside a spiral. The pink and white sugar gravy oozes out the end suggestively after you bite into it.