Hershey's brand new, limited edition Dark Chocolate Raspberry Kisses are clearly intended to be for Valentine's Day, as the little red hearts decorating their wrappers are a reliable indicator of the holiday that they are affiliated with, despite the fact that they aren't mentioned on the Hershey's Valentine site. When I first saw them, I expected these candies to be a dark chocolate shell with a raspberry filling of some kind, either a jam or a cream. The combination of raspberries and dark chocolate is right up there with strawberries and chocolates, so the prospect seemed promising and I hurriedly opened the bag when I got home.
I unwrapped one and cut it in two to see what the filling looked like. But there was no filling. These are solid dark chocolate kisses that are very heavily flavored with artificial raspberry flavoring. I actually spit out the first one that I tried because I didn't expect it to taste as much like cough syrup (with a hint of chocolaty bitterness) as it does. I fared better with the second kiss, nibbling off a little bit of the chocolate to get the flavor without being overwhelmed. It still tasted like cough syrup, but was more tolerable in very tiny doses.
While I would not personally buy these again, I did give them to a few people who didn't seem to mind the taste, so if you're a fan of chocolate and raspberry, it might be worth a chance - especially if you intend to serve them with something that will temper the flavors somewhat, like coffee or a chocolate raspberry martini.
1-08-2007 @5:08PM pickleman said... Hershey kisses. Put em in somenes car seat and let em melt, make sure the wrappers are offf, great prank, they even smell funky.
Not sure about these raspeberry ones though!
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1-07-2007 @10:30PM FoodieBride said... They can't be any worse than the espresso-flavored dark chocolate bars from Hershey.
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1-08-2007 @8:44PM Angela Pitt said... Sweet dreams and raspberry kisses. What more can one
ask for on Valentine's Day?
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1-08-2007 @1:03AM luvbun said... Yes, they can be more horrible. I was looking forward to a wonderful tasty dark-chocolate-raspberry treat...and ended up with something that was less on the wonderful side and more on the "feed this to your enemy" side.
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1-08-2007 @11:56AM Kristina said... I suppose I have to ask the question ... who actually anticipates a new flavor of Hershey's Kisses with any real excitement? It's a Hershey's Kiss, which isn't good or intresting chocolate to BEGIN with, let alone when they add fake fruit flavor to it. Get a dark chocolate rasperry truffle from a quality chocolatier (I don't recommend NoKa! hah!) and actually enjoy it, instead of nibbling on Kisses, which you'll overeat because you DON'T enjoy them and you'll keep trying to satisfy yourself.
I suppose I look at this as a review of Kool-Aid.
Did we need one?
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1-09-2007 @8:20AM Laura said... Seems like Hershey is coming out with a new Kiss variety every week...
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1-08-2007 @4:41PM garbage man said... Right on Kristina... just came across this blog with some anticipation... then read this "review".. get some real quality chocolate and try again.
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1-13-2007 @8:07PM megan said... I know, right?
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1-14-2007 @10:03AM kitty said... Kristina defintely made a good point back there.. the only GOOD kisses they came out with (that had filling) were the caramel ones. but even then they dont hold up to some of the better choc/caramel ones out there. :)
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1-25-2007 @8:55PM Barb Cyr said... I Love Them, when i first saw them i was really execited, Yhey used to make a chocolate Raspberry chips and i made a receipe for a dessert then the store didnt sell them anymore, now these are out i bought 5 bags so i can make my dessert again...so happy and i love the flavor.
Barb,
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