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.
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