C. Howard's Lemon Mints

I have had C. Howard's violet products (the mints and the gum) many times, but had never come across the lemon mints before.

As we all know, Gigi LOOOOVES lemon the way Paula Deen loves butter...in fact, doesn't this picture kinda look like a little mini stick of butter?






The lemon mints -- which do in fact look like little tiny pats of butter -- taste neither like butter nor mint. What it does taste like, pretty much to a tee, is a larger, thinner lemon Pez candy.

The lemon is slightly tart -- not enough that there is any real pucker power, but enough that you know it is supposed to be lemon flavored. As you chew the mints (or allow them to crumble from sucking on them) there is a mild sweetness that comes out. Again, not enough to make the mints taste more like a real candy, but enough to make off any sharp edges the citrus might have had.

The texture is sort of like biting into a little piece of chalk. It doesn't so much dissolve in your mouth as crumble. But there is something oddly satisfying about biting the squares into a million crumbly little pieces.

Honestly, there was no big wow factor here. (Well, the butter picture was kind of cool.) The flavor is very standard. The texture is just...meh. If you have ever had lemon Pez, Smarties, or any other compressed dextrose candy, you have tasted these. But there is something charming about old-style candy. Maybe pick some up and show the kids the kind of candy their grandpappy used to eat -- and be sure to start a long, somewhat meaningless story that you forget the most important parts of, with the phrase "back in my day..."



PURCHASED FROM:
Balboa Candy
Newport Beach, California