Candy Review: Holiday Favorites Jelly Beans

It's almost Christmastime! Which means only one thing: weird novelty candy is just around the corner.

I like how they skirt the wide variety of flavor issue with the word "holiday." It's clearly supposed to be Christmas, but they wanted to sneak in pumpkin pie and cranberry sauce. What, your High-Octane Jelly Belly Flavor Engineering Lab couldn't handle gingerbread cookies or fruitcake?

Anyone, upon opening it up there was a bit of a surprise:

Ah, how nice! They're all in little trays. I expected them to just be all jumbled together in the box. Stay classy, company called Jelly Belly.

Anyway, here's the lowdown:

• Eggnog: I don't like eggnog. This tasted like eggnog. Pass.
• Candy Cane: Not bad; it just tastes like peppermint. In retrospect I should have done this one last because the flavor is strong. 
• Pumpkin Pie: I assumed this would have been pumpkin spice flavored. Nope! It tastes like pumpkin spice...and the crust. Which, surprisingly is not good. It just kind of tastes like bread, which is not what we're going for here.
• Cranberry Sauce: At first I thought this would be gross, but I guess it's not that different than other fruit-based candies. Surprisingly good.
• Hot chocolate: Tastes like chocolate. Not bad. Good mixed with Candy Cane.

I wasn't as weirded out about these flavors as I thought I would be. And oddly, the one I was expecting to like the most, Pumpkin Pie, was a swing and a miss. Still, there's a decent chance people will like at least three of the five, and if you're the sort of retrograde that actually enjoys eggnog, this is probably a solid choice.