I'm always looking for new ways to improve the flavour of black licorice. For the most part I'm not really a big fan of the stuff, but I'm starting to build my tolerance for the astringent flavour. I've tried several things to gain a taste for this very divisive flavour, including building a tolerance, buying high quality product, and learning how to tamper the flavour down a bit. These (we’ll call them) Puffin Eggs are a great example of tampering the flavour down a bit. For those out there who hate black licorice, but love chocolate, this might seem a little blasphemes, but I've found that mixing licorice and chocolate can really improve the flavour (not of the chocolate, it's fine). Think of it like adding milk and sugar to coffee to take down the edge.

These chocolate and candy coated pieces of black licorice achieve this goal fairly well. The licorice itself is very powerful, but the chocolate is nice and smooth. You still taste the licorice, but it isn't overpowering. The balance in these chocolates is pretty good, although if you're really sensitive to licorice these may be a little too much for you. As a combination, the licorice flavour is taken down, but every so often you get a bite of just licorice, with no chocolate, and that can be pretty extreme.

The candy coating on this is fairly useless taste wise. It adds a bit of crunch and I imagine it keeps them from sticking together. These aren't bad, but I would have a hard time eating a whole bag of them.