No matter what your opinion of licorice, I feel like you’re going to be disappointed with these. Don’t get me wrong, if you like licorice you’re probably going to enjoy these and only be a little disappointed. If you hate licorice (as I’m sure some of you do), then you’ll absolutely hate these. I’m in the middle of this area, I’m trying my very best to gain an appreciation for licorice flavoured treats. While I’m not into the extreme double salt licorice yet, I don’t mind some black licorice mixed with chocolate.

These fall into the most extreme versions of black licorice for me, and honestly I’m pretty certain I’m not going to finish the whole bag. Don’t worry though, I have a few friends who love the stuff and don’t mind finishing an already open bag. The reason I picked these up was because I was intrigued by the powder in the middle. My expectation was that it was either going to add a complimentary flavour, or possible even have some kind of popping candy. As it turns out, it’s just sugar with a very strong (and possible salty) licorice flavour.

This sugar did not help in any way with the strong licorice flavour of the tubes, in fact it may have made it even stronger. The other issue is that this sugar added a really strange gritty texture to these straws. It was as if my super strong licorice straws had been dropped into some dirt and were now very gritty as well. This is one of the aspects that I feel like even the ultimate licorice fan might be disappointed. My theory is that no one likes their candy to be gritty.

The other disappointment that I think everyone can share is in the description “bite sized”. From what I know, these are based on longer tubes that are often sold in packs of 3 or 4. I assumed that these would just be short bite sized tubes, but I would then assume wrong. Instead these are just long tubes cut in half, with some kind of white sugar plug to keep the gritty stuff from falling out. Why would you not just make these smaller tubes instead of large tubes cut in half. It seems a little lazy.

I really didn’t enjoy these very much. I don’t doubt that some people might like them more, but I’m convinced that they’ll be turned off by the grit and weird fact that they’re cut in half. There might be some people who love these, but they’re probably people who have been eating them since they were kinds, and it’s probably more nostalgic than anything else.