Well, I decided to get in one more quickie review before the year is up. May I present Tootsie Pops Miniatures.

You heard right. MINIATURE Tootsie Pops… what will those wizards at Tootsie Pop think up next? I was at Sav-Ons the other day (a common Cheap Eats store hangout) when we saw this enormous bag of 300 Tootsie Pops for about 6 bucks. Hm… is that really 2 cents a piece? Not bad. But then again these are Miniatures.

Sorry, I didn’t get a chance to take a pic of the actual bag as it was pretty torn up from me attacking it to get the tootsie pops out of it. So anyhow, as advertised these are fairly small, maybe 1/2 the size of a normal tootsie pop. I wonder how many licks it takes to get to the center of the miniatures… I know they did many studies on them before.

Here is what is said on the back of the bag:

America’s favorite lollipop is now available in miniature! Tootsie Pop Miniatures feature that great Tootsie Roll center and familiar flavors that kids have loved since 1931! And the fun, miniature size is perfect for give-aways and rewarding life’s little accomplishments.

Leave it to them to sum up all of your life’s accomplishments in a piece of candy.

There are 5 flavors in the bag: Grape, Cherry, Raspberry, Orange and Chocolate. My least favorite is the Chocolate… the taste of the “chocolate” hard candy is downright nasty. i don’t know why they don’t replace this one with just about any other flavor: lime, kiwi, chicken, beef, whatever. Anything else would be better. My favorites are the Grape and Raspberry… these guys are fairly sour which for some reason goes really well with the tootsie pop center.

Interestingly, most of the billions of people that I offered a miniature tootsie pop to actually had not heard about them making the small sizes before and were mighty intrigued. This almost distracted me enough from the slightly chalky taste of the outside of nearly every one of these pops. It’s sort of that texture where hard candy has been left out for too long. You have to sort of get through that weird yucky exterior texture before enjoying anything. Because the pops outer hard candy shell is so thin on these miniatures, by that time you’ve only got about 5 minutes of hard candy before you get to the center.

I must say that the white cardboard sticks that these are impaled on can be pulled out pretty easily out of the tootsie. I actually found them easier to eat by pulling out the stick immediately. I put the pop in my mouth, closed my teeth on the end and yanked the stick out. Hard on your teeth though.

A lot of people don’t like the combination of hard candy and the chocolate tootsie roll center, but I’ve grown quite addicted to it. Mind you, I’ve had about 55 of these gems (not in a row thankfully) and there are still about 150 left in the bag. The “chocolate” is sort of pasty but at least a little bit tasty. It sure does stick in your teeth though.

Price: about $6 for 300 pops
Bought at: Sav-ons
Cheap Eats Score: 5/10