If ever there was an opportunity missed, this is it.

I've coined a name for [so-called] chocolate that's presented in clear cellophane and sold at an over-inflated price.  Tourist Trap S***e.  And in my view, that's exactly what this is.

Quite unsatisfying and full of soya lecithin, it's nothing like the Old Jamaica that most of us will know.  Even the rum flavouring is fake.  (And yet, if they'd got it right they could clean up!)

In the fullness of time I shall be experimenting (using good quality chocolate from Lidl or Aldi) with actually making a decent rum and raisin bar.  I will report back.

This works very well as high-quality eating chocolate!

Identifiable by an old-fashioned sepia illustration of a cook on the wrapper.

Made in Germany and exclusive to Lidl.

Back in the day, did you ever buy a chocolate product to find that it was defective in some way, and send it back?  If so, what did you get in return?

I remember in the '70s (when I was probably about 7 years old), buying a Picnic from the cafe in Southend Library, only to find that it had cobwebs in the wrapper.  (The cafe woman tried to tell me that this was normal.)

I wrote to Cadbury's, and they replied with a (somewhat scientific) explanation, using words like "foodstuffs", to the effect that certain organisms could get through the paper and lay eggs.

They included a pile of chocolate bars of various types, and said that they "hoped this would not put me off their products in the future".

I bet nowadays you'd just get a template letter response, possibly not even related to your complaint.  (At least, that's all I got from Tesco when I wrote in after they downgraded their Value Plain Chocolate by sourcing it from the UK instead of the Netherlands.  It said "sorry you didn't like our plain chocolate biscuits" etc. etc. without answering or even acknowledging my point [about soya lecithin] at all!)

I once trained with a guy who in an evening would eat: (1) a 1kg bar of Dairy Milk, (2) a family-sized chocolate trifle, and (3) a whole can of UHT chocolate-flavoured aerosol cream which he would squirt directly into his mouth.  Hence the nickname above.

There are some pretty nice marzipan bars of various types in Lidl at the moment, to be found with the Christmas chocs.  Particularly the pineapple one.

Unless you are concerned about your weight...

 

P.S. Beware of the very thin foil!

A strawberry Aero made in the Czech Republic, distributed by Nestle Hungaria Kft, Budapest, somehow ending up in my local corner shop!

And it's OK actually, if nothing remarkable...

I have a very vague recollection that, many moons ago,  Double Decker used to have raisin in the base layer.  Am I imagining this?

Been around a for a while now, normally available from Lidl (so in view of the fact that it's officially sold here I'm not sure if this is the right category...)

Packaged as a bar, but in fact individual squares against a card backing.  Available in lots of flavours and very nice.  Not unlike the Ritter Sport range.

You may also see this in Aldi; identical except that it's branded as 'Mauxion' instead of 'Trumpf'.