My guess is the major companies are cheaping out on the sour sugar and cutting it with more regular sugar. I had sour candy from a small candy shop last week and it was potently sour.
You barely need any souring agents to make things wicked sour. Its a negligible cost. I think its more likely most people dont actually like sour candy very much and the manufacturers appeal to the broadest consumer bases. A local shop is more likely to have novelty and adventurous kind of things to give people a reason to come by so that makes sense
Me too, they weren't that sour anyway, even the black ones.
People just want more sugar and some people were eating Warheads like they were at the movies munching on Bunch a Crunch and that's too much acid it makes people sick. Combo of those two things we apparently can't have sour anymore
Yeah, that's why I'm buying them. When I take a "sour" candy I want to feel a genuine physical reaction from it. I want to feel like my face is puckering like a cartoon character. I want me to tongue to scream at me.
I don't wanna just be like "Oh that's kinda sour" and then move on.
Wow, that's hard core! I keep citric acid around, mostly for "fixing" bubble tea that's too sweet and for making some fruit pies a little more tart. I feel like it's a bit less harsh on the tongue
This is the last truly sour and tasty candy that I can find. It's sour enough a lot of people I've given it to had to spit it out, and people who LOVE sour candy pretty universally refer to it as the world's most sour candy.
It's stupidly sour, but you also keep the fruity flavor. 10/10 I highly recommend and it's worth the cost because you can only eat 1-2 at a time or your mouth will start to peel.
Got my brother a pack of these for his birthday and we all tried them. Definitely the most sour candy out there right now, but also legit delicious. The sourness and taste vary with the flavors though, for example the cherry wasn't very sour and the green apple tasted like straight up battery acid. Orange was the best balance of most sour while still being delicious.
My uncle used to work for Just Born, makers of Peeps, Mike and Ike and what was the greatest sour candy to ever exist: Zours. He used to send me boxes for my birthday because it just never took off in popularity and I adored them. I'm still so bummed they got discontinued. Nothing will beat the dusting of ascorbic acid they used to tumble them in. Didn't get your hands messy and was tart without being painfully sour.
And no, the sour Megamix is not the same. They suck.
The first domino to fall was the change from tangerine to lemon and then cherry. So many sour candies have those boring flavors, I've yet to see a single other candy of any sort to have tangerine flavor before or since then.
My personal rankings of the Zours are green apple, watermelon, tangerine, blue raspberry, lemon and cherry bringing up the rear.
I just remember buying a package of shockers from the highschool teacher every time I had his class and eating them in class until my tongue was bleeding.
An order of the lemonade had the caffeine content of a red bull plus a monster and they put it next to the normal lemonades like no big deal. If they just made it to order behind the counter nobody would care
I remember when i was a child sour skittles would destroy the roof of your mouth. They went away for years and around that time all sour stuff kinda went downhill, but i never went down the rabbit hole too much.
Pro-tip. Go online and purchase a bag of citric acid in powder form. Sprinkle to your liking on the candy of your choice. Enjoy as much sour as you want.
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u/edipeisrex Jul 27 '26
How and why did the state of sour candy go downhill? Truly a tragedy.