Village Candy
344 Beaver Street
Sewickley PA
412.741.1490
Tues - Sat 10-5
Wed til 8
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Quick Links | Check Us Out On The Web at
villagecandy.net
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Greetings fellow candy lover!
May is here! Time to plant those flowers, remember your Mom, and congratulate the graduates (sorry if this sounds like a Lowe's ad). The sun's starting to heat up - perfect for stopping by Sewickley May Mart next Saturday, May 8, to stock up on your spring flowers and foliage. And while you're at it, detour in to Village Candy to round out your Mother's Day purchases (which just happens to be the next day). C'mon, show her how sweet she really is. Also this month, don't forget to ply your graduate with confections, to show them your appreciation for the job they've done. After all, before you know it they'll be running this world. And, next month we'll have a first-hand report on the National Confectioners Association Sweets & Snacks Expo 2010 that takes place May 25-27. |
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 Mother's Day
Are you prepared?
Or, if you are Mom, are you satisfactorily pampered? Well come in to Village Candy and let us indulge you and yours. Chocolate peanut butter seashells, chocolate bacon bars, chocolate-covered cherries, chocolate-dipped potato chips...can you sense a theme here? You can never go wrong with chocolate, either gifting out or gorging on. But that's not all we're about. We can put together a custom gift basket, steer you towards our hand-packed retro boxes, select a soda six-pack, luscious candy-scented soaps and baths salts/scrubs, M&Ms in favorite colors, or Jelly Bellys in favorite flavors. Let us make your Mother's Day sweet!
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Clark Goes Dark!
The Better Butterfinger
 The former pride of Pittsburgh, the venerable Clark Bar, has just released a dark chocolate version, and to celebrate, Village Candy has lowered the price of the regular Clark Bar to 85¢! And for you devoted CandyGram readers, take advantage of the special offer coupon below!
A Clark Bar, for the uninitiated, consists of a honeycomb peanut butter crisp with a chocolatey covering. The signature item of one of the country's largest candy empires started in 1891 with a small operation run by young entrepreneur David L. Clark right here in Pittsburgh. He started his own company, D.L. Clark Co., in 1886 manufacturing candy in two back rooms of a tiny house, with the help of a minimal staff. Within a few years, he made enough money to open a modest factory in McKeesport. By 1911, the company had outgrown its factory, and Mr. Clark purchased a large building from a cracker manufacturer. In the 20s, when the company was making approximately one hundred and fifty (150) different types of candy and gum(!), Mr. Clark decided to create a separate entity for the gum-making business, thinking that the candy and gum operations would be more successful if run separately. He opened the Clark Brothers Chewing Gum Co. across the street from his candy factory. His family continued to run the business until 1955. The company operated smoothly in Pittsburgh for several decades but ran into financial difficulties in the 90s. Eventually the company was bought by New England Confectionary Co. (NECCO) and relocated.
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Chiller Theater
A
report on all things sodarific: what's new in the fridge, tastings and
interesting tidbits from the world of bottled effervescence.
 Houston, We Have a Winner
The latest installment of Village Candy's "award-winning" tasting series was held on a recent Saturday in April. Fashionistas from near and far rearranged their busy schedules to attend this "SRO" event. With a scientifically selected panel of discerning taste buds assembled, we set off on a bubbly journey of discovery. Presented with a menu of Cream Soda formulas provided by purveyors from all over the continental U.S., our test subjects went to work. Scrupulously rolling the liquids around their tongues, they took to grading each of the eight offerings, and winnowed the collection down to their top three, in order. After tabulating the ballots and feeding the results into the HAL 9000, the results are as follows: #1 - Sprecher Fire-Brewed Cream, #2 - AJ Stephans Boston Cream, and #3 Carousel Cream. However, as I tell every potential soda purchaser who asks for my opinion (and many who don't), everyone's taste is different, and they all have different ideas of what a true cream should taste like.
Oh, and BTW, as always, we picked a winner, for subjecting themselves to incredible torture in the name of scientific study. This tasting's winner was Erin Gardner. Come in to pick up your 4-pack of Henry Weinhard Vanilla Cream!
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Not Your Mother's Whoppers
With All Due Respect
 New to Village Candy are a trio of gourmet malt balls. Malto Bella is a line of high-end malted milk balls that gives the crunchy, low-grade snack of yesteryear a sleek, modern edge. The Raspberry Truffle variety starts with a standard malted milk ball core and covers it with rich dark chocolate and decadent raspberry truffle chocolate layers. It has a nice, full mouthfeel and conjures up dreamy images of a hot raspberry fudge malt.
The Cappuccino Toffee variety is even better. The coffee-toffee taste is mild and natural, not a blast of gas-station-style flavor chemicals. They have the requisite crunchy malt center, surrounded by milk chocolate, then tumbled in roasted almonds and cappuccino toffee.
Rounding out this quality line is the Almond Toffee variety - as delicious as the previous version, but with English Toffee instead.
These sure aren't your run-of-the-mill malt balls. And we mean that with all due respect.
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New Candy Arrivals
Always check out the "New Arrivals" Table
 Putting pretzels inside M&Ms is no small feat, but have confidence that the food engineers at Mars should be able to figure it out. The bag has the orange M&M character holding up an x-ray showing a knotted pretzel inside. The center of each M&M is actually a pretzel ball, and that's surrounded by a thin layer of chocolate, all underneath the colorful shell. Yum - they figured how do put a chocolate-covered pretzel, with its salt/sweet "thang," into a snackable size.
 Also just in this week are Icee Spray Candy (in cherry, blue raspberry and lemon) and Icee  Squeeze Candy (in cherry, blue raspberry and green apple). We haven't tried them yet, but they sure are flying out of the store! And one more new taste treat just in: Cry Baby  Sour Mini Drinks. From the makers of Cry Baby Gum comes this bag of Nik-L-Nip-style tiny wax bottles, ten to a bag, in Lectric Lime, Overload Orange, Lightning Lemon, Chargin Cherry and Blastin Blue Raspberry. |
Candy Alphabet Next to Last
 ou're not going to win that easily. This is a BRAND NEW PRODUCT, so don't guess the conventional choice here. This product family name appears on a number of items, but this particular one is a newly introduced item. As always, if you're the first to send us
the correct guess of which candy item contains the logo pictured at left, you'll win a fantastic prize.
Last Month's Clue
 actly! No small order to come up with an X candy. But please put your hands together for Julia Calabrese, who was the first to name this sour and very popular candy.
AirHeads Xtremes are fruit rolls with a sour taste, and are an extension of the AirHeads line. Regular AirHeads are a tangy taffy-like chewy candy manufactured by Perfetti Van Melle in Erlanger, Kentucky. Similar in taste and packaging to Laffy Taffy, Airheads come individually wrapped in regular and mini-sized strips, in cherry, watermelon, white mystery, green apple, strawberry, blue raspberry, orange, Cola, "Slammin' Sour" and "Flaming Hot." Special edition flavors, such as Superman, Spongebob and Spider-Man are sold as promotions.
White Mystery flavor AirHeads can be either cherry, watermelon, green apple, strawberry, or blue raspberry, but contain no flavor-revealing coloring.
In 2007, a new BerryHot flavor was introduced that claims to "heat up in your mouth." In 2008, "Chillin" flavors were released that have a minty "cold" feeling.
AirHeads Blue Mystery Blast bars were distributed to all travelers on JetBlue Airways on October 31, 2007, in honor of Halloween.
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Village Candy is an old-time, new-fangled retail shop specializing in a unique selection of retro and current bulk and novelty candy, artisan chocolates, glass-bottled pop and candy-themed gifts. Oh, and remember customer service? It's back!
We are here Tuesday thru Saturday 10 am to 5 pm, but on Wednesday we stay late until 8! We are closed Sunday and Monday.
Sincerely,
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Doug Alpern, Proprietor
Village Candy
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Bring in this limited-time coupon, and get one regular-sized original Clark Bar free with the purchase of another at the regular (but, wait, now newly reduced) price! Coupon good only for regular Clark Bar, not the new Dark version (sorry). One offer per customer (sorry again). We apologize for being so sorry... 
