Candy Review: Hershey's Take 5

Stars: 4 out of 5

Pros: Good mix of salty and sweet; unique mix of flavors

Cons: No real caramel despite it being listed

The Bottom Line: 

Grab a Take 5 when

Looking for something dif'rent

And you'll be happy

Need to Take 5?  Take a Take 5!

I haven’t thought about the Take 5 candy bar in years until I ran across it at my local Wal-Mart while browsing the Halloween candy.  I immediate had to buy a bag and reconnect with this different candy bar.

Made by Hershey, this bar gets its name from the fact that it is made up of five layers.  There’s a layer of peanut butter, peanuts, caramel, and pretzels all surrounded by a layer of chocolate.  This makes for a strange concoction to be sure, but it mostly works.

For one thing, the salt from the pretzels gives you a salty flavor to mix with the sweet of the chocolate.  Then there are the peanuts and peanut butter, which are actually fairly redundant if you think about it, but they give you peanuts and more salt.  Then you’ve got to mix in the chocolate surrounding them all.  Yes, it is fairly complex and a bit overwhelming at first.  But after a couple of bites, your tongue gets it and you really begin to enjoy it.

But you’ll notice the one thing I left out of that description.  Yes, there is a thin layer of caramel in these bars, just as advertised.  Emphasis on thin.  You won’t taste it, even if you are looking for it very hard.  I can see it in there, but that’s the only reason I know it is there.  Being the caramel lover I am, I think that’s a gross oversight, but I wonder how it would mix with the other strong flavors in the candy bar.

With all those different layers in there, the list of ingredients is a mile long.  Here’s what you really need to know.  As of today, they warn you about peanut and wheat allergies.  The rest of the stuff is things you know aren’t really good for you like sugar, high fructose corn syrup, chocolate, and oils.

And the nutritional facts section bears that out.  A snack size bar (.75 oz.) gives you 100 calories, 45 of them from fat.  And the nutrients?  Non-existent.  We're talking empty calories here.

The Take 5 candy bars take a little getting used to, but once you do, you’ll find they are different enough from the rest of what is out there to be enjoyable as a treat.