Hershey's Gold: Peanuts and Pretzels From Heaven -- But Don't Call It Chocolate

Something New in the Chocolate Space

You may have noticed when perusing the candy aisles that Hershey's has released its first straight "chocolate" bar in quite some time.  Called Hershey's Gold, it promises a "caramelized creme" flavor and is loaded up with peanuts and pretzels.  Absolutely addictive, it's their best new product in over a decade.  

The wrapper is a mass of clichés: after all, the term "gold" has been abused and overused so much as to be devalued, peanuts and pretzels seem a bit played out, and who knows what "creme" means?  But there is nonetheless confectionary gold in that there bar. 

But Is It Really Chocolate?

Before turning to the sublime taste, let's veer off into the weeds for a second and consider whether it ought to be called a chocolate bar.  There are some for whom the very concept of white chocolate is heretical.  Technically they haven't a right to say so, since genuine white chocolate, a mix of cocoa butter, sugar, milk solids, and flavoring, does derive from the cocoa bean, missing only the dark brown nibs that contain chocolate liquor.  This "golden" chocolate can't even claim that much; it doesn't contain any cocoa butter, instead using a variety of different fats (palm, sunflower, shea, soybean, and safflower oils) in its place, though it does at least contain some emulsifying milk solids.  This was the formula briefly employed by Hershey for their classic Mr. Goodbar before rival Mars called them out for it, mockingly alleging with complete accuracy that Mr. Goodbar couldn't even be called chocolate but instead merely cocoa-flavored vegetable oil.  Today Mr. Goodbar contains some cocoa butter along with the other cheaper fats,  with Hershey reserving the 100% cocoa-butter formula primarily for their iconic flagship chocolate bar.

If the consistency seems a bit crumbly, ragged, and ratty, you might chalk that up to the lack of cocoa butter, which is uniquely creamy and anti-brittle.  Thankfully, this bar is all about butterscotch flavor.

Who Cares?  It's Devastatingly Delicious

This is all quite interesting to someone obsessed with these things like me, but if you're a prospective eater, you really just want to know how it tastes.  All I can say is that, unlike any other new candy that's come out recently, I just can't stop buying and devouring this one.  While the absence of cocoa butter makes it texturally thin (cocoa butter is extra viscous and creamy) this bar has the salty-sweet thing down in spades.  Taking a bite and waiting for it to melt, the little shards of pretzel and peanut present themselves to your taste buds, bidding you to crunch, at which point your mouth is awash in brown-sugary butterscotch flavor, little sparkles of salt crystal, and earthy peanut pretzel-bits that tie it all together with textural diversity.  It's a lot of pleasure for around a buck, so get out and buy one!

A view of the underside reveals a thin bar shot through with a rubble of peanut and pretzel fragments that offers a crunchy counterpart to the creamy/salty/tangy caramelized body of the bar.