Yoo-Hoo or boo-hoo?

One of the interesting things about shopping at Tractor Supply is that they have candy you don't see elsewhere. Your average gas station has to make room for the 98,000 varieties of Reese's, so they don't have space for Big Hunk Bar or Mallo Cup. Or this.  

As an adult who remembers Yoo-Hoo chocolate drinks fondly, I felt compelled to purchase this candy bar. I'm not sure Yoo-Hoo is well known outside the northeast, where it originated in 1928 (in New Jersey, to be specific). Yogi Berra was a pitchman for it for decades. In the eighties it was still considered a regional favorite.

Yoo-Hoo is not exactly chocolate milk, as its unusual composition allows it to stay fresh at room temperature, and its more watery consistency puts some folks off. But there's no denying it has a very particular type of chocolate flavor that most people enjoy. 

It that way it is like Hershey milk chocolate, and for the same reason -- bizarre American inventiveness. Milton Hershey was already rich from his caramel business when he decided to get in on the ground floor of the milk chocolate craze that was sweeping Europe. He went to Switzerland to learn the secret -- making milk chocolate is a lot more complicated than you'd think -- but the Swiss wouldn't tell him. So Milton just invented his own process, resulting in that unique sour-milk tang that sets Hershey's apart from all the other milk chocolate to this day. 

Similarly, juice bottler Natale Olivieri set out to make a chocolate beverage and just worked it out on his own, using canning methods to make a shelf-stable chocolate drink. Thus, nothing else tastes quite like a Yoo-Hoo.

Or does it? Does this Yoo-Hoo branded chocolate bar have the same taste? That is what I set out to discover. 

And the answer is -- not really. I kind of thought it did, and then maybe it didn't, so I bought a bottle of Yoo-Hoo to compare it directly. I have to say no; it's similar but not the same as the unusual Yoo-Hoo flavor. 

Here's why:  

Yes, the Easter candy giant Palmer of Reading, Pennsylvania, manufactures the Yoo-Hoo chocolate bar under license. Palmer chocolate is the sort that you give to kids, because they don't know enough to be discriminating in the least. It's fine -- but it's not great. And I think they failed to really capture the Yoo-Hoo taste. So while there's nothing wrong with it -- hey, even so-so chocolate is still chocolate -- I fear it does not live up to its label. But it’s still a break from the 98,000 Reese’s varieties.

So that's my report for today. It's been a while since I did one of these, taking a caloric hit for the team to help you spend your candy allowance wisely. You're welcome!