When’s the last time you saw Brach’s Pick A Mix??

I loved those coconut bricks, it has to have been since a child that I had them, so 30 years ago.

I loved the cinnamon discs.

I believe Sears Roebuck used to have that on the main floor.

We went for the bridge mix. It would all be stolen today. Sad.

The jelly nougats were the WORST.

Is this the company that did those old timey chocolate stars?

R1 = CZJ

Sears bulk purchases. I loved the caramel royals, twists in assorted flavors like maple, vanilla, chocolate

I was maybe six years old, at a grocery store named Big Star. I always stole a piece or two of the coconut candy - it was pink, white and brown. Washed it down with a handful of stolen grapes.

Those were my favorites, r5!

I’m no shoplifter, but those candies were calling out to kids: steal me!

My neighborhood supermarket had them in the 1970s, perhaps into the 1980s.

Sears, and it would have been 1992 when I was looking for a “cordovan” belt. I thought cordovan was a color - not a type of leather. They didn’t carry anything I wanted.

Anyway, the old Brach’s display was still on the scary side of Sears (bus stop near the busy parking lot). The odor was still there, but the candy looked old.

[quote] I’m no shoplifter, but those candies were calling out to kids: steal me!

I answered the call every time. The jelly nougats were my favorite too.

I remember some of the Furrs grocery stores in New Mexico had the displays up until the late 90s.

That candy was always staler than Cheryl’s penis fly trap.

Yeah, that shit was tasteless and dried out.

I liked the butterscotch discs & the chewy ones that looked like jelly rolls.

Let's ban nougat bashing R5 from the internet. Those jellies ruled! Those & the orange slices made it worthwhile to go to the IGA with Mom.

I haven’t thought about these candies in DECADES, but now I suddenly want them. Nostalgia rules my life at this point; most modern things suck. Is there nowhere to get BRACH’S now?

One old-time candy I really like, from my movie theater-going days, was Sugar Babies, which I ate in combo with popcorn. I could still eat those (Sugar Babies). Maybe I'll try to order some.

Here's Candy Warehouse, R20. I've never ordered from them, so can't attest.

Thank you, R21!!!

Amazon has quite a lot of BRACH’S, too.

I loved the sugary fruit slices. LOVED.

It’s said that a tiny bit of Helen goes into each and every candy.

Did Brach's do the thin fruit slices too, or was that another candymaker?

my grandparents always had these at their house. i remember the caramel royals were my favorite. I know my sister and i would steal a few when we went to the store with mom

Was there a kid who didn’t steal from that bin? There must have been a Brach’s blanket policy to allow kids to “sample” or we all would have done time in juvey.

Geesh, this brings back memories. My Grandma always had candy dishes full of Pick-A-Mix

Butterscotch and cinnamon hard candies and all the caramel Royals were probably my favorite.

I remember being allowed to fill a small bag when we would go to Sears (usually to buy me Toughskins pants). The candy area smelled like popcorn.

Loved the orange slices, the butterscotch discs and of course the pink, white and brown coconut bricks.

That candy was as bad tasting as circus peanuts.

My favorite tie from the late 80s/early 90s was patterned like a Brach’s nougat - ivory with ovals of red, green, yellow, and orange. It was too narrow for 1994.

I don’t think it’s been very long since I’ve last seen one. Now I want to find one.

Loved the multi flavored cum 😋🥰

R21 R22 I've actually been to The Candy Warehouse here in Long Beach. It's everything you hoped it would be, and more.

I loved the jelly nougats.

Brach's was bought by another candy company several years ago, and they discontinued the Neapolitan coconut candies nearly 9 years ago.

[quote]R13 I was looking for a “cordovan” belt. I thought cordovan was a color - not a type of leather.

It’s a color in addition to being a type of leather. So you weren’t wrong! [bold]#Justice4R13![/bold]

[italic] “Cordovan is a rich shade of burgundy and a dark shade of rose. ... The term cordovan has come to describe the color of clothing, leather in particular; in this sense, the use of cordovan overlaps with that of oxblood. The first recorded use of cordovan as a color name in English was in 1925.”

Umm... this thread is about bulk candy bins and nobody has called anyone else a "fat whore" even once after dozens of replies.

Man, the pandemic lockdown must have hit you guys really hard.

Next, I'll start seeing threads about celebrities' personal lives and all of the responses will be along the lines of, "It's really none of my business."

I feel like I should call someone. Is there a 911 number for message boards?

My Ex Husband managed an "upscale" Trailer park for the Brachs in Chattanooga In the late 60s .

Great thread idea OP. Ihad completely forgotten about these pick a mix stations. I didn't like many of the candies, but LOVED the butterscotch. Had zero qualms as a kid about dipping my grubby mitts in there for a wee bite or seven.

They had a sad metal coin box on one at our local grocery store, late 70s. It had a hand-made sign for five cents or a penny to “take one piece.”

Try your local Hy-Vee.

my grandparents always used to have mints, but they were soft & had a small gel minty center. I loved those things. I still love the butterscotch hard candies, but they're hard to find

Sears? Why would a clothing and appliance shop sell bin candy? Was it next to their deli meats?

Sears years ago was like all of the department stores, it had candy aisles and toy aisles and such.

Home Depot and Lowe's and Menards have food in their stores these days, Gatorade and snacks mostly, so maybe Sears still does.

Does anyone remember the ice blue hard candy - same size as the butterscotch? It tasted like mouthwash or a breath mint.

oooh! I loved those coconut things, too, OP!

Yuck.The candy choice was boring and it always looked stale -- as if it were trotted out from World War II surplus, or something. And the cheesy cardboard "stand" was always banged up and dirty-looking.

I get Sears and J.C. Penney mixed up, because my family never shopped at either. They were just kind of lumped together.

These strawberry hard candies with soft centers were another favorite of mine. I must have purloined a whole peck of them over the years.

That's funny we all have the same memory - the only thing I ever stole was one of these candies and I thought I was a complete criminal!

I had forgotten all about these, but just the mention of them and the pictures brought the memories right back. God, I loved those Neapolitan coconut cubes. My grandmother definitely always had a candy dish with a mixture of the full varieties sitting on the kitchen counter.

Grab a bag...

They still make the assorted flavor Royals and sell them alone in their own package. They're not as good. Of course that could be because I'm an adult and have different tastes. But, I suspect it's also a change in ingredients - more corn syrup, less real sugar, cheaper flavorings for the inside portion.

[quote] Next, I'll start seeing threads about celebrities' personal lives and all of the responses will be along the lines of, "It's really none of my business."

People here on DL do, indeed, say "it's none of our business." I pointed that out to a poster, saying, but you are Blanche, you are posting on this thread (I was more polite than that, actually). That poster went nuts, called me names, blah blah blah.

R5 and R10 I loved the jelly nougats. Pure sugar rush! Our local grocery carried Pick A Mix in a big bin; we'd buy a pound of it to smuggle into the movies. Great memory, thanks, OP.

R13 The Sears entrance near the parking lot always smelled of popcorn.

I bought a big bag of those caramel ROYALS during shut down last year.

R59, my five year-old niece thought I was Superman when I pulled on the ends to unwrap them. Or, she was tricking me into unwrapping more.

I'm with R2. Cinnamon Discs are my favorites, too. A few of the Coconut Neopolitans would be good with a nice cup of hot black coffee. I'm also very fond of the caramel Royals...particularly the raspberry. I loved the beautiful metallic colors of the wrappers. And you can have all my maple Royals, R59 & R60!

Where inexpensive, plain commercial caramels are concerned, Kraft caramels are my favorite. I only buy them in October.

The Best of Pick-A-Mix. Currently unavailable.

I'm having a jelly nougat craving and my only recollection had to have been from the 60's or early 70;s!

My grandparents always had some.

My favorites were the peppermints, the butterscotch discs, and these fabulous gum balls coated in hard red candy.

R64 I broke a tooth on one of those gumballs!

I would eat them by the handful while walking through the store with my mom, as a child. This reminds me of a somewhat related story. I worked at Albertsons (grocery store) in high school in the 80’s. I was fired for eating a SINGLE strawberry from the produce section. My friends and family teased me for months about it.

I, too, loved the discontinued Neopolitan blocks, the dairy milk caramels, the royal caramels. Brach's Pick a Mix was a budget option for Halloween candy (I assume) because I got a lot of it. In that case, I ate the nougat jellies because I was/am a sugar whore. If you look at the entire Brach's catalog they had these big round soft nougats, striped holiday colors with a little jelly bit in the center. They were red & green & minty at Christmas. The jelly beans are not bad if you enjoy classic artificial flavoring. I stole plenty of pick a mix items at the grocery store, a grade school teacher kept a sack of them for prizes when we played games or finished tests. A couple years ago I was in Yuba City CA and went to this grocery store with the huuuuugest bulk candy section I've seen in years, with lots of old timey favorites but I can't recall if they had Brach's stuff.

The Candy Warehouse is in Long Beach??!! So is my niece! I will have something else to do while visiting.

[quote] Umm... this thread is about bulk candy bins and nobody has called anyone else a "fat whore" even once after dozens of replies.

It’s self-evident in this case.

R67, I totally forgot about the minty Christmas nougats. Those were my favorite.

You fat Ho Ho Hoes!

My favorite grocery store use to have bulk candy like that. An employee was refilling the bins and dropped some on the floor of the aisle, she picked them up and threw them in the bin with the rest of the candy. I told her, I can't believe you just did that. She said, did what? I said picked that candy off the dirty floor and throw it back in the bin. She says, it is wrapped, I told her I didn't care, that was nasty. I told a manager and he said he would talk to her, but I suspect he didn't. I will never buy any of that bulk stock again.

ROYALS...!!!

R71 It was WRAPPED for godsake! Have you ever watched the shelves being stocked at the grocery store? Commercial bread, snacks, etc are all dropped occasionally by the stock guys and put back on the shelves. It's not raw candy or any raw food.

[quote] I told her, I can't believe you just did that. She said, did what? I said picked that candy off the dirty floor and throw it back in the bin. She says, it is wrapped, I told her I didn't care, that was nasty. I told a manager and he said he would talk to her, but I suspect he didn't. I will never buy any of that bulk stock again.

Mary! Or is it Karen!

[quote] It was WRAPPED for godsake!

Yeah it is wrapped and sometimes poorly wrapped with some parts of the candy not completely wrapped, people come into stores with dog shit on their feet. So the next time you are popping one of those wrapped candies in your mouth you can wonder if this is one of the wrapped candies that was on the floor rubbing up against dog shit. It was a few pieces of candy, they can afford to throw those those away if they hit the floor. Enjoy your next wrapped candy that has dog shit on the wrapper.

Kids with shitty little fingers also dig through those bins. The wrapper is not clean. I won’t eat food out of bulk bins either (pre Covid) for this reason.

I mentioned to my sister-in-law once that I liked those Christmas ribbon candies as a kid. Now she buys them for me EVERY Christmas and they're always really stale.

Please, oh please keep shoving dog shit down my throat.

And get off my lawn!!

Ugh, R77. I HATE it when people give the same shitty gifts every year. My partner’s parents give him coffee mugs with photos on them every year. This year they sold the house that he was raised in. He got SIX coffee mugs with photos of the house and property (I assume that they were cheaper if you bought half a dozen). They all end up in the storage room. Who needs 20 coffee mugs?

I have no problem at all getting rid of shitty gifts right away. Some people are compulsive shoppers and gift-givers. The gifts are more about them than the recipient.

[quote]Sears? Why would a clothing and appliance shop sell bin candy? Was it next to their deli meats?

If I remember correctly, the Pic-A-Mix and the popcorn stand was right off the parking lot, all the better to get kids to nag their parents. My mom would buy me a small bag of popcorn to keep me shut up while she shopped.

I would take it to the shoe department and put my feet in those weird old metal shoe sizers where you slide the metal "toe" to find your size and a metal cup on the side to find your width.

Those metal shoe size measurement devices are still in action.

My maternal grandmother was a former candymaker and also LOVED Brach's. I think they made little chocolate stars, as well as those little chocolate disks with white sprinkles -- or was that Woolworth's, or else Sears?? Anyway, I liked some of their stuff as a little kid, including also their jelly beans, except for their peanut brittle as well as their peanut-shaped soft candies.

Wow, I had forgotten about this! But yes, good times. I liked those coconut thingys, too.

Wegmans had them before Covid

I would take my elderly grandfather to the grocery every Saturday, where he would open a bulk chocolate bin and steal a peanut cluster each time. One time he did it in front of a manager. Pop just told him "It's good." while he walked away.

Lol...this shit was Grandma candy.

Sears popcorn was the best!!!!

You can buy Brachs on Amazon

Wow. My grandmother had an outfit just like the lady's in the OP.

Damn you, OP! I haven't thought about or desired the coconut bricks in a million years, but now I have got to have one.

Or two.

But, that's it.

I had completely forgotten about that candy, they had it at the grocery store. Now I feel like I need to get some of those coconut neopolitains.

I love this thread for the stories of childhood shoplifting and and the fat whore writing them.

Neopolitan coconut caramel bricks forever!