Toblerone, Best Thing Ever

Fear The Giant Toblerone!Ah Toblerone, one of my true beloveds.  After trying so many revolting candies, I have decided to give myself a break and write up some reviews of my favorites.  And of course you can't write a review without giving one a new try, can you?

The first thing that comes to mind for many people when the Toblerone is mentioned is its distinctive triangular shape, which is meant to echo the shape of the Swiss Alps.  It is also famous as being something that you buy at the Duty Free shop at the airport (which led to several comedic gags on an episode of "Friends" when Joey kept pleading with Ross's English girlfriend to bring him back a giant Toblerone bar from the airport).

Although the Toblerone bar was originally developed in Switzerland in the early 1900s, the company was purchased by Kraft in 1990.  Although the bars are still being made in Switzerland, you can't help but be a little sad to think we're not too far from a world where three or four companies own everything.  Fortunately, this candy-related bit of globalization and corporatization does not seem to have affected the humble Toblerone bar, which seems to still be produced to the same exacting specifications as before.

Although there have been several varieties of Toblerone bar produced over the years, there is really only one.  This is milk chocolate, with little bits of honey almond nougat, and is packaged in the distinctive light yellow box.  The little nougat-y bits contrast nicely with the smooth milk chocolate, and the triangles make it easy to snap off a chunk for now, and tuck the rest away to eat later.  (In theory, I mean.)

In 1989, Hershey introduced the Symphony chocolate bar, which was clearly meant to give Toblerone a run for its money.  But although the Symphony bar is fine as far as it goes, the chocolate isn't as good, and the little bits aren't as tasty.  I doubt it had much of an impact on Toblerone sales.

Of all the candies and chocolates I have reviewed so far, Toblerone is the one which is trying the hardest to move forward in the digital age.  Not only does Toblerone have a Facebook page, but specially marked packages include a code you can use for a digital music download of a song by Alesha Dixon (UK-only, not available in the USA).

One of the interesting things to appreciate about the Toblerone bar is that its packaging contains no plastic, and is theoretically completely recyclable.  I have been thinking about this issue a lot lately, because as a die-hard recycler (and someone who lives outside the range of garbage pickup, thus having to take all my own trash to the dump) I cringe every time I put something into the garbage.  Candy wrappers, as it turns out, are almost universally not recyclable.

Chocolate tends to be more likely to have recyclable wrappings.  However, even most chocolates have gone to plastic or mylar wrappings.  For example, I always think of plain Hershey bars as being packaged in foil with a paper wrapper, but the regular sized bar has all been shifted to a mylar plastic wrap.  The same goes for every other standard American candy bar, although many of the supersized bars retain their original recyclable wrapping.

Creative Commons-licensed image of ridiculously huge Toblerone courtesy of Flickr user Steve Dinn.