Lemonheads: A Candy Lover's Obsession

Ferrara Pan is a favorite of mine for one product they make: Lemonheads. I am obsessed with all of the 'heads candies. No one else makes anything like them. Lemonheads are a hard, sweet lemon candy coated in a grainy, super sour coat and then a sweet "lemon peel". Genius.

When I was a kid there were a bunch of varieties of these candies and they each had a cool name. There was Alexander the Grape, Johnny Apple Treats and Mr. Melon. Somewhere between the late eighties and the present Ferrara Pan dumped those names and reintroduced the fruit flavored, layered candies under the Lemonheads style naming convention.

Fantastic idea - it's a Lemonhead, only it's orange! The color is vibrant and they have both the zesty orange taste and the tartness. They're not as blisteringly tart as Lemonheads, but the flavor can't be beat. I don't think these existed under another name way back when, but better late than never! My second favorite fruit head!

Well, folks know my feelings about cherry flavor. This is the classic cherry with some good rounded fruity notes and a sour bite to it. Like a cherry Lifesaver, only spherical and tarter. The original name of this candy was Cherry Chan ... so it's probably good that Ferrara Pan decided to rename the whole line into something less offensive. (Though they briefly renamed them to Cherry Clan and changed the art a little bit.)

I used to eat these all the time as a kid. I loved the name, Alexander the Grape and the package logo was a little grape wearing a Trojan helmet. The color is a little surprising, as it's very dark purple, almost navy blue or black. The flavor is a more complex grape than many other grape flavored candies these days and the package boasts "real fruit juice." Of course the real fruit juice listed is apple. There are Appleheads, but I didn't find those at the store.