S'More or Less.

Hershey’s has come out with a new candy bar, called a S'More. (Well, it’s new to me, even if it’s not really new.) And a bag of them showed up at the office today, as a co-worker’s contribution to Using Chocolate to Avoid the Afternoon Blahs. The bar is clearly an attempt to render the impression of a traditional S’more, without the bother of building a campfire in your kitchen. It’s marshmallow, on a bed of something like chopped graham cracker pieces, and all covered in chocolate. No open flame to heat it over, and singing campfire songs is optional. (Perhaps not, depending on your workplace.)

It’s okay, but not grand. What I think it does that is awesome, though, is that it has found and filled a very precise candy niche: what to buy to give out at Halloween. It’s good enough that you won’t feel unhappy if you have bought too much, and end up with an extra bag and a half at the end of the night; it’s not so good that if you buy a bag of it three days before Halloween, you’ll have eaten it all by the time the 31st rolls around. And that’s a difficult line to walk. I have experience with both extremes, and neither one is much fun. (Well, okay. Actual experience shows that it’s easier to pretend that you’re not home by turning out all the lights so the little hobgoblins don’t knock on your front door than it is to eat two bags of chocolate-covered coconut bars when you despise coconut.)