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Review: Peanut Butter GooGoo Cluster + Winner Announced

Contest, Food, , ,
a chocolate covered peanut butter and a bag of nuts

Last week I wrote about GooGoo Clusters, a Yummy Regional Sweet. In the post I ran a giveaway of a Collector’s Tin of Assorted GooGoo Clusters. I also mentioned how I was looking forward to trying out a GooGoo flavor that I could not find anywhere in Nashville- Peanut Butter.

When I wrote GooGoo Cluster, they were kind enough to offer to send me some of the peanut butter variety and also offered a GooGoo Cluster Commector’s Tin for me to give away to one of my readers.

a box of peanut butter
My Peanut Butter GooGoo Stash
a box of food in it

I was really looking forward to trying the Peanut Butter GooGoo Cluster and couldn’t wait to tear the box open when they arrived. I was sent a box of 12 PB GooGoos. This seemed like a generous amount for Kim and I to sample. (At the time of this review, we had not finished the box of GooGoos yet.)

I immediately noticed that the Peanut Butter variety seemed much smaller than the Original.
I checked the packages and saw that the PB was 1.5 oz and the Original was 1.75 oz.

The Peanut Butter GooGoo came out in 1991 and is a real treat- “Peanut Butter fans have celebrated the piquant combination of peanut butter, peanuts and real milk chocolate for two decades.”

a chocolate bar with peanut butter inside
Check out the thick layer of Peanut Butter
a chocolate covered peanut butter pie

A review of the Peanut Butter GooGoo Cluster:
Kim and I are huge fans of peanut butter fans so we were really looking forward to trying out the PB GooGoo.

From the moment you take a bite, you can taste the thick and rich peanut butter which takes up a huge portion of the cluster. The milk chocolate also stands out and goes really well with the peanut butter, making for a great taste. Although there was a fair amount of peanuts on top of the cluster, I felt they weren’t as noticeable as in the Original variety.
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I also felt like the Peanut Butter GooGoo seemed a bit small. When eating an Original Cluster, it feels heavy and filling while the PB doesn’t feel so substantial. With that being said, both Clusters are still incredible and make for a tasty snack.
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If I was to compare it to another peanut butter candy, a good comparison would be Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups. I think that the PB GooGoo is much better than a Reese’s. All of the ingredients in the GooGoo are better than those mundane PB cups. The peanut butter seems to be tastier and the chocolate is richer in the GooGoo. The peanuts on top add a nice texture and add a bit more flavor.
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If I had to choose  between an Original or Peanut ButterGooGooCluster, that would be a harder decision. Overall, the Original stands out more to me, with all of the layers of flavor working better together. If I was looking for more of a peanut butter taste, then I’d go with the PB GooGoo. Either way, you can’t go wrong!

a piece of cardboard with writing on it

I want to thank GooGoo Cluster for sponsoring the Collector’s Tin Giveaway and everyone that entered. A couple of ways to enter were by following me on Twitter and Facebook. If you don’t currently follow me on Twitter or Facebook, you can do so by clicking the links above.

Kim and I have had a chance to enjoy a Yummy Regional Sweet and now it’s time for one of you to get to do the same!

And the winner is… Amy W. (no relation to Michael W., many last names begin with W!)
a Rafflecopter giveaway

 

GooGoo Clusters: A Yummy Regional Sweet + Giveaway

Food, Trip Reports, , ,
a box of cookies on a table
Puckett’s Grocery & Restaurant

Make sure to enter below for a shot at winning a Collector’s Tin of GooGoo Clusters!

In February I wrote about a Budget Travel article mentioning 15 of America’s Favorite Regional Sweets.

There was one item from the list that I really wanted to try. If I ever made it to Tennessee, I had to get my hands on a GooGoo Cluster. Luckily, on my recent trip to Louisville & Nashville, I was successful in my quest.

GooGoo Clusters were invented in 1912 in Nashville, Tennessee. They are the world’s first combination candy bar. GooGoo’s are “made of luscious caramel, smooth creamy marshmallow and fresh roasted peanuts all covered with a thick coating of pure milk chocolate”.

GooGoo Clusters come in three varieties:

  1. Original- described above
  2. Supreme- with fancy pecan pieces instead of peanuts
  3. Peanut Butter- replacing the marshmallow filling

When we started planning our trip , I remembered that I had to find a GooGoo Cluster to taste when I made it to Tennessee.

a shelf with food items on it
On the shelf at Dollar General

The first GooGoo Clusters I bought were just outside of Nashville. We stopped at a gas station for a snack and a fill up. While Kim waited in the car, I went in to buy the snack and spotted them in two varieties. I bought one of the Original & Supreme. They each cost .99 cents. We both enjoyed the Original variety but didn’t love the Supreme as much.
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We expected to see the GooGoo Cluster for sale all over and planned to try it a few more times. The next morning, at breakfast I noticed a display at Puckett’s Grocery & Restaurant selling Original GooGoo’s for $1.99 each. Wow! Talk about pricey. I wasn’t going to pay double what I had payed the day before. I hoped to find more Clusters for sale before we left Nashville.

a man and child in a grocery store
A photo with the prized GooGoo Cluster

After finishing up breakfast we needed to buy some water and spotted a Dollar General right down the block from Puckett’s. We stopped in for the water and decided to wander down the candy aisle. Well what do you know, Dollar General carried boxes containing 3 GooGoo Clusters for $1.99! This seemed like a great price so I bought a couple of boxes to take home. (I kind of wish that I had bought a few more!)

boxes on top of each other
Piggly Wiggly

We didn’t see GooGoo Clusters for sale anywhere else in Nashville until the last night of our trip. I went into a Piggly Wiggly (a Southern supermarket chain- I had to mention the name) and spotted a display selling Original & Supreme Clusters for .99 cents. This seemed like a fair price but we decided to pass. If they had the peanut butter variety available I would’ve bought a couple.

a chocolate bar and a packet of chocolate
A GooGoo and its wrapper

A review of the GooGoo Cluster:
Kim and I are now big fans of the GooGoo Cluster. We both appreciated that it seems to be just the right size- not too big, not too small and just the right thickness.  These lumps of tasty goodness smell great too! Kim told me she could smell the peanuts and chocolate from a few feet away, not knowing I had opened the package.

a chocolate covered candy bar with a bite taken out of it
Layers of yummyness
a chocolate bar with a filling

To show all of the layers of flavor, I cut one of the GooGoo Clusters in half with a sharp knife.

You can see all of the ingredients present in the cluster. They don’t skimp on anything. There are lots of tasty peanuts on top, followed by a nice layer of caramel. They sit on a thick pillowy bed of marshmallow and then the whole package is coated all around in tasty chocolate.

A nice thing about the GooGoo Cluster is that you can actually taste all of the elements working together. What stood out most for me was the peanuts and chocolate. The marshmallow added a nice, light texture and the caramel added just the right amount of sweetness. It is a perfect mixture of smooth, crunchy, sweet and salty.
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I’d love to try out the Peanut Butter variety in the future. Maybe I can hunt it down in a candy shop in the NYC area.

If I could recommend one thing to the Standard Candy Co. (the makers of the GooGoo Cluster), I’d suggest that they consider making a dark chocolate version!

Find out more out Goo Goo Cluster and order some online HERE

***Giveaway: Win a Collector’s Tin of GooGoo Clusters***

a can of candy with a red lid

I decided to contact Standard Candy Co. to let them know how much Kim and I enjoyed the GooGoo Cluster. I mentioned how I really wanted to try the peanut butter variety but had no luck finding them in Nashville.

I received a speedy response from Standard Candy Co. and they were very kind and generous. Not only did they offer to send me some Peanut Butter GooGoo Clusters, they also offered a little something for me to giveaway to my readers!

The Prize: One Collector’s Tin of GooGoo Clusters

  • Collector’s Tin filled with 8 Assorted GooGoo Clusters: 4 Original, 2 Supreme and 2 Peanut Butter. (value: $19.95)
  • Contest ends 1/15/13 at 12:01AM
  • Enter in the widget below. The more ways you enter, the better your odds are for winning!
    a Rafflecopter giveaway