When thinking back to some of my own personal sweets it's hard not to think of the old classic design of black jacks, that were one of the last surviving penny sweets to actually cost a penny (now they seem to be 2p each sadly). However when Barratt started doing these packets of their own version it seemed like 2 things had happened, the first was that the nail was in the coffin for the sweet shop black jack and secondly the price of black jacks had been changed for ever.

The black, white and red packet retails for around 40p and contains 13 sweets (or chews as the packet repeatedly call them), the wrapper for those who remember the old style sweets is identical, but now the sweets are thick and squared rather than thin oblongs. So all was looking good so far, 3p a sweet for a larger than normal black jack, not bad right?

So to eating them, the sweets oddly seem rather dry and lack the same chewy texture of the "classic" black jacks that seemed to be made for chewing these however are almost too happy to crack under you're teeth and shatter in to pieces around the inside of your mouth taking away the real great quality of blackjacks. Though it must be admitted that they taste equally good to the older ones it's just a bit of a shame that they do crack and snap in your mouth so easily. However if you can leave them in your mouth long enough for saliva to get onto the sweets they do become more and more chewy so there is a solution to the major problem.

The sweets do seem to be well made, but there is a nagging feeling that we are being a little bit ripped off when you realise how good the original ones we're and how they all seemed to have a magical place in the sweet shop and the white paper bags, both of which seem to be on the way out. Sadly the impending death of the sweet shop will mean these will almost certainly become the only blackjacks sold and it'll be super markets selling us them, not the nice lady behind the counter that knows what every sweet in there tastes like.

Nutritional Information per chew (sweet)
10 Calories
Trace Protein
2.4g Carbohydrates
0.2g Fat

Overall they are nice, they are blackjacks after all, but they miss some of the key features of the true blackjacks, they fail to have the same charm of the classic ones. Which is even weirder as these actually look like they should be superior, they are larger, they cost more and they are a "new" design, but sadly they aren't magical or great. Sadly in the future I'm guessing we'll have to buy packets of cola bottles just to have them (I know cola bottles are sold in packets but the penny sweet versions are still available) or a dozen fried eggs. These are nice, but not as nice as they should be.