Dean & Deluca Snack Baskets

Dean & DeLuca is a chain of fancyish grocery stores.  I associate the brand with New York, although the store I have actually been into is in Tokyo, and I fondly remember their ice cream served on a Japan airlines flight (which, I've reviewed before).  

"For over 40 years it has been our mission to find and provide to you the world’s best epicurean treats for cooking, eating and entertaining. Our team of International food experts are committed to a quest for excellence. We work persistently to curate a food-forward assortment of the best and newest food products from around the globe."

Dean & Deluca offers a curated shopping experience, hence, the premium branding. They also operate a mail order business, perfect for gift baskets around the holidays, or sending to corporate clients, which is how I encountered a large variety of their goodies.  I don't understand why my co-workers don't devour their gift baskets, particularly when the items are high quality like this, but, their loss, my gain, right?

Snacks on the Run. $75.

"Time is tight, so these tins full of chocolates, mixes, candies, and nuts are an easy, delicious choice."

For the holidays, my co-workers received several "Snack on the Run" assortments.  The "Snacks on the Run" series is available in 3/6/12/18 packs, all different, unless you custom order a set with exactly what you want in it.

Ours were 12 packs, mostly chocolates, with a few other candies in the mix.  Interestingly, it contained no plain nuts, and only one dried fruit option.

I tried everything except the milk chocolate covered raisins, as, well, I just don't like them, and didn't see a reason to waste.  For $75, this was a good variety, and seemingly decent value for quality items.

Chocolate Covered

Our package consisted of majority chocolate covered things, 8 total, including 4 types of caramels (one sugar free), one type of covered nut, and one dried fruit.

Dark Chocolate Rum Cordials.

"Dark Chocolate and Rum, a match made in confectionary heaven. Our Dean & DeLuca Chocolate Rum Cordials are a lovely and affordable gift with the same style and good taste you expect from Dean & DeLuca."

OMG, OMG, OMG.  That is all I have to say about these.

This was not my first encounter with these rum balls, er, cordials, I just hadn't written about them previously.  I remember discovering these before, and, well, adoring them.  In particular, of course I remember the rum.

Because, beware.  These are filled with liquid.  Boozy liquid.  Do not bite in half and expect not to make a mess.  Pop the whole thing in your mouth, bite, and enjoy the booze.

The dark chocolate is necessary to hold up against the rum, and the rest ... well, its rum!

White Mint Lentils.

"Pure white and minty fresh, these dark chocolate disks made with real oil of peppermint are the perfect refresher."

Heh.  I thought these were just after dinner mints.  Bo-ring.  They looked like just mints.  And, what are "lentils", of the confection variety, anyway?  A: It turns out, this is a "standard" name for this type of confection.  Huh.  Strange, they ... are like oversized lentils I guess?  Or smooshed M&Ms?

But it turned out, these were chocolate.

At first, they seemed just like any other chocolate disk, like an M&M.  But then ... the mint kicked in.  And it wasn't entirely pleasant.  Such a strange aftertaste.

I was not a fan.

Triple Chocolate Toffees.

"Premium almond toffee in luxurious milk, dark and marbled dark and white chocolates."

These looked pretty interesting, assorted colors and sizes.  But, all tasted basically the same: sweet toffee, crisp, coated in sweet creamy chocolate.  Absolutely fine, but they looked more interesting than they were in practice.

Milk Chocolate Peanuts.

Our single chocolate covered nut offering was a milk chocolate peanut, not as exciting as many of the others like dark chocolate sea salt hazelnuts.  But, an easy crowd pleaser.

I tried them, and they were fine.  Decent enough milk chocolate coating, not too much of it, creamy.  Standard peanut inside.

Nothing remarkable, nothing bad.

Dark Chocolate Sea Salt Caramels.

"Our creamy caramels lavished in rich dark chocolate with a hint of sea salt."

These had a nice dark chocolate on them, but I wasn't quite into the chewy caramel center, just personal preference.

Tiramisu Caramels.

"Semi-soft caramel dipped in our famous milk chocolate with tiramisu flavor, then rolled in dark cocoa powder." 

These I really didn't like.

Again, the soft caramel chew just didn't do it for me, at all.  I did not taste tiramisu in any way either.

Pass.

English Toffee Caramels.

"Toffee caramels in a generous layer of creamy milk chocolate."

I know I tried these, but alas, I don't seem to have notes on them.  Sorry!

Sugar Free Milk Chocolate Caramels.

"If sugar-free is what you crave these are the chocolate covered caramels for you. Exclusive to Dean & DeLuca our Sugar-Free Milk Chocolate Caramels are premium Sugar-Free caramels covered in Sugar-Free chocolate coating. Dean & DeLuca Sugar-Free Milk Chocolate Caramels are a lovely and affordable gift with the same style and good taste you expect from Dean & DeLuca."

 I found it a bit funny to include a sugar free offering in a box of all sugary treats, but, perhaps they envision this to be a shared box, in which case, having an inclusive offering for those who need lower sugar is a great thing?

Anyway, these were fine, larger than the regular caramels, and the milk chocolate was smooth and good.  I still wasn't a huge fan of the caramel though.

Confections

We had only two "confections", chewy sugary things, in our basket.

Gourmet Assorted Jelly Beans.

The image on the container of the jelly beans showed what looked large larger size jelly beans, the type I like.  But inside I found ... what looked exactly like Jelly Belly, smaller size beans.  I'm not particularly fond of Jelly Belly, besides the buttered popcorn, which I have actually grown to love, so really should update my review.

I don't think these were actually Jelly Belly brand, but they were a fairly similar product, sweet sugar, no more, no less.  

Sanded Starfish.

"Gummy sugarcoated starfish in six fruity flavors."

These were a crowd favorite, so I was only able to try one flavor: blue.

They were good, nice chew, and I liked the "sanded" sugar coating on them.  Better than your average gummy candy.

Fruits & Nuts

Our assortment did not have any plain nuts, nor really many dried fruits (besides the chocolate covered raisins), although Dean & Deluca does offer plenty of these items.

I was not upset though, as these are some of the least interesting of the lineup.  We did have one mix.

Island Mix.

The "island mix" featured bits of dried pineapple, papaya, and banana, plus raisins and macadamias.

I tried everything in here except the raisins (eww, raisins!), and all were fairly generic and standard.  Not much to say about this one, it was dried fruit and bits of nuts.