Every once in a while, on our buying trips to America, we find something that we class as simply amazing.....

Every once in a while, on our buying trips to America, we find something that we class as simply amazing! We try lots of different products and every so often there is one product that stands out as a must have. One such product is Taza Chocolate.

Taza Chooclate is made in Boston and is a Mexican stone ground style chocolate. What is stone ground? Well Taza make their own stone grinding disks by hand carving ridges into granite stone which they then use to grind the already roasted and shelled cacao beans in an age old traditional Mexican way into perfectly unrefined, minimally processed chocolate which allows tiny bits of cacao and organic cane sugar to remain in the finished product which results in chocolate brimming with bright tastes and and bold textures unlike anything you may have tasted before. Every piece of Taza Chocolate is made from bean-to-bar at Taza's Somerville, Mass, USA factory (Which you can tour if you are in the area) and Taza roast, winnow, grind, temper and mold all their chocolate by hand in house.

Taza make a range of rustic dark chocolate products in many differnt flavours, some sweet, some savoury and some spicy. The chocolate is Organic, Fairtrade, soy free, dairy free, non GMO and Kosher Pareve.

The most popular Taza Chocolates are the Mexican style disks. Not only do these taste amazing but they also look amazing as well! The disks have a RRP of £4.99 and the Amaze bars have a RRP of £5.99 and we also now stock the Tazito bars which are smaller bars with a RRP of £1.99. These make great gifts (Valentines Day just around the corner!) and as well as just eating this chocolate straight from the pack why not use it for making hot chocolate (Watch a video here made by Alex, Taza's founder on how to make the perfect Mexican style hot chocolate) or use it for baking, its amazing in cookies!

You can buy this amazing chocolate on our website, in our Aldershot store and soon in Whole Food Markets and other quality confectionery retailers.

Award Winning BBQ Sauce Coming Soon!

We discovered the Pork Barrel BBQ sauces in Washington in 2012. We loved their sauces and rub and visited their restaurant as well which was awesome!
Well we are thrilled to announce that we will be the UK distributor for their award winning range of sauces with the first stocks arriving very soon! Keep you eyes peeled for this range of goodies on the website - Your tummies will thank you!

Do you Crave Peanut Butter?!?

Curt’s Peanut Butter Company has reinvented your everday PB & J sandwich. This amazing range consists of four amazing flavours including Chocco Chocco, Coco Banana’s, Cookie Nookie and Razzle Dazzle!!!

 Not only are the names fun, but so are the flavours!!!

Choco Choco: A delicious double dose of semi-sweet and rich dark chocolate with premium peanut butter and wild honey - it's decadence and delight in every bite. 

CoCo Bananas: A tropical blend of yummy bananas, cocoa and wild honey - a great remedy for your English weather blues. 

Cookie Nookie: A mouth-watering mix of chocolate chips, cookie dough flavor, wild honey and premium peanut butter- don’t be afraid to eat it right out of the jar. 

Razzle Dazzle: A twisted blend of red raspberry, wild honey, cool white chocolate and rich dreamy darkness- a lovely blend of awesome and delicious!

This new peanut butter range is now available online and is stocked in both our Aldershot and Guildford stores.
 

 Don’t miss out... I have a feeling these flavours will be flying off the shelves!

Try our new Joe Tea drink and chips range

Joe Tea is a small company who produce awesome teas and chips which perfectly compliment each other. Not only are the flavours fantastic, but the packaging is pretty cool too - adorned with bright colours and pickup trucks.

These have just arrived at Stateside HQ from the States, and you can buy them online here or in our Aldershot and Guildford stores. Read more about the company below.

JOE TEA was started to do one thing - make awesome tasting teas. During the Summer of 1998, I started selling JOE TEA in Hoboken and all over small beach towns on the Jersey Shore. At first, the store owners were reluctant - then they tasted the tea. One by one, we opened up accounts and JOE TEA started to flow. By the fall, JOE TEA expanded to many of the better independent food retailers around the New York Metro Area. Each day I loaded up my truck with JOE TEA and went to new towns and in doing so, created routes throughout NJ, NY, CT and Eastern Pennsylvania. And we've kept busy over the last few years. Along the way, JOE TEA came to be known at "The Original Off Road Tea".

If you've tried any of these new products we'd love to know what you think - let us know in the comments.

And the winner is...

To celebrate Independence Day we launched a very special competition with our friends over at Jelly Belly. We displayed this awesome portrait of Shrek (pictured below) made up entirely of Jelly Belly jelly beans at our Guildford store and asked you to guess how many beans were used to make it.

Jelly Belly Shrek portrait by artist Malcolm West

We had over a thousand entries, and after sending them all off to Jelly Belly to be checked (even we weren't allowed to know the official number of jelly beans used!) we have our winners!  Well done to:

1st prize: £25 Stateside Candy Co gift voucher & a Jelly Belly jelly bean dispenser

Winner: Simon Wiltshire

2nd prize: £15 Stateside Candy Co gift voucher

Winner: Becky Dewar

3rd prize: £10 Stateside Candy Co gift voucher

Winner: Jean Shepherd

Please pop in to our Guildford store or email us at howdy@americansweets.co.uk to claim your prize!

We all scream for I-Scream!

Summer is here and we have the perfect solution for those of you craving ice cream in this cold English weather. Shakespeare’s Chocolates have created these amazing I-Scream bars which combine the best elements of our favourite summer treats in a chocolate bar. They describe them as “delicious collaboratons of chocolate ingredients and flavoured scooped on top of a milk chocolate sugar cone”. They come in the following yummy flavours: Candy Crunch, Chocolate Fudge, Mint Choc Chip, Neapolitan, Peanut Butter and Cookies & Cream. We can’t get enough of these candy cones, grab yours here.

Add some marshmallow to your mug!

We’ve been huge fans of Plush Puffs and their range of gourmet and giant marhsmallows for a while now, and their latest creations are no disappointment. Mug Toppers are designed to fit on top of your hot chocolate/coffee/any other hot drink and gradually melt. Plush Puffs say: “With each sip you taste the perfect combination of your yummy drink and sweet, creamy all-natural marshmallow, through the last drop.”

With the typically cool English summer we’re currentyly having, we’re sure these will be a welcome addition to all those warm drinks! Grab either Peppi-mint or Vanilla Bean Mug Toppers here.

Who says you shouldn’t play with your food?

When we brought back a Marshmallowville marshmallow gun from the States it wasn’t long before the office floor was littered with marshmallows! The great thing about these guns is that the marshmallows don’t really do any damage and they’re edible! You can choose from a marshmallow blower, classic shooter and even a bow and mallow! Check out the video below for a demo, and grab yours here.

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Happy Independence Day!

Today marks a very special day in the American calendar as it is of course the 4th of July. We're wearing our best red, white and blue outfits and celebrating with an imaginary BBQ since the weathers not quite as we'd hoped! As always we want to bring a bit of the States to you, so we're offering 10% off online until Saturday!

Simply enter the discount code 'ID4' at the checkout to receive 10% off your order. Let's hope the weather brightens up for the weekend so we can celebrate with a US-style cookout!

Please make sure you check you have selected the correct shipping cost as this is calculated on the total of your order after the discount is applied. Valid until Saturday 7th July. Cannot be used in conjunction with any other discount.

Make every bowl of cereal lucky!

We love our Lucky Charms but sometimes we want to mix it up. Imagine a bowl of Reese's cereal with added marshmallows? Or a big helping of cornflakes with added charms? Soon you wont have to imagine as we have a brand new product coming in!

These Magician's Cereal Marshmallows are little crunchy marshmallows just like the one's we love from Lucky Charms! Eat them straight from the bag or sprinkle them over your favourite breakfast cereal for some added magic.

Become an Ace of Cakes with new Duff Goldman baking products!

We're huge fans of Duff Goldman and the Charm City Cakes crew, and when we saw him demonstrating his new baking products in San Francisco in January, we knew we had to bring them to you! These gourmet goodies are the same one's used by Duff and the gang in Baltimore so you can start creating crazy cakes at home.

Whether you need cake mix, baking pans, icing or decorations, we've got them! But grab yours quick as these are sure to be a bestseller! And don't forget to send us your pictures so we can admire your talents. Buy the Duff range here and happy baking!

Sweet Success!

We recently had a film crew visit us to learn more about Stateside Candy the American Sweets market in the UK.We had great fun filming with them and you can see the full video below!

Cool down with a frozen Twinkie

Heat wave! We're loving this sunny weather and drinking plenty of iced tea to cool down, but our favourite summertime treat has to be a frozen Twinkie. It's like a mini arctic roll, but better. The marshmallow creme freezes to make a cool ice cream-like centre but the cake stays soft - the perfect snack in this weather.

We're currently selling these ready-frozen in our Aldershot store, or grab some Twinkies online and try it for yourself at home! 

Get free shipping at our Amazon store!

It's easy to pretend we're chilling in California in this weather, but alas we're still here in sunny Hampshire and we've got a very special promotion for you! If you buy five or more qualifying items in our Amazon store you'll get free shipping. Yes, you read it right, free shipping!

This offer is valid until 6th June and each item will say "Get free shipping on this item when you purchase 5 or more items" in the promotions section if valid. Pick up some summer essentials or grab yourself some goodies before the bank holiday.

Happy Star Wars Day!

May the Fourth be with you!

We're in a Star Wars mood today (of course) and while we enjoy our movie marathon tonight we'll be celebrating with some Star Wars themed mints. And the best thing is that they come in collectable tins! We've got a coice of a Stormtrooper helmet, mini Death Star, R2D2 tin or Darth Vader helmet - but as we couldn't decide we bought one of each! Have a great bank holidy weekend and may the fourth be with you!

Give us feedback and you could win £50!

We've worked hard to make our stores the best we can for our customers, and we want our service to be at this level too. So, what better way to monitor and improve on this than to ask you - our customers! Check out the new 'mystery shopper' section on our website where you can give your feedback on your visit to either our Aldershot or Guildford store.

Whether you loved the service or couldn't find what you were looking for, we want to know. And every month we'll select one mystery shopper at random to receive a £50 gift voucher to be used in one of our stores! So, what are you waiting for? Start letting us know what you think now!

Get dirty with new Todd's Dirt seasonings!

We love bringing new products to our customers, and having tried these new Dirt seasonings in San Francisco in January, we knew you guys would love them. It all started with trying to recreate a friends recipe, owner and creator Todd says: "After years of trying and many countless combinations, I came up with a seasoning that was even better. In 2003, I came out with a batch that everyone went crazy for and started asking for more. Many became addicted to Dirt for all their cooking. I was making 15 to 30 bottles a month, and started to think maybe I was on to something." And we couldn't agree more! Check out his website and the video below for more information on the products.

No matter what type of seasoning you're looking for, Dirt has the solution. The original seasoning is great for steaks and BBQ's (as well as pretty much everything else!) and the Crabby Dirt makes seafood sensational!  And if you're looking for something spicy grab a tub of the Bayou seasoning - perfect for fans of creole or cajun style spices. Whichever you go for, Todd the Dirt-Man is confident you wont be disapointed!

New Aldershot store now open!

After plenty of hard work our new Aldershot store is now open for business at 36 North Lane, Aldershot, GU12 4QG. We can't wait to see you in store and look forward to hearing your feedback!

Come see us at Wheels Day this Friday!

Last year we popped down to the annual Surrey Street Rodders Wheels Day in our hometown of Aldershot to show off our van in the sun. And we're hoping for good weather again this Good Friday as we're going to be holding a stall at the event.

Come see us at Rushmoor Arena in Aldershot this Friday and have a funfilled day of candy and cars! Doors open at 10am and entry is £5 and free for kids. We can't think of anything better to do on a Bank Holiday. Keep an eye out for our brand new gazebo - you can't miss it!

Farmyard Fun and 10% off in Guildford this Easter!

With the weather as lovely as it is, you'd be forgiven for thinking it was Summer rather than the beginning of Spring. And with spring comes Easter (chocolate!), flowers and cute baby animals. Why not combine some of these by visiting our Guildford store on Easter Monday as White Lion Walk will be hosting an Easter Animal Farm. Meet all your favourite farmyard animals from goats and donkeys to chickens and rabbits.

As if cute animals wasn't enough, we're also offering 10% off instore between Good Friday and Easter Monday (6th-9th April). Simply show the voucher below at the till and receive your discount on all transactions over £5.00. See you there!