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Cherry and raspberry join strawberry, grape, orange and lemon in the PEZ flavor lineup.

PEZ-heads will soon have two new flavors to munch on

Date published: 3/8/2006

By EMILY GILMORE

After years of being limited to orange, strawberry, lemon and grape, PEZ-heads have two new flavors to munch on.

Cherry and raspberry are the newest varieties of those tasty little bricks of sugar that issue forth from the throats of character-themed dispensers. Cherry is an original PEZ flavor that was discontinued about 20 years ago and replaced with grape.

A thoroughly nonscientific taste test in The Free Lance-Star's newsroom deemed raspberry the overwhelming favorite, with only one person out of 12 preferring cherry.

Several tasters commented that the pale purple-pink raspberry candies taste remarkably like actual fruit and are pleasingly tart and flavorful.

The bright-pink cherry PEZ, on the other hand, reminded some of cough medicine or Flintstones vitamins, and most found the flavor to be mild and sugary.

New PEZ dispensers are created regularly, but changes to candy flavors are few and far between.

The first PEZ was a compressed peppermint candy that was introduced in Vienna, Austria, more than 70 years ago. Some of the more unusual flavors that have been marketed include anise, licorice, eucalyptus and chlorophyll.

PEZ is now available in more than 60 countries, with more than 3 billion candies consumed each year in the United States alone, according to pez.com. The varied dispensers are collected and prized by all ages.

To reach EMILY GILMORE:540/374-5426
Email: egilmore@freelancestar.com

Date published: 3/8/2006