We Tried 14 Popular Australian Candies, Sweets, And Snacks To See If They Live Up To The Hype

Throughout history and across the globe, every country and culture has its own culinary traditions based on ingredient availability and what locals have deemed the most tasty and nutritious over the millennia. But no matter where one might go, there's one aspect of food that's pretty much universal, and that's snacking. It's a privilege and commonality, whenever and wherever possible, to metaphorically tread water between meals or to give oneself a pick-me-up through a quick bite of something powerfully sweet, salty, savory, or even all three.

Australia, perhaps the world's most remote major landmass and population center, enjoys a particularly singular and robust snacking culture. The country has its own long-standing sweet treats and snack crackers beloved by millions, and many now get exported around the world through online retailers or to specialty stores and import markets. 

Some of those products have become cult favorites or encountered notoriety, and snacks in both categories are worth trying. Having tried 15 different items, here are the Australian made and popularized snacks and sweets to pursue and procure, as well as those one can probably skip and safely not miss out on anything.

This very website has long advocated the Tim Tam Slam, in which the adventurous and voracious cookie fan forgoes Oreos in favor of this classic Australian chocolate-covered biscuit as a companion for a beverage. Coffee, tea, and milk add moisture to a Tim Tam and really pull out and meld the intense flavors nestled inside. 

A sensation in Australia since the early 1960s when the treat was first introduced by Arnott's, a Tim Tam is a next-level sandwich cookie as well as a candy, the spiritual successor of both the Oreo and the Kit Kat, and similar to a British Penguin bar. Inside lightly sweetened and velvety milk chocolate is a light and crispy biscuit separated by a thin layer of whipped chocolate frosting. It's crunchy, it's creamy, it's chocolatey, and it's everything anyone could ever want in a cookie.

With the lore of the Tim Tam building in the U.S. over the years, boxes can be found in increasingly more supermarkets and gift shops stateside. The only negative that can really be levied at Tim Tams, or Arnott's, is that they only come 11 cookies to a package.

That eye-catching packaging consisting of the image of a single, fun-named cheese snack makes it seem like the bag is full of something that promises to be like a heavily salted, cheese-flavored Funyun. But that's not what Cheezels are at all. Instead, this was a surprisingly bountiful blue bag of Bugles in another form. Made out of shaped, baked, and seasoned corn meal, a single Cheezel is roughly the size of a gaudy high school class ring. 

One bite and it's gone, but what a pleasant bite it is, bursting with authentic sharp cheddar cheese flavor that feels about as far away from the inexpensive, chemical-based, and totally fake "cheese" or "cheez" agents used in American junk foods as Australia is from America. If Cheezels were widely available in stores in the U.S., they could challenge the mighty Cheetos, even Flamin' Hot Cheetos, for dominance in the sector of corn-based, cheese-coated, tiny snacks.

Arnott's makes more cookies, or in Australian parlance, biscuits, than just Tim Tams. The baking company also produces Tiny Teddy, individually-sized bags of little-bitty bite-sized bears. There seems to be a lot of lore with Tiny Teddy biscuits, as each of the four flavors gets a different ursine mascot. For example, Silly is a messy bear that plays in chocolate, honey-associated Grumpy is so mad because he got stung by a honeybee, Cheeky painted chocolate chips on herself to resemble the cookie she's promoting, and Happy is covered in almost microscopic sprinkles (or "hundreds and thousands") from making "sprinkle angels."

As fun and magnetic as the packaging and copy may be, Tiny Teddy biscuits are a dud of a snack. They're little more than gussied up animal crackers, and barely sweetened ones at that. Nor do any of the individual flavors taste like what they're supposed to taste like — there's no chocolate, chocolate chip, or honey flavor to be found in any of those respective varieties. If found in a shop, a glance at the cute bags is probably enough to get the full Tiny Teddy experience.

Allen's Lollies is a major Australian producer and distributor of candy ("lollies" is a general term for sweets in that country), and among the many confectioneries that it's made over more than a century are Minties. They look, taste, and present themselves as a very old-fashioned treat, and Minties could very well be the Australian equivalent of what in the U.S. we might find gathering dust in an elderly relative's candy dish, or what grandma might have at the bottom of her purse to whet her whistle.

Indeed, Minties are decidedly uncool and very old-guard — they're essentially tough, chewy, bite-size pieces of taffy that have been flavored with a potent amount of mint whose exact variety is hard to differentiate. They taste faintly of peppermint but also spearmint. Minties are extremely tough and take some effort to work through, whereupon they get a bit grainy after softening, but they're also refreshing and effervescent. They freshen the breath and kill strong flavors nicely and in less time than it takes to consume an Altoid or LifeSaver. These are a good candy to have on hand for utility purposes if not for snacking or dessert uses.

Vegemite took its inspiration from a very English bread spread or savory cracker topping called Marmite, made from yeast extract. In 1923, Australia began manufacturing, selling, and eventually consuming in mass quantities its own yeast paste, Vegemite. Now synonymous with Australia, it's probably the food most associated with the place, even meriting a mention as a way to identify Australians in "Down Under," the 1980s international hit by Melbourne band Men at Work.

All that history and celebration means that one simply has to try Vegemite if you're at all curious about world foods or other cultures. You might even like it, because of (or in spite of) its very strong and completely original taste. Vegemite gives off the vibe of "acquired taste," because it's just so singular. Extremely savory and fairly bitter, Vegemite tastes like fermented yeast and also fermented salt. It adds a major umami kick to a cracker or a slice of soft bread, and one can still get a bit of an aftertaste even an hour after consumption. But that just means you want another round of this dark, thick goo that's one of the world's most popular condiments.

Arnott's produces Shapes in several different polygonal styles each with their own flavor, including barbecue, pizza, and cheddar. But if one is after a way to get as much Australian-themed novelty for their dollar as is possible, Shapes Vegemite and Cheese is the variation most highly recommended. Each Shape baked-not-fried Shapes cracker comes out of the oven in roughly the shape of Australia, if the continent were an angular puzzle piece. Befitting that form is the flavor: A little bit of cheese but mostly Vegemite, the potent B-vitamin-enriched yeast paste beloved across the continent-nation. More than mere quirk or lark of a snack food, Vegemite and Cheese Shapes taste pretty good. 

Like the chief flavor contributors on their own, these crackers are salty, tangy, and possess a wholly original flavor. It's probably two parts cheddar cheese (or Extra Toasty Cheez-It) to every one part Vegemite. The crackers are thick, and they invite being savored instead of being mindlessly munched upon.

The mass-manufactured gummy products commonly available in the United States aren't universally very great. They can taste like chemicals, or smell like nail polish remover, and grow stale so easily. Allen's Lollies, an Australian confectionary responsible for many different candies, seems to have figured out how to make the perfect gummy.

Representatives of many different Allen's gummies available in other permutations appear in Allen's Party Mix gummy candy, and while the flavors and sizes vary in this good entry point into the world of Australian gummies, there are many agreeable commonalities. Allen's gummies are soft and almost floury, firm like a fruit snack, but offering far less pushback than an American gummy would. The marshmallow backings taste like real and fresh marshmallows, and subtle, authentic fruit flavors abound, from citrus to berry to banana. These are a great choice for the gummy aficionado looking to expand their horizons.

With an overwhelming artificial cherry flavor (and bright reddish-pink color) to go with a base made from sweetened, shredded coconut, a Cherry Ripe feels like a throwback to mid-20th century treats, or old-school candy bars that deserve a comeback. Coconut and cherry are seemingly polarizing candy additions that aren't used as commonly as they once were, at least not in American mainstream bars. Down in Australia, when the urge for an unabashedly and tremendously sweet concoction made from equal parts coconut, cherry, and chocolate hits, residents can just go buy a Cherry Ripe bar.

Imagine a decidedly unhip cherry cordial found in drugstores in the holiday season crossed with the coconut and medium-dark chocolate of a Mounds bar. The consistency is different from that of any of those other sweets, because a Cherry Ripe is flat and narrow, concentrating the sweetness and different tastes. A Cherry Ripe is familiar and new all at once, and it's one to try if spotted in the wild.

It's eye-opening to see what constitutes mundane, everyday, checkout counter rack-worthy candy bars in other countries. The bare minimum that a culture will accept out of its budget chocolate says a lot, and Australia apparently takes even its cheap sweets very seriously. British company Cadbury makes for the Australian market a straight-forward and kid-oriented chocolate called Freddo. More than a little reminiscent of the magical Chocolate Frogs found in the "Harry Potter" books and films, a Freddo is just a small, formed chunk of solid, high-quality, populist chocolate. It's a nice morsel with a velvety mouthfeel, somewhere in between milk chocolate and dark chocolate. 

Throw in the tiniest bit of caramel and change up the animal mascot, and Cadbury also sells the Caramello Koala in Australia. It's virtually indistinguishable from its candy sibling, Freddo, with the smallest ribbon of sweet and creamy caramel added into the mix.

Technically sold under Cadbury's internationally known Dairy Milk sub-brand, a Freddo or a Caramello Koala are not too different from the Cadbury Dairy Milk products that can be found in grocery stores in the U.S. — but one small Freddo boasts more authentic chocolate taste than an entire big bar of the American stuff. If these are encountered in an international foods aisle, they're certainly worth stocking up on for when just a simple piece of chocolate will do.

Twizzlers are classified as licorice, but they don't taste like it. A similar conundrum is posed by Darrell Lea Soft Australian Licorice. Its mixed fruit edition is one of its most popular varieties, but the candy inside isn't really licorice. There's no telltale sign of that particular sweet, spicy, and tangy licorice sensation by way of flavor, oil, or essence in Darrell Lea Soft Australian Licorice, but it does bear the familiar consistency of the candy — it's tubular and substantially chewy. These brightly-colored licorice pieces that resemble mutant Mike and Ike candies aren't too strongly flavored by way of fruit, either. They're ill-defined and hard to ascertain from taste alone; a scan of the packaging's fine print proved key to unlocking the mystery of the flavor — they're strawberry, green apple, and mango candies in the bag.

But while the licorice was pleasingly soft, Darrell Lea Soft Australian Licorice isn't a candy that's particularly unique or worth hunting down. There are way better actual licorices out there, and fruit-flavored licorice-style candies to be found in any drugstore or supermarket in the U.S. to boot.

Sometimes, a person just needs some extremely chewy candy to work their way through. It's satisfying and stress-relieving to tear through some Starbursts, or a pack of Hi-Chews, or Now and Laters. The Natural Fruity Chews, straight out of Australia and available in an array of strong fruit flavors, fall at the higher end of that toughness spectrum.

This means that there isn't much about The Natural Fruity Chews that can't be found in candy that's easier to find, and at a lower cost, in the United States. The Natural Fruity Chews do provide much intense and juicy fruit flavor, and it's nice that they're made without creepy artificial ingredients that would otherwise impart a chemical aftertaste. But these Fruity Chews are so much like a Starburst, or any number of those fruit-flavored Tootsie Roll miniatures, that it's probably better to spend one's Australian snack-and-candy dollars on something a bit more unique and hard to replicate.

What is a Cheeto without the nuclear-orange, aggressively salt-driven, and utterly questionable cheese-flavored powder that famously coats every long and knobby piece of the Frito-Lay stalwart? The answer would be Twisties, a corn curl sold in consistently large numbers in Australia since the 1950s and currently made by Smith's, a snack food company that's actually owned by Frito-Lay. 

Twisties, an almost-salty and also not-quite-savory snack, or side item for a sandwich, is inexplicably popular, and it's probably not going to win over too many fans outside of the place where it's an innate part of the junk food culture. It offers almost next to nothing in and of itself or to differentiate itself. Twisties are merely curls of corn, or rather long nuggets of cornmeal, formed and rendered quite dense. The foil packaging claims that they're cheese-flavored, but there's no cheese flavor actually present in the finished product. This is one Australian snack that can remain on the shelf, unexperienced.

Seeing as how this candy bar can be found in the Australia section of an international store like Cost Plus World Market, or in the global foods shelf of a large supermarket chain, Violet Crumble could rank with Vegemite and Tim Tam as a quintessential Australian food. For a taste of how Australia makes a candy bar, without any real American corollary or competition, grab an over-large, delectable, and very interesting Violet Crumble as the opportunity presents itself.

Purportedly the first chocolate bar that originated in Australia, the Violet Crumble debuted in 1913 — it was named after a flower, and made mostly of candied honeycomb. As promised by the tagline, the Violet Crumble really does shatter when the strong and hardy bar is bitten into with confidence, and then it crumbles. Then it melts, and then it sticks to the teeth like the toffee that it is. It's light, sweet, honey-reminiscent, and made up of what feels like hundreds of layers. And all of it is enrobed in chocolate that backs off the sweetness to let the inside be the star.

A powdered mix-in product akin to Swiss Miss hot chocolate sold in packets, Carnation Instant Breakfast, or Nesquik chocolate milk mix, Milo is a flagship Nestle product in Australia. The powdered chocolate drink mix is marketed as a kind of wholesome energy drink, but a quick glance at the label shows exactly how a glass of milk with some Milo vigorously whipped into it provides a jumpstart or boost: It's loaded with sugar.

All that sugar, and all that rich, finely ground cocoa powder also works to make Milo be absolutely delicious. It's a step up from Nestle's Nesquik because of its more natural and layered chocolate taste as well as a strong punch of malt. Nesquik powder has endless uses beyond chocolate milk, and it would follow that Nestle Milo does, too. The mixture may be sold and consumed in Australia as a snack or pre-exercise nutrition drink, but it could find a place in the dessert rotation because it represents an easy, all-in-one way to make an instant chocolate malt.