What are the Top 10 Halloween Candies in the USA? Find out in Cleo Coyle's Trick or Treat Poll and tell us YOUR favorites...

Take my Candy Poll (below), and tell me about
your own favorite candies in the comments...

Cleo Coyle, author of
The Coffeehouse Mysteries
and Haunted Bookshop
 Mysteries

Gourmet chocolate is a wonderful thing. But Halloween is not a holiday for "boutique bittersweet" and "single-origin" cocoa beans. Halloween belongs to Hershey's—as you will see when you take my Trick or Treat Poll at the end of this post. 

My poll is based on this year's sales figures for the Top Ten most popular candies in America. According to the National Confectioners Association, over 70% of the candy sold in the US this Halloween will be chocolate candy, so it's no surprise to see several Hershey brands on this year's Top Ten list. 

I must admit, I have a soft spot for Hershey's milk chocolate bar and the place where it was first made...

In Hershey, PA, even the street lights are shaped like Kisses!
(This photo was taken at the intersection of Chocolate and Cocoa Avenues.)

Have you ever visited Hershey, PA, "the sweetest place on Earth"? It’s a beautiful little town in Eastern Pennsylvania. When I was a kid, that town even smelled like chocolate, and the man who built it was… 

No, not this guy!

This one... Milton S. Hershey.

* At the age of 15, Hershey (a Mennonite farmer's son who spoke "Pennsylvania Dutch" and had little more than a fourth grade education), began an apprenticeship with a candy maker.

* At 19, Hershey struck out on his own and started his own candy business in Philadelphia. But after six years, it failed.

* Undaunted, he relocated to Denver, Colorado, where he learned how to make caramels using fresh milk.

* Milton Hershey tried and failed again to launch a candy business. Finally, he went back to Pennsylvania, opened the “Lancaster Caramel Company” and became a great success. Before long it was employing 1,400 people and shipping all over the country.

* It wasn’t until Hershey reached the age of 36 that chocolate became his passion. In 1893, he traveled to Chicago for the World Expo where he stood mesmerized in front of machinery from Germany that made chocolate. He bought the machinery, shipped it back to Lancaster, and began coating his caramels with chocolate.

It’s here in the story that kids
across the country

owe Hershey a debt of gratitude.

* In the 19th Century, the process of making edible milk chocolate was a secret closely guarded by the Swiss. Drinking chocolate was more common than eating it; and the best-tasting chocolate (imported from Europe) was far from affordable for working families. But Hershey had a vision, and through trial and error, he came up with his own formula of milk, sugar and cocoa that allowed him to mass produce and distribute a melt-in-your-mouth milk chocolate candy bar.

Thanks to Milton Hershey, chocolate was no longer a luxury for the rich. His five-cent "Hershey Bar" was an edible chocolate that anyone could afford.

The company insisted on maintaining that five cent price from 1900 through 1969. (Click here to see historic wrapper designs.)

Given the Hershey's candy long history and its creator's commitment to remaining affordable for families, I must say it's nice to see it still placing high on a 21st Century list of America’s Top 10 Halloween Candies. 

You can read more about this list (and the sales in units and dollars) by clicking here.

In the meantime, I invite you to...

Now I invite you to take my
"Trick or Treat Poll" below and

leave a comment on this blog post.

(I would love to know your poll answer!)

Congrats to the Winner of this

adorable Reese’s Latte Cup:

Wendy West!

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NOTE: If you do not see the poll above,

then click here to jump to a place
where you should be able to take it.

Culinary Inspiration!

America's #1 candy 
is the culinary inspiration for my 
Halloween Recipe!


To get my recipe for...

Chocolate Peanut
Butter Cup Cake
click here.

Happy Halloween!

~ Cleo Coyle

New York Times bestselling author of

The Coffeehouse Mysteries

Yes, this is me, Cleo (aka Alice). 

Friend me on facebook here.

Follow me on twitter here. 

Visit my online coffeehouse here.

To view the
Coffeehouse Mystery
book trailer, click here.

 

Billionaire Blend: 

A Coffeehouse Mystery

Countdown to Release:

December 3rd

The Coffeehouse Mysteries are bestselling

works of amateur sleuth fiction set in a landmark

Greenwich Village coffeehouse, and each of the

12 titles includes the added bonus of recipes. 

The Ghost and
Mrs. McClure

Book #1 of 
The Haunted Bookshop
Mysteries, which Cleo writes
under the name
Alice Kimberly
To learn more, click here.