Necco Sky Bar Review

July 18, 2008

The Sky Bar is a pretty chocolate bar. The design of the bar’s shape is very Art Deco, which makes sense since this bar debuted in the 1930s. According to Necco’s website, it was first announced to the public by means of a dramatic skywriting advertising campaign. Fun! It was the only candy bar to contain four unique fillings when it arrived in the candy market decades ago, and continues to be the only bar with this bragging right. The ridges are pleasant to bite into, and how cool is it that every time you bite into a new segment, you get a new flavor?

I just recently discovered it on my trip to Economy Candy in NYC, but I think as a kid I would have loved this bar. Even now, I love the concept. It’s like having four different chocolate bars in your grasp in a convenient single package.

This seems like an appropriate time for me to tell you what kind of snacker I am. I am a stasher. I snack constantly but I won’t ever buy a single giant bag of anything and eat that all day long. I probably eat at least 10 different snacks on a daily basis. Somehow (thankfully) I’m not 400 pounds because while I eat a great variety of things, I may only have a single bite at a time. I need that variation. Am I weird? Probably. Both my mom and my college roommate nicknamed me “mouse” because i run to the kitchen constantly and steal little bites of things. So while no one usually sees me pig out on anything, by the end of the day an entire pack of cookies might be missing and no one would be the wiser.

So given my odd snacking behavior, this bar - or more accurately, the concept of this bar - fits perfectly. Variation, without having to buy four different things. But I’ve gone on and on about how much I like the idea of it… the real question here is how does it taste?

Here’s a short assessment of each segment:

• Fudge - pretty sugary, not quite chocolatey enough for my standards, pretty much flawed in the standard ways that the lower quality chocolate bars are.

• Caramel - Of all the fillings, shockingly I think I liked the caramel the best. It’s a surprise because caramel is not really my thing and certainly not the first flavor I reach for in general. Since caramel is essentially burnt sugar, the sugariness of this segment doesn’t bother me, while it does with the other fillings. It’s also got a bit of salt in it which is nice.

• Vanilla - The vanilla is a little refreshing among the other heavier fillings, but it was way too sugary. I didn’t enjoy this segment very much.

• Peanut Butter - Well, clearly since the caramel segment trumped the peanut butter (an amazing feat), the peanut butter wasn’t anything to cheer for.

So, overall the fillings get a pretty “eh” response. To put things in perspective, I’ve been eating a lot of high quality dark chocolate lately and I’m not much of a milk chocolate person to begin with (though I do like it, it’s just not my first choice). Keeping this in mind, you might want to take my opinion with a grain of salt if you are a diehard milk chocolate consumer.

I’d say the Sky Bar is certainly worth a try and the concept alone will probably sway me into picking it up again sometime. Though my inner food critic might be yawning at the purchase, my inner child and closet candy stasher would be jumping for joy.