Saturday, November 10, 2007

Fifth Avenue

The 5th Avenue bar was created in 1936 by the Luden Candy Company. In its original configuration, it had a crunchy peanut butter-flavored center topped by three or four almonds, covered with milk chocolate. Luden passed through a number of corporate hands over the years, eventually being purchased by Hershey Foods in 1986. Hershey promptly dumped the almonds, and the 5th Avenue bar assumed its present configuration. It's generally regarded as a Butterfinger clone and also-ran (along with the Clark bar, also consisting of a crunchy peanut butter-flavored center coated in milk chocolate, produced by the New England Confectionery Company), but this isn't accurate. It may be an also-ran, since Butterfinger has a much higher profile and apparently sells much better than 5th Avenue; but it's certainly not a clone. The crunchy peanut butter-flavored center in the 5th Avenue bar is lighter and less likely to get stuck in the low points of one's molars than is the center of the Butterfinger, and I think that the flavor is better. Next time you have a hankering for a Butterfinger, try a 5th Avenue instead.

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