It's Christmas, and the team at MagPi Towers are benchmarking a lucky-dip mix of Raspberry-flavoured sweets.

This feature first appeared in The MagPi 52.

First up had to be Nerds. A hit of pure sugar, followed by a fresh minty afterglow with a mild taste.

It's often said that a camel is a horse designed by committee. We'd love to meet the camel responsible for naming Hubba Bubba Bubble Tape Sour Blue Raspberry.

It looks like blue sellotape and tastes of absolutely nothing. We had fun blowing blue bubbles with it though.

According to MentalFloss, sweet-makers of yore used a dark red dye called Amaranth E123 until the 1970s. But a Soviet study linked it to cancer and it was banned. They had lots of spare blue dye lying around and decided to use it for Raspberry sweets.

Raspberry flavoured sweets reviewed

AirHeads Chew has the scrummy tagline: "Artificially Flavoured Candy." We check out the Nutritional Facts: 1% fat, 0% sodium, 5% carbs and 0% protein.

Inside, the AirHeads Chew is a brighter shade of neon blue than its metallic wrapper. It's tough and chewy. We suspiciously think it might be 96% blue dye. Bleugh!

To get rid of the taste we crack open a can of Berry Fanta. Also blue. It contains 43g of sugar. In the interests of science we measure out 43 grams of granulated sugar on some scales. Quite sobering. Tastes nice though.

Our high hopes for Swizzle's Sherbert Dip Tangy Raspberry didn't go unrewarded. The pink stick says "Luv U" and "Hug Me", a welcome change from the 90's 'Xtreme' styling of other sweets. We dip and dab the old-fashioned way. Pure sugar with a tangy edge.

In contrast, The Blue Razz Jawbreaker is the worst thing our reviewer has ever tasted. And she's drunk fermented horse milk in France and eaten grits from a shack in Alabama that had "we got good eats" painted on the side. We're guessing kids gamble on who can mouth one the longest.

We saved the Barnett's Mega Sours for last, as Mr Humbug had warned us about them. They're sour, but not as bad as the Blue Razz Jawbreaker. We gamely give it a go for thirty seconds before getting heartburn and a headache. See you next year.

The Last Word: Raspberry Sweets

Sherbert Dip is a sweet treat that takes us back to a childhood where dabbing had a different meaning. Everything else was a bit 90's and Xtreme Sour for our taste buds. The Blue Razz Jawbreaker is worth tasting just for the experience.