Nerds (candy) - Variety

Variety

Nerds are of varied flavors and color, ranging from extremely sweet to extremely sour; often the two flavours in one box will contrast, and a single flavour may even exhibit both extremes. They are thickly glazed with carnauba wax, which gives them a hard bite and a gloss. The nucleus of each candy is composed of one or more complete sucrose crystals. These optically clear monoclinic crystals are about 0.2–1 cm in length and help define the irregular shape.

A Nerds breakfast cereal based on this concept appeared in the 1980s, but had a short life.

Here are some of the regular flavors of Nerds sold today:

• Strawberry/Grape (pink and purple)
• Wild Cherry/Watermelon (orange/red and green)
• Double Dipped Lemonade-Wild Cherry/Apple-Watermelon (red and yellow)
• Sour—Lightning Lemon and Amped Apple (yellow and light green)
• Tropical—Totally blueberry-Totally fruit punch (blue and red)
• Wildberry/Peach (blue and orange)

There are many other flavors available.

There are also several Nerds spin-off products by Willy Wonka:

• Sour Nerds are normal sized Nerds, usually come in Lightning Lemon and Amped Apple, and are in a regular box. Also, a second flavor with Shocking Strawberry and Electric Blue was released.
• Giant Chewy Nerds have a chewy jelly bean center with a bumpy, crunchy nerd shell. They are the same product as the jellybeans, but available year-round. Also known as "Future Nerds".
• Nerds Rope consists of a soft candy string with a variety of Nerds attached to the outside. It comes in original, berry and tropical flavors. Nerds rope comes only one to a package but there are rumors that there may be two to a pack in the future.
• Rainbow Nerds is a box of regular Nerds of multiple flavors, with no partition or organization.
• Jumbo Nerds is a box of Nerds of multiple flavors which are much larger than regular Nerds. The box depicts one jumbo nerd on a teeter-totter with several regular sized nerds trying to counter its weight.
• Nerds Gum Balls are bubble gum balls filled with multiple flavors of Nerds on the inside.
• Theme Nerds are sometimes manufactured seasonally for holidays such as Halloween or Valentine's Day with names such as "Spooky Nerds". Flavors can include fruit punch, strawberry, and orange.
• Nerds Cereal, a now discontinued breakfast cereal that, like the candy, featured two separated flavors to a box. The cereal came with a mail-in offer for a Nerds cereal bowl, which also could be divided in two like a standard Nerds box.
• Techno-Nerds, a lesser-known variety, was composed of three compartments; green, blue, yellow, and multicolored.
• Nerds Gum consisted of pieces that looked like regular Nerds, but were actually bubble gum. The box featured a Nerd floating away with a bubble gum bubble.
• Dweebs, now discontinued, were a soft, chewy version of Nerds released in the mid-1990s, that contained three separate flavors rather than two. Dweebs were available only for a short time.
• Neon Nerds were introduced in 1996.
• Nerd Jelly Beans, produced for Easter, are jelly beans with a coating of carnauba wax, which makes them taste like Nerds.
• Wonkalate, A UK-only chocolate bar which, aside from being purple unlike regular chocolate bars, had snozzberry-flavored Nerds put into it.

Throughout the 1980s several new flavors of Nerds were introduced from time to time; for example, "Hot and Cold" Nerds (cinnamon & wintergreen flavored), Blueberry and Raspberry, and Lemon and Lime.