If you were a 90s kid growing up in the UK like me, chances are you remember the absolute excitement of getting sweets from the corner shop or the ice cream van. We would clutch our coins extra tight on the way so that we didn’t drop them down the stank/drain, and our hands would be sweaty, just thinking about the choices! Pocket money went a long way back then!
Let’s take a walk down memory lane with this awesome collection of retro sweets that defined our childhoods. Please do check back on the page, because I will be updating the page as I remember more! If there are any that I’ve missed, please make sure to let me know, and I’ll add them in!
Some of the sweets on this list are still available today, but they are hard to find. If I find any, I’ll like them for you!
Star Wars Wispa Bar
This is quite possibly my favourite Cadbury collab back in the day. It was nothing overengineered, it was simply a Wispa bar that had one of our lovely characters’ faces on it! I was a massive Phantom Menace fan when it came out (and still am, I’ll die on that hill), so anything Star Wars was a winner for me. I actually bought a sealed box of these treats not long ago. The chocolate is all rotted away now unfortunately, but the artwork on them was just so nostalgic that I just had to have it!
As it is me, I would list all of the great Star Wars sweets that i had back in the day, but so that I didn’t clog this list up with Star Wars, I’ve created a page dedicated to Star Wars retro snacks, if you are interested in looking over them all!
Cherry Drops
In my house, these sweets came in waves. We would become completely obsessed and sook on them until the roof of our mouths and our tongues were bleeding. I actually had them not too long ago and the taste just blasted me back to my youth. I can confirm that these still do cut your mouth, but it was totally worth it!
You can still buy these, check them out on eBay here. I haven’t seen them in the shops in years though!
Kola Kubes
Speaking of sweets that cut your mouth while you were eating them, here comes the king of the bloody mouth, the Kola Kube! You simply cannot beat the sweet cola flavour, the hard and crunchy exterior and the mouth-watering chewy centre… I’m actually drooling thinking about these!
You can still buy these at some independent sweet shops or check them out on eBay here.
Zappers Sour Bubble Gum
Firstly, I apologise for the above image… This is not the Zappers that I used to get from the ice cream van in the 90s, but it is the modern version of it (I can’t find any pics of the 90s version!). The gum was in square back then and it was incredibly sour (for my tongue at least).
From memory, it came in a cardboard box rather than a packet like the picture. Let me know if you remember these!
You can get the new versions on eBay, if you want to try them. Let me know how they are!
Atomic Fireballs/Fireblast
I don’t know if I am just having a false memory here or not, but we always called these ‘Fireballs’ when i was growing up, but I do remember that packaging being the exact same, so it might just be me! Regardless, these were an absolute challenge to eat. The cinnamon really burned your tongue, and you could prove yourself as the hard man of the playground by putting a whole load of them in your mouth at the same time!
There was something about them, though. It started out as a challenge, but we ended up loving them and really liking the taste! I’ve not seen these in shops for decades, but I think this generation of kids needs this in their lives!
I’ve not been able to find these online, other than from America, but i’ll update if I see them!
Taz Bar
This one was another favourite of mine, i’m sure they were only 5 or 10p back in the day, but is was a small bar of Cadbury chocolate with caramel inside of it. Usually the caramel would come out in lines and go all over you and get you sticky, bit it didn’t bother us!
They don’t make these anymore, but they do have caramel Freddo bars, but if we are being honest with ourselves, they just don’t taste the same.
Toffos
These extra, extra chewy toffees were top-notch back in the day, but I stopped eating them when I got a load of fillings in my adult teeth, as I suspected that these were one of the reasons that they kept coming out!
They had a fruity toffo version too, which was interesting… To this day, I’m still not sure if I liked the fruity ones or not!
Frosties
Frosties are always one of those sweets that I just think would be great to make a comeback. These were essentially Kola Kubes, but round and in a package. They had the same taste and also had the same chewy centre that just makes your mouth water!
Please just bring these back… they didn’t cut your mouth half as much as Kola Kubes did!
Although you can’t get the originals anymore, check them out on eBay here.!
Desperate Dan Bars
Ohh, how I would love to go back to a time when you looked forward to a Friday after school, going to the corner shop to pick up a comic (Like the Dandy or the Beano) and picking up some random sweets before heading over to your mate’s house and forgetting school existed for a few days… This is what the Desperate Dan bars remind me of. This reminded me of an Irn Bru bar or a Wham! bar, but this had black bits throughout it that were just divine!
Starburst Joosters
If you didn’t get to try these, they weren’t just jelly beans, they were something much, much better. So much better that I can’t really describe them any better than a nicer starburst jelly bean…
I remember when they changed Opal Fruits to Starburst and thought that I would still always call them Opal Fruits, but this creation won me over and made me accept the reality that change can sometimes be a good thing!
Echo Bars
This one is probably one of the most niche biscuits on the list, but damnit it miss them! I remember picking up my first packet after begging my gran to buy me them in Asda! If I could have any biscuit brought back, this would 100% be my choice! Mmm… Creamy!
Rowntrees Bursting Bugs
No list could be complete without these awesome, juicy bugs that were filled with sweet, juicy goodness! We 90s kids really did love the idea of disgusting things, and this was basically a product that knew us very well. What would be more disgusting than eating juicy bigs that literally burst with gooey juice when you bit into them?
Fruitang
This one also seems a bit niche, and apologies that I couldn’t find a better picture (I’ll update if I can find one). This was basically a pack of bigger Fruitella, but they were extra tangy to the point of being pretty sour. The only thing that annoyed me about these was that they were packed sideways in the packet, instead of on top of each other, so you didn’t get very many in a pack!
Fizzy Jerks
A wonderful Wonka creation that was basically fizzy bottle caps, but I’m not quite sure where the name came from. Do you think that they meant that Charlie and his Grandpa were the jerks because they drank his fizzy drink? Maybe!
Wonka Bars
This one is a doubler, because I couldn’t quite choose which one i liked better! Wonka really did know how to make a good chocolate bar, but which of the two was the best? I think I’m leaning closer to the Wonkalate bar, but nostalgia keeps pulling me towards the Xploder!
Xploder Bar
The Xploder Bar was basically a normal milk chocolate bar, but when you bit into it, a surge of popping candy took over! I remember the popping candy was really loud and it gave a fantastic ‘pop’ when you bit into a big section of the popping candy. I have a memory of my brother and I sitting in our parents’ car, both showing each other our chocolate-covered, slabbery tongues to let each other hear the popping noises… simpler times!
Wonkalate Bar
I think if we were going with a more unique bar, this one wins. I absolutely loved the taste of the purply chocolate (I do love crazy coloured sweets and drinks), but this matched with the Nerds sweets throughout it just made it a genuinely interesting chocolate bar. I was so gutted when they stopped making this, but they still make the Xploder bar, so at least that helped me get over it!
Snow Flake
This is one of my most craved chocolate bars of days gone by. The white chocolate inside this flake was just divine. Cadbury… why did you have to discontinue this one in the UK! You can still buy this one abroad, and sometimes I’m lucky and see them in those American Candy stores!
Astros
I had a random flashback of this sweet a couple of years ago and couldn’t for the life of me remember what it was called. They were essentially balls of crunchy biscuit covered with chocolate, then a crunchy shell (like an M&M-type shell). I got a pack of these from a South African website not too long ago and can confirm that they are indeed still as good as I remembered!
Vice Versas
Vice Versas were released in the early 90s as Nestle’s answer to the Galaxy Minstrels (I thought as a kid they were from the same company). These are basically the same as Minstrels in terms of shape and are just chocolate inside a shell, but, as the name suggests, there were two types of chocolate used. One was white chocolate on the inside, with a milk chocolate shell, and the others were milk chocolate on the inside with a white chocolate shell! This classic was re-released in 2012 as a limited edition, but there have been talks that they may be making a comeback again soon! Let’s hope!
Milkybar Choo
Another one of my absolute favourites! These small bars were so moreish and I recently found a box in a local American sweet store, so obviously I had to buy it! The Milkybar chocolate and the fudge are just the perfect combo! Safe to say that the whole box didn’t last the weekend!
You can buy a box of the imported Milkybar Choos for just under a tenner here on eBay!
Cadbury Marble Bar
It’s funny how the thought and taste of a chocolate bar can transport you back to a specific moment in your past. I remember staying over at my gran’s house on a Friday night after school. It was probably about 7-8pm, and we were either watching Michael Barrimore or preparing to watch Fort Boyard together when the chimes of the ice cream van started blaring. We jumped out and got a couple of Marble bars that night, and that was the first time I had tried them! As I am writing this, I can still feel and smell the leather sofa that I was sitting on… How odd, but awesome!
Giant Smarties
I don’t know what it is about Giant Smarties, but I just always remember them tasting amazing compared to normal Smarties (or Mini Smarties). It might be that it just got my imagination running wild, as if someone got the ray gun from Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, but make the Smarties big!
Climpies Bon Bons/Fizz
This is another retro sweet that I could not find for the life of me, but then I heard someone mentioning it in passing, and I got really excited! Looking online, it looks like they were called Climpies, but my memory thinks that there was Fizz or something similar on the package (Maybe I’m wrong). I believe these were part of a multi-pack of Swizzels back in the day, so that is probably why we all remember them! Let me know if you remember them being called anything different!
Time Out
I still remember when they discontinued this awesome sweet and replaced it with Timeout Wafers, which are not even close to being the same! The old version of this chocolate bar gave you a really sweet chocolately hit because of the centre part, you just don’t get that with the new bars… Skimping on the chocolate!
I used to have one of these with a cup of tea with my mum and dad when I would visit, just after I moved out.
Drifter
My, oh my… I had completely forgotten about this chocolate bar, until I saw the image of the old Timeout bars! These always remind me of my little brother. I can remember him being obsessed with them, but I think there was drama when he got braces, because he wasn’t allowed to eat them anymore! I’ll need to ask him.
Tooty Frooties
Tooty Frooties might be my first memory of sweets when I was a kid. I remember the sore jaws that I would get chewing away at them! We recently had a craving for these and saw that B&M had a knock-off version! They were nowhere near as good, but still curbed the craving at least!
I’ve got almost all of these – still sealed!
That’s awesome! Which ones do you not have? Do you have a favourite? 🙂