For National Jelly Bean Day: The 9 nastiest Jelly Belly flavors ever created

Today, April 22nd, is National Jelly Bean Day. So to help you get the most bang out of your, uh, beans, here are nine horrific Jelly Belly flavors to avoid at all cost today. Now don’t get me wrong, Jelly Bellys are one of my top favorite candies of all time. ALL TIME. But even I can’t claim to love them all. Toasted marshmallow reminds me of summer camp, and chocolate pudding reminds me of going to hockey games with my dad as a kid. But if the following (awful) flavors reminded me of childhood, I’d likely be dead or in jail now.

9. Buttered Popcorn

This shouldn’t be called Buttered Popcorn; it should be called “Primordial Grease Pool of Leftover Popped Corn Butter Replacement Sauce That’s Been Festering Under an Arcade Machine in a Downtrodden Theater Lobby Since the Late 70’s.”

8. Black Licorice

If you’ve read anything I’ve written about food in the past, you know exactly how I feel about the flavor of black licorice. Sure, I could rehash my belief that it tastes like the Great Depression or reminds me of what chocolate would turn into if it was bitten by a zombie, but I’ll just leave you with this: black licorice is what happens when red licorice hits rock bottom and turns to the needle.

7. Jalapeno

The taste of jalapeno accompanied by meat, cheese, and/or avocado causes great happiness. But encapsulated within a sugary little bean, all it does is cause anger.

6. Cinnamon

This is not the warm, comforting spice of cinnamon you detect in a freshly baked crumb cake – this is the reason you haven’t eaten an atomic fireball since you were 12.

5. Sizzling Cinnamon

Worse. This is even worse. What were you thinking, Jelly Belly test kitchen?

4. Caramel Corn

Better than Buttered Popcorn, but sickly sweet and still infused with that petri-dish, swimming-with-bacteria, butter flavor. PASS.

3. Cappuccino

I’m not a big coffee fan, but the Coffee-flavored Jelly Belly is really good. Cappuccino, however, is like a hot cup of disappointment. It’s too harsh tasting, and the bean itself is as dark, mottled and ugly as they come

2. Sugar-Free Anything

Jelly beans are almost completely made of gelatin and sugar. So that begs the question – WHAT SORCERY IS THIS? I’ll tell you what kind of sorcery: the Jelly Belly web store mentions that these beans are made with a “special” recipe, and then goes on to say, and I quoteth:

“WARNING: Consumption may cause stomach discomfort and/or a laxative effect. Individual tolerance will vary; we suggest starting with 8 beans or less.”

First of all, no one has the self-control to eat less than 80 beans at a time. Secondly, no.

1. Tabasco

I recently took a trip to the Tabasco factory in Louisiana and picked up some of these fiery little bastards just for the hell of it. They are what I eat to put a stop to food cravings of any type. Novel, sure, but their hot, vinegary blast of pain and discomfort is not unlike swallowing down bile. This is the king of all terrible Jelly Bellys.

Top image: brandi sims, Wikimedia Commons
Jalapeno Jelly Belly image: Amazon
Caramel Corn Jelly Belly image: Amazon
Tabasco Jelly Belly image: Neatoshop