The best international sweets to give as gifts on Halloween

Handing out Halloween candy is one of my favorite annual traditions. As a kid, I vowed to be the adult who handed out giant chocolate bars or really special candies—no mints, tiny hard candies, or tragic pennies allowed. This oath is linked to my own obsession with baking. I don’t discriminate against gummy, sour, chocolatey, chewy or even spicy varieties. In fact, whenever I travel, I make sure to buy a pack of local sweets to see what flavors are popular in other parts of the world.

It got me thinking: why not hand out candy worldwide on Halloween? On TikTok, there is already an obsession with swedish gummies (If you handed them out on Halloween, I guarantee you’d be the most popular house in the neighborhood.) But it’s not just about giving kids something to get excited about and give them a sugar rush. I consider that handing out sweets from different countries is an opportunity to learn about geography, cultures and new flavors. These are the candy I will be collecting for my own candy.

Hi-Chew is an easy gateway to sweets from abroad. These chewy candies, comparable to Starbursts, are incredibly juicy and have gained popularity over the last decade (especially in Utah, where Mormon missionaries discovered the candy in Japan and introduced him to his fellow Mormons). The original flavors (strawberry, grape, and green apple) are affordable, but the fun thing about Hi-Chew is all the new and experimental flavors the brand continually introduces. There is a ramune, or Japanese soda, flavor that is bright and even bubbly; a full dragon fruit flavor with flecks reminiscent of the seeds found in the fruit; and new Hi-Chew gummies in a tangy and original variety.

Among the popular Creme Eggs, Caramellos (caramel-filled chocolates) and chocolates filled with crunchy honeycomb pieces, it is difficult to choose the best Cadbury chocolate. What is certain is that the smooth milk chocolate base pleases both children and adults. It’s best to opt for a Cadybury Heroes variety pack, which includes a variety of five different chocolates, including hazelnut and nougat, so trick-or-treaters can choose their favourite.

I may be a little biased because I grew up with these Thai tamarind sweets, but I don’t think there is another sweet as quintessentially Thai as Amira. A hard candy that strikes the perfect balance of sweet and tart with a slight whisper of salt. It is not as potent as real tamarind, which makes sucking one after another extremely easy. If you like something accompanied by tamarind, like a plate of pad thai or fresh tamarind waters, you will also like Amira.

I have fond memories of being introduced to Eiffel Bon Bons in my French class in high school. It’s hard to describe their texture as they transform in your mouth: they start out chewy, almost like a gobstopper, before melting into a chewy, candy-like candy. Flavors include strawberry, watermelon, caramel, apple, and even blue raspberry, an invention I thought was uniquely American. As a bonus, I also love the mascot for each bag of chocolates, a mustachioed, beret-wearing candy who is adorable, if a little stereotypical.

Growing up in Los Angeles meant incessantly enjoying Mexican sweets. I always begged my mom to go to the Mexican supermarket because I loved that there were sweets that could be both sweet and spicy. Vero’s chili-coated mango popsicles are one of those sweets. These popular suckers have a mango-flavored, mango-shaped hard candy in the center and are covered in a tangy, tangy powder. I personally enjoyed the exterior – licking the tangy, slightly spicy peel to get to the sweet interior of the mango reminded me of a Tootsie Pop.

This hard candy tastes like a cross between a ripe peach and a sweet plum. It’s impressive how close the flavor comes to real stone fruits; Despite being a sugar candy, Haitai Plum Pastille feels juicy. He also subscribes to the assumption Asian saying for “not too sweet.”

These Colombian lollipops feature a bubblegum center and a variety of tropical flavors that reflect the country’s diverse range of colorful fruits. There’s mango, passion fruit and mandarin orange, as well as lulo (or naranjilla), an orange fruit that looks vaguely like a tomato and tastes like a cross between tart citrus and kiwi.

These Swedish gummies have become unavoidable on social networks. Whether it’s its attractive pastel colors or its cloud-like texture, it seems the internet can’t get enough. The problem with them is that they are sold by weight, so distributing them to a large group of rambunctious children can be difficult unless you want to make some goodie bags. Maybe these gummies are actually intended for the person handing out candy (i.e. I’m looking for an excuse to buy them for myself).