Seven Up, But Not the Soft Drink or the Michael Apted Documentary

Who out there remembers the Seven Up candy bar?  It looked like this:


Image courtesy of irememberjfk.com

It was just what it looks like:  a candy bar made up of seven individual flavors, each in its own chocolate-covered compartment about the size of a nickel.  The flavors were orange jelly, maple, caramel, brazil nut, fudge, coconut, and cherry.  It was like getting a tiny box of chocolates for 20 cents (well, they were 20 cents back when I bought them at Ben Franklin in the 70s).

I loved the Seven Up bar.  One of the best things about it was that I liked all the flavors, even the coconut.  What is it with people and coconut?  I'm a fairly picky eater, and I was really finicky when I was a kid, but I've always loved coconut, even though at least half the world's population seems to loathe it.  More for me, I say.  In fact, you coco-haters can send me all of your unwanted coconut, and I'll gladly give up my share of the world's salsa supply.  That stuff is just nasty.

The Seven Up bar likely was the source of many a case of OCD.  After all, the only way to eat it was to take seven exactly equal bites. Sure, you could haphazardly mix the flavors in a few sloppy mouthfuls, but why have seven perfect sections if you're not going to enjoy each one on its own delicious merits? As a result, to this day I have a number of candy-related neuroses that probably all go back to the peculiar demands of the Seven Up bar; for instance, I have to bite all the chocolate coating off a Three Musketeers before I eat any of the fluffy nougat, although I'm pleased to say I no longer feel compelled to sort my M&Ms by color.  (Do you think I'm making this up?  Have you read this blog?)  They could have marketed the Seven Up as "the candy bar for anal retentives," except that "anal" is not an advisable advertising word for a food product.  So never mind.

According to candy bar lore, the 7Up soft drink people bought the rights to the name in the 70s, and the Seven Up was discontinued, never to be resurrected.  A great loss to the candy world.  I'd guess that not one person in a hundred actually remembers this candy bar when I mention it, but like every other bizarre fixation, there is a small but devoted Seven Up following on the Internet.  There's even a Facebook page dedicated to it. 

So here's to you, Seven Up bar.  There will never be another one like you.  And thank you for not being filled with salsa.