Warheads
The sour candy that burned your face off for five glorious seconds. Warheads turned the playground dare into a $40 million industry — keeping a straight face through the first ten seconds made you playground royalty.
Invented in Taiwan in 1975, Warheads were imported to America in 1993 by The Foreign Candy Company of Hull, Iowa. The sourness came from a malic-acid coating that scorched your taste buds for the first 5–10 seconds before fading to ordinary candy — which made it perfect for the only way anyone actually ate them: the playground dare. Who can keep a straight face? Who can do two at once? The puckered-lipped mascot Wally Warhead, with a mushroom cloud over his head, sold the explosion concept.
Original flavors included black cherry, blue raspberry, lemon, green apple, and watermelon. By 1999, period press was calling it a $40 million brand. Impact Confections bought it in 2004, and Warheads remain on shelves today — still sour, still daring, still a rite of passage.
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