Preparing for the KFC Double Down with the Milky Way Dark

Boy am I ever excited to try KFC's new Double Down. Two pieces of chicken sandwiching bacon, cheese and Colonel's sauce is every fast food critic's dream -- it's brash, captivating and eye-catching. But it's not quite time to review the Double Down yet.

Something as in-your-face as fried chicken book-ending sow belly deserves at least a week of mental preparation before evaluation. I need to steel myself for the abundance of deep frying and distance my thoughts from the interweb buzz storming about the Colonel's creation. To do otherwise would not be fair to one of the most audacious creations to grace the drive-thru since I anointed myself a food critic.

While I tap my inner chicken-Zen and perform taste-bud yoga, let's run through a mini-review. I think a candy bar should keep us tied over until Double Down Doomsday, don't you?

Fortunately I have just the candy bar in mind: the Milky Way Midnight. When writing last week's review of the Milky Way Simply Caramel I realized I never wrote about the dark side of the candy bar's family. That's a shame because the Midnight is no rotten pumpkin.

It swaps dark chocolate for the standard Milky Way's milk chocolate and implements a unique vanilla nougat in the center. And it keeps the standard helping of caramel inside for all you sweet tooths out there.

The result is a candy bar with more distinct flavors than the standard Milky Way. The dark chocolate gives it a hint of bitterness, the vanilla nougat lightens everything and the caramel sweeps your mouth along on an all-encompassing ride of sweetness.

All of the flavors stand out yet work in symphony with each other. If the regular Milky Way is three flavor instruments playing the same tune in harmony, the Milky Way Midnight is three instruments playing a medley that resonates on the tongue.

The bell tolls a friendly melody for the Milky Way Midnight -- five sporks out of five. The candy bar put me in a good frame of mind as I prepare for the Double Down. I'll run through some gastrointestinal calisthenics and have a review up for you next week.