Even more drops

While Mr. Tidbit was trying to ignore new flavors of Mio and Dasani Drops, the number of brand names with products in this odd little category — liquid drink mixes or flavor enhancers — has been growing. (In case you have been in a cave, Mr. Tidbit is speaking here of the strangely popular little plastic bottles from which one squeezes a few drops of flavor concentrate into one's choice of unflavored water.)

Mr. Tidbit has not visited this aisle frequently, so it is possible that some of these flavored-droplet competitors, which are new to him, have been around for a while. And there are, no doubt, others that he has not noticed. But here are a few new entrants in the water-flavoring department, along with their prices at one discount supermarket, where, for comparison, the original product, Mio, is $4.39:

Crystal Light, in six flavors, $4.39; Kool-Aid, four flavors, $3.59; Hawaiian Punch, three regular flavors plus two sugar-free, $2.99; and Crush, three flavors (it's not just orange anymore!), $2.99. And that store has a store-brand flavor enhancer, in nine flavors and nutrition-enhancement variations, for $2.79.

In that bizarre way that Mr. Tidbit has never understood but seems to occur throughout the grocery business, virtually all of the many competing brands of such flavor squeezers come in 1.62-ounce bottles, an amount said to be 24 servings. The sole exception is Dasani Drops, which comes in 1.9-ounce bottles, said to be 32 (slightly smaller) servings.

Apple caramel

Mr. Tidbit first saw this new item a month ago, but there's still plenty of time to pick some up in the supermarket or drugstore seasonal candy aisle before Halloween; he just hated to mention it in September. It's Russell Stover's Big Bite Caramel Apple: a large apple-shaped caramel, distinctly but not overwhelmingly apple-flavored, covered in milk chocolate. With or without peanuts. Yayy! (Or BOO!)

Dear friends: Next Tuesday it will have been 24 years since my son Joe died in a seven-story fall from his college dorm room in Madison, Wis. He had taken LSD; he was 18. Hug your kids.

Al Sicherman