The first
Hershey's Kiss spin-off, leading to a horrifying number of alternate Kiss realities: caramel, cherry cordial, almond, mint, chocolate truffle, dark chocolate, peanut butter,
candy cane....
A Hershey's Hug is a small milk chocolate Kiss surrounded by a thick layer of faux white chocolate with brown stripes. I will not go so far as to say that they are milk chocolate stripes, because the whole thing tastes like nothing on earth.
It's just bland. Bland white chocolate, milky milk chocolate, blandy milk bland. And yet, it seems to have launched a tiny weird empire of Kiss-shaped semi-foodstuffs in an army of artificial flavors.
The Hershey's Hug was first introduced in 1993, and quickly became a permanent part of their product line. Customers were excited by being able to give other signs of candy affection; my Nonna used to give us bags of them for every holiday occasion. I never bothered to tell her that I didn't really like them all that much, because even I liked the idea of getting a bag of hugs.