What Did I Just Eat?

So every couple of months I seem to find new sour candies to try, and as long as the companies keep making them, I will continue to review them. Here are three more products I’ve found that could rate the sour taste test review:

Sour Strips Blue Raspberry

Here we have another kind of sour belt (having last looked at both the Haribo sour belts and the Zweet Insanely Sour belts in previous round-ups) The basic idea for these is the same: a long belt of chewy candy, cut into manageable strips, then coated with a whole crap ton of sour powder. If you’ve had one kind of sour belt then you understand the basics of all of these. Sour Strips doesn’t deviate at all from the basics of this concept. In fact, considering their name, I’d say this is their primary, and only, focus.

The strips are good. I went for the blue raspberry flavor over rainbow flavor because (as I’ve noted before) rainbow generally just tastes like a generic, every flavor berry while blue raspberry is usually more distinct. I say “usually” because, honestly, the Sour Strips version of the flavor wasn’t particularly blue raspberry. That flavor is distinct. You know it when you have it, that specific kind of artificial, totally doesn’t exist in nature, berry and when you say something has that flavor the consumer will expect that flavor. The Sour Strips blue flavor isn’t bad, but it’s not very distinct, more generic berry than blue raspberry specifically.

With that said, they are very sour. The coating on the strips is thick, and it has solid punch to it. It’s not a particularly coarse powder, unlike other sour powders, and it does coat the candy (and your tongue) well. The sour powder hits the tongue well, and leaves a lasting flavor pop. It’s not the most sour candy I’ve had (not even for this site), but it’s still strong enough that I appreciated it was there. Good, without being overpowering.

Overall these were decent. I don’t know if I’d get them over other sour offerings, but if this was what was available, and I wanted a sour rip right then, I wouldn’t shy away from the Sour Strips brand in the future.

Oreos Sour Patch Kids Flavored Cookies

I want to preface this by saying I knew, going in, this would be atrocious. Sometimes a snack comes along where you can see, right off the bat, that the very idea of it, the concept it’s built on, is just bad. Who would think that sour (like, really sour) flavor would work well with cookies? No one. It’s one of those flavor combinations that just seems so outlandishly stupid you have to ask why anyone would ever attempt it. Oreos thought it would work, though, and so, since it was something that was created, I felt it was my duty to eat this monstrosity so that, at the very least, no one else would have to.

My plan, going in, was to eat the four cookies provided in the various appropriate ways people eat Oreos. One was to be eaten straight, one dipped in milk, the third with the top removed so I can taste the creme and eat the cookie, and then the fourth would be top-off, milk-dunked, into mouth. I say this was “the plan” because, after the very first cookie, I knew I wasn’t going to be able to do the other three steps. In fact, from the minute I opened the package and was slapped in the face by the cloying sour stench, I had a bad feeling all my plans would be for naught.

These cookies are disgusting. Initially it tasted like a blond, creme cookie from Oreos, but a couple of chews and that sour taste slaps you in the mouth. It does taste like Sour Patch Kids, which would be great if it wasn’t sharing the mouth with the blond creme cookie flavor. Where this mix falls apart is that you’re both eating an Oreo and Sour Patch Kids flavor together, and it just doesn’t work. I managed to eat one whole cookie, but after that I just couldn’t bring myself to do another. It was a wretch combo of sweet creme and sour citrus that made my mouth rebel.

In a way it reminded me of a lemon cookie, just not a very good one. One where the mix of sour juice and zest was too high while, at the same time, someone thought frosting it with buttercream would be a good idea. You can see how, in a way, Oreos thought this flavor was good, because there are slightly zesty cookies out there. Lemon cream cookies are a thing. They can be really good. This is like that, but with Sour Patch kids instead of lemon. “How could this go wrong?” Well, for starters… Sour Patch Kids.

I count myself lucky because I found a four-cookie sleeve I could buy for this experiment (and I didn’t have to get one of the big packages to try this thing out, which I have been resisting). Now I only have to throw away three cookies instead of, say, 30 or more. That’s a relief. Because, yeah, I’m not eating these again. They were nasty. Just pure, insane evil in my mouth. Do yourself a favor and stay away from these cookies.

Starburst Gummies Sours

Starbursts are a singular candy. They’re effectively a taffy, a soft chew with just the right amount of firmness. What makes them special, though, are their distinctive flavors. Yes, it’s all the usual flavors you see in other candies – strawberry, orange, lemon, etc. – but they have a different flavor in the Starbursts versions from other candies. If you gave me something flavored to taste like Starburst strawberry I’d be able to pick it out from all the other versions. I like it, and that’s why I end up going back to Starbursts time and again for solid, fruity chews.

Starburst Gummies Sours are weird because, in almost all respects, they are basically not Starbursts. Because they’re gummies they lack the distinctive Staburst chew. Because they’re the sour versions they don’t have the classic Starburst flavors. If it wasn’t for the fact that the gummies are squares, I wouldn’t even associate their shape or feel with Starbursts. These are basically gummies dressed up to look like Starbursts, but that’s just a brand name tied to a random candy. They aren’t Starbursts.

That’s not to say they’re bad, per se. Their flavors are big and bold. They come in four fruit types – blue raspberry, green apple, cherry, and strawberry – and they are pretty tasty. The flavors remind me not of Starbursts but Jolly Ranchers (which is amusing since Jolly Ranchers have their own gummy flavors). I don’t hate them, they just don’t taste like what my brain is expecting, but divorcing myself from the preconceived notion of “what a Starburst should taste like,” these are pretty good.

On the sour scale they are mild. I can taste a bit of tartness, from the sour powder clinging to the outside, but they don’t really elicit any kind of reaction from me. My mouth knows they should be sour, but I don’t get any of the tart bite or good sour pain from the candy. They’re lightly, mildly sour. For someone like me that’s a knock against because when I want sour I really want sour. These candies say they’re sour but they’re really not.

If you like gummies, and like one with a tart tang, then these are good. But if you want something that tastes and feels like a Starburst then these are a pass. If they were called anything else I’d probably rate them higher.