Sierra Mist Ruby Splash

It's often hard to know exactly how new a product is when you happen to notice it for the first time at the store. I'm pretty sure that Sierra Mist Ruby Splash just came out, however. First of all, there are barely any available images online and I don't have my digital camera at the moment, so all you're going to see of it is this shot I found online of the basic logo design:

Was it Sierra Mist who used to run the "Yeah, it's kinda like that" ads? Anyway.

The initial aroma coming out of the bottle is good - it really does smell like fresh-squeezed grapefruit juice. And the initial sips tasted as much like a grapefruit soda as I think it's possible to taste - alternatives like Squirt and Fresca are much tamer in comparison. I was actually a little surprised Sierra Mist went this way, to be honest. It's not like there aren't people who like grapefruit juice, but it tends to run towards that sour/bitter end of the spectrum and be more of an acquired taste; to me, the stereotypical grapefruit juice drinker is a grandmother. Of course, I like it, but I like grapefruit.

We're still talking 39 grams of sugar in a 12-ounce can, though. After the first few sips, the grapefruit taste started to fade into the background a little bit, as the overall sweetness and lemon-lime flavor of the Sierra Mist overwhelmed it (and as my tastebuds got acclimated to the grapefruit flavor). It did hang around, but a little less obviously. That's probably not a bad thing for sales, of course - people probably aren't buying "Ruby Splash" expecting a grapefruit soda, but rather a typical Sierra Mist with just a little kick. And ultimately that's pretty much exactly what you get.

I'll be interested to see the reaction to this one. I liked it pretty well, but I enjoy grapefruit juice and I'm not sure that everyone does. Either way, I'm glad to see Sierra Mist carrying the torch for trying slightly different things in the mainstream soda market (following Cranberry Splash the last two holiday seasons). Up until this point I was worried that only Mountain Dew was really trying to branch out, and that would be unfortunate.

Battle Royale: Heath vs. Skor

Heath and Skor are the two major toffee-based candy bars on the market today. As a result, you might think that they're competitors. At one time that was true - Skor was introduced by Hershey's in 1983 to compete with the much older Heath - but Hershey's actually acquired Heath in 1996, meaning it's been almost 15 years since they were really in competition with each other. You might have thought Hershey's would phase one or the other out, but evidently they decided that both brands had sufficient admirers and that it was therefore easier to keep both on the market. The question is, how much difference is there between them, really? And which one is better?

Heath's toffee is light in color and bits of almonds can be seen on the inside. The taste is primarily that of almonds, with the chocolate coating providing additional flavor. The toffee snaps fairly easily under the teeth upon biting into the bar. Heath contains palm oil (the only ingredient it contains which does not also appear in Skor), which might help explain its slightly softer texture.

Skor's toffee has a rich, buttery taste which dominates the product. The outer layer of chocolate is barely even noticeable from a flavor standpoint. The toffee is also much darker in color and while it does contain bits of almonds, their flavor does not predominate as they do in Heath. The dark, buttery toffee flavor is the driving force. Also, while the two bars are about the same thickness, Skor's toffee is slightly stickier and more resistant to the tooth.

The Verdict

This may seem odd coming from me. In terms of everyday foods, I love almonds, while I'm not a huge fan of the taste of butter. But the taste of Heath, while certainly good, just seems weak when stacked up against the richness of Skor. Heath tastes like a chocolate bar with toffee in it; Skor tastes like toffee, and I actually like the butteriness in this context. I was actually a little surprised just how different the two bars were; it's easy to see why both remain on the market, as aside from both having the word "toffee" on the label and looking superficially similar from the outside, they're pretty much entirely separate entities, with a much bigger heads-up taste difference than something like, say, Coke and Pepsi. But put everything together - Skor's richer taste and its entertaining packaging (as far as I can think of, it's the only mainstream US candy bar that actually shows a picture of the bar on its wrapper, which I've always enjoyed) - and you come up with a clear winner.

Winner: Skor

Tranquilo Vitamin Water

I feel a little weird including Vitamin Water in this blog. It's certainly not what you'd consider "junk food." On the other hand, your typical 20-ounce bottle has 125 calories - it's no soda, but it's certainly packed with calories when compared to regular water. And ultimately it's a flavored beverage with sugar in it which contains no juice (let alone 100%). Why not include it?

I like most flavors of Vitamin Water I've tried. In fact, I haven't tried one I haven't liked - possibly in part because I've avoided green tea, expecting not to like it. At least, not until now. Tranquilo's stated flavor is "tamarind-pineapple," and while those are two things that I like well enough in isolation, their combination in this particular product just isn't doing it for me.

I'm not sure how to describe the taste. Pineapple constitutes the bulk of the aroma I got when I stuck my nose in the bottle, although it's a sort of tangy pineapple, which is probably the tamarind's influence. So far, so good. The actual taste was a bit different, though. As with all Vitamin Waters, there's a wateriness to the flavor - that's certainly expected and usually isn't a big deal, but here it bothered me a bit. The pineapple flavor itself was there, but there was kind of a strange secondary taste which I wasn't sure I could chalk up to tamarind (which I associate with a kind of sour flavor). I think I found the pineapple flavor to taste more like a piña colada-type flavor, with hints of coconut amid the pineapple. The tamarind is there, but it's not very distinguishable - pineapples themselves already have a tanginess, so the tamarind doesn't really stand out. If anything, it could be what's causing the piña colada taste, but that would only be a negative.

I wouldn't say it's undrinkable (though I might just be talking myself into not wasting the rest of this bottle), but Tranquilo takes its ignominious place as the first flavor of Vitamin Water for which I can say pretty definitively that I won't be drinking it again. Of course, I don't like piña coladas. Your mileage may vary.

Doritos Diablo Enchilado

Oh, Frito-Lay, you're so sneaky. You may remember a few years ago when Doritos launched a bunch of new flavors at once; after a short period of time, several were pared away and became unavailable. One of those, Ranchero, went away - but it's back, albeit in a Witness Protection Program bag.

Naming the chips "Diablo" and putting a devil's face on the bag is perhaps a little misleading; these chips aren't really that spicy, in spite of their dark red color. But there is a nice mixture of different flavors going on. The initial hits are primarily salty and sour, owing to the MSG and citric acid listed 7th and 5th on the ingredients list respectively. The tang is reminiscent of a lime flavor, and it does take over quite a lot of the flavor of the chip - but not all. As the sourness fades, a fairly mild but nevertheless quite noticeable heat arrives at the back of the mouth, probably due to the paprika, 6th in the ingredients list, which also lends the chips their deep redness. The overall effect is similar to dipping a tortilla chip into salsa ranchero, a smooth red salsa in which the lack of chunks of tomatoes or onions means the pepper's heat can take center stage. The salsa ranchero in this case has perhaps had a good deal of salt and lime juice added to it, but the key to the experience is really the way that taste melts away to reveal a light, pleasant burn.

There's something about these chips that somehow makes them extremely craveable; I'm thinking it's the MSG, but it's hard to say exactly. At any rate, how a chip as addictive as Ranchero ever went away in the first place I don't know, but any Doritos fan should be welcoming its return.

Orange Cream Pop Tarts

In a world where the list of breakfast cereals includes things like Lucky Charms and Count Chocula, it's perhaps not that strange to see Pop Tarts as "breakfast" even when so many of their varieties, with their frosted tops and artificially sweetened fillings, are clearly "dessert." The pretense towards breakfast is particularly well abandoned by the new limited edition Orange Cream Pop Tarts, which depict the classic Creamsicle ice cream bar right on the box as a reminder of what the Pop Tarts are intended to taste like.

The flavor does match up fairly well, certainly as much as I think you can expect from a Pop Tart. I was more bothered by the filling, which with its neon orange color and particularly gooey consistency called to mind Kraft Macaroni and Cheese, or perhaps the product of an industrial accident. I quite obviously have no delusions that Pop Tarts aren't heavily processed, but I'm not sure I needed so stark a reminder.

Still, the concern here is first and foremost how they stack up as Pop Tarts. By that standard there's nothing really wrong with them; I'm not sure this was exactly the flavor I'd have chosen for the latest edition, but after years of little branching beyond berries, cinnamon and chocolate, I suppose the product line can deal with a minor shake-up. Personally I wouldn't buy them a second time, but I'm not dreading the prospect of dealing with three more packages in the box I bought either. They taste fine, and that's what counts. And if you're excited by the prospect of Orange Cream Pop Tarts, I don't think you'll be disappointed.

Flamin' Hot Funyuns

During my junior year of college I was, for a brief period, semi-addicted to Flamin' Hot Cheetos (until I made the mistake of eating two bags one after the other... I won't say any more than that). In high school, meanwhile, Funyuns were one of my favorite snack foods (although I really preferred Wise Onion Rings, but you can't get those out here). So naturally I had to try Flamin' Hot Funyuns.

They're pretty much exactly what you'd expect, but in a way that's actually better than I might have expected. Let me try and explain that. I was expecting the flamin' powder to taste more or less identical to what's on the Cheetos, and it does. I was also expecting some of the Funyun taste to come through, and it does. But what's nice about Flamin' Hot Funyuns as compared to the regular type is that normally, Funyuns are pretty starchy. This isn't a surprise, of course - all a Funyun is is a ring of puffed, fried starch with some onion powder on it. The nice thing about the Flamin' Hot variety is that while you still get enough of the onion flavor coming through, the fiery powder largely overwhelms the starch, giving the whole thing a much cleaner overall taste. (There's a slight starchy aftertaste, but we can't really complain about that when we're eating Funyuns, can we?)

I can't imagine I'll be developing any kind of addiction to these, but if you like your snacks spicy you can certainly do a lot worse in the taste department.

Starburst Sour GummiBursts

When I had the original Starburst GummiBursts some months ago, I was not a fan. The gummy was too tough and the liquid inside tasted like cough syrup. I'm pleased to report that not only do the Sour GummiBursts not have this problem, they're also actually fairly sour, something that isn't true of far too many candies bearing the name.

It's a little disappointing, perhaps, that they had to go with the sour sugar; Sour Starburst are one of the few products that don't and to my mind they're better for it. When it comes to gummy candy it's probably hard to avoid that tactic, however. Either way, the overall experience is a vast improvement over the original product - the gummies are much softer and the "juice" inside (which actually does contain some real apple juice, with artificial and natural flavors) is significantly better-tasting than its original counterpart.

The flavors might help as well. The original used strawberry, orange, cherry and lemon, and at least three of them just didn't taste very good. The sour version mixes it up a bit with green apple, orange tangerine, watermelon and strawberry, all of which manage to be pretty decent. I was a little disappointed that the juice itself didn't seem to have any additional sour kick, but the candy as a whole has a nice little bite to it, so I'll take what I can get. (Mars does have a tendency to get sour right - Sour Skittles and Sour Starburst are both good examples of the genre, more than just tangy without being quite as devastating to the mouth as the nevertheless delicious Jolly Rancher Screamin' Sours.*)

It's also nice that the bag is relatively small (just 1.5 ounces), so you can have one without eating so much sour that it wrecks your mouth for the rest of the day (Sour Skittles, at 1.8 ounces and with many more individual candies per bag, start to verge on this problem). I love sour candy, but as I age I just can't eat that much of it, so having a pretty good example of it in a pretty small size isn't a bad thing by my standards.

*A few years ago I bought a bag of Screamin' Sours at a Jewel in Lake County. The cashier, as she rang it up, said to me, "I hope these are for your kids!" They were not.

The Junk Monitor is back online

You may recall that about a year ago I started doing a podcast called The Junk Monitor, in which I reviewed new snack food products. Within a few months, unfortunately, the podcast went by the wayside; it was just too much work with everything else going on, plus I needed four or so different items to fill out a whole podcast and getting my hands on that much new junk food at once could be difficult.

However, it's time to bring the concept back, just in a more convenient format. Blog posts can be as short or long as they please, and I only need to include one product at a time, plus this way I'm only spending the time to write the post, as opposed to with the podcast which basically involved writing a whole post and then also recording and editing it. It was fun, but this is going to be updated a lot more frequently, and I think that's what everyone wants.*

*might not be what everyone wants