Wednesday, April 8, 2009

Skittles Crazy Cores


Skittles may be overrating the "craziness" of their new variety just slightly. The premise, as you can probably tell from the front of the bag, is one flavor inside of another. The five are Mango Peach, Cherry Lemonade, Strawberry Watermelon, Melon Berry and Blue Raspberry Lemon. Just two of these (strawberry and lemon) have any kind of counterpart in the regular Skittles bag, so this is a relatively novel mixture even without the pairing of the flavors. But the real question, of course, is: how do they taste?

Melon Berry, for my money, is the worst of the lot. I've never really understood the obsession with either melon or the generic "berry" flavor. Melon is a fairly bland flavor even at its best and just doesn't work well in candy form; "berry" does nothing for me, especially when multiple legit berry flavors are available in the same bag. I would just pitch these pretty much right away.

Strawberry Watermelon is fourth-best, or second-worst, depending on your prerogative. You can taste both flavors, but watermelon is such a fake candy flavor that it's a little weird in combination. The strawberry is fine.

Cherry Lemonade is pretty good, with both flavors making appreciable impacts and combining well. I'd rank it #3, but only because I enjoyed the two ahead of it so much.

Peach Mango is #2. The peach taste is heavier, but the mango can be found, and it's a more creative combination than most of these and deserves applause for that. It also tastes really good, however, so I'm not just giving it points for creativity.

#1 is Blue Raspberry Lemon. Both flavors have a great zing and combine near-perfectly. I would have done just fine with a bag composed entirely of these.

I don't think anyone's going to forget regular Skittles over these, but the top three flavors all have a decent tang to them which you don't normally get in Skittles (aside from the sour variety, though it can be too tangy for one's mouth at times). The bag as a whole is weighed down by the mediocre-to-bad bottom two flavors, but if you like Skittles the top three flavors make it worth a go.

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