Honey Barbecue Lay's Potato Chips

My bag didn't look like this - it has an actual photo of the chips, a sliced potato in the background, and a bowl of honey and barbecue sauce with a basting brush with sauce on it in the foreground. Anyway.

I had high hopes for these chips - you see "Honey Barbecue" and you think tangy, sweet, a little spicy, right? When it came down to it, though, there wasn't much going on. Not only was the barbecue sauce taste fairly ordinary, it was way too heavy on a smoky, mesquite kind of flavor which I just wasn't a huge fan of. Mesquite is fine on its own, I guess, but this isn't a bag of mesquite chips. Something with "honey solids" in it, as listed in the ingredients, should have a honey flavor somewhere; I couldn't find it. The mesquite wore off a bit as I got farther down in the bag, and there was a bit more of a tangy flavor to the chips near the end, but it shouldn't take that long.

More to the point, I guess I just expect more out of Lay's. We're talking the biggest chip brand in the world - if they do a Honey Barbecue chip, shouldn't it really knock that taste out of the park? Instead it was barely even close. For the most part these just tasted like any barbecue potato chips I could have gotten in any bag, with any brand name on the front, in any store in America. They were a genuine disappointment.

Pepsi Throwback

Much has been made in recent years of the evils of high fructose corn syrup, with claims made about its more negative health effects than "regular" sugar and a vocal subset of cane sugar fans who insist that sodas made with their standard-bearer just taste better. I don't have any particular interest in getting in the middle of either of those debates (I go back and forth on cane sugar, due to its extremely distinctive taste), but it's interesting to see a company of Pepsi's stature giving some play to the whole debate by releasing "throwback" editions of its two biggest brands, Pepsi and Mountain Dew, to a national audience. There's something about "throwback" which implies that things were better before, and one wonders what Pepsi might do if this new edition proves popular. (At least they learned the lesson of New Coke and didn't try to completely supplant their existing product. As it is I've yet to find Pepsi Throwback outside of grocery stores in the Chicago area; not a convenience store I've been in has carried the stuff.)

Pepsi doesn't specify the provenance of the "natural sugar" found in Throwback. Assuming it's sucrose, sugar cane is the most likely source, but as I said above I usually find cane sugar to have a distinctive "caney" taste, which I didn't notice in Throwback (though cola always does the best job of hiding any distinctiveness in the taste of its sweetener, so it's not out of the question).

Regardless of where the sugar comes from, it does its job. As outlined by Malcolm Gladwell in Blink, Pepsi's sweetness relative to Coke was the key factor in its winning sip-based taste tests in the 1980s despite being less popular as an overall brand (as Gladwell notes, when you're taking home a two-liter bottle of the stuff, you're possibly not looking for the same things that you're looking for in a sip or two of it). Coke's more distinctive flavor and less overpowering sweetness - in spite of its use of HFCS - have allowed it to maintain more brand loyalty. But by taking out the HFCS, Pepsi Throwback starts to taste, well, a lot more like Coke.

Pepsi Throwback ranks right up there with the best of the mass-market colas. It has a cleaner taste than Pepsi itself because of the lack of corn syrup, and while it doesn't have Coke's trademark tang, it actually has a deeper, more complex cola flavor. (Coke is also more syrupy, although not hugely so. But I found it odd in comparing the two how relatively light the cola taste of Coke was. Pepsi Throwback's is much darker and richer, for lack of better words. I'm not sure if that's what a mass audience wants from their cola, but it's out there.)

Will Pepsi Throwback last? I don't know. It's hard to see it picking off committed Coke drinkers, and if Pepsi drinkers prefer it because of the sweetness, it's hard to see them switching to a cleaner, drier alternative. People who really like the taste of the kola nut and find HFCS too sweet should flock to it if the word gets out, but how many cola drinkers does that describe? Probably not enough to save Pepsi Throwback from its likely fate as a limited edition, but the increasing national popularity of HFCS alternatives at least gives it a chance.

Life Savers Gummies: Island Fruits

Life Savers Gummies tend to be among the better gummy spinoffs; they're usually quite flavorful and the flavors themselves are chosen well. Island Fruits, the latest iteration, follows well in the footsteps of its predecessors. There are four flavors - strawberry kiwi, mango melon, fruit punch and pineapple - and all four manage to be at least solid. One thing I find with tropical flavors is that there's almost always one (at least) that I don't care for in the bunch, but here that's not really the case.

Mango melon isn't spectacular - melon is always a pretty weak flavor, and mango is rarely done well. In this case, though, the melon isn't too overwhelming and the mango isn't terrible. It's probably the least of the four flavors, but it's rare when the worst flavor in a tropical bag is still decent.

Candy flavors of pineapple tend not to do the actual fruit justice. That doesn't really change here, but on the other hand it does a pretty good job of tasting like the actual pineapple Life Saver. So it's plenty edible.

Strawberry kiwi frequently just means "strawberry." Not that that's a terrible thing. In this flavor, there actually is a hint of tartness, perhaps the presence of the kiwi. That makes it slightly better, but a standard strawberry candy would already be pretty good.

Finally, there's fruit punch, which is almost always the best flavor in any mixture. The cover of the bag has raspberry and orange on it, and that tastes about right. And who can complain about that? Certainly not me.

Overall it's a decent mix. It's not really crazy tropical, but it gets there, and candy so rarely does a good job of tasting like tropical fruits that I'm not going to complain if the replacement flavors are done well. Thumbs up from me.

Pepsi Natural

Pepsi Natural strikes me as an odd product. To whom does it really appeal? Sure, it uses real sugar instead of high fructose corn syrup, and it's made from all-natural ingredients. But if you're on the kind of green kick where you refuse to consume regular Pepsi because of all its chemicals, are you really so desperate for "all natural cola" at all? And if you are, aren't you probably going to be just as happy with the organic colas that already exist?

The answer might be no. I ran a cola taste test two years ago in which the organic cola from Whole Foods was graded pretty low. And Pepsi Natural, while it'll never be mistaken for regular Pepsi, actually isn't that bad just as a cola. As you might expect, the flavor is a little more watery than a "standard" cola - sort of like if Vitamin Water made a cola - but it isn't too bad, and there's really none of the sometimes overly harsh bite that cola can have; it's much smoother going down. The difference between sugar and corn syrup is only really noticeable (aside from the fact that the cola is not overpoweringly sweet) in the aftertaste, which left hints of what reminded me of maple. I also thought I got a little bit of the flavor of the apple extract which the label says is used for color; that light fruitiness adds an interesting layer of "naturalness," for lack of a better word.

At 150 calories and 38 grams of sugar in a 12-ounce bottle, it's hard to imagine Pepsi Natural catching on among the health food set, no matter how all-natural it is. But considering the inherent flavor disadvantages it has next to its more industrial brother, I think it comes out pretty well, and in some cases even nudges ahead. You could do worse than trying it once, certainly. It seems to be sold mostly at Target (although I did see it at Dominick's tonight), so check that out if you're interested.

Dr. Pepper Cherry

Dr. Pepper has tried out a lot of different permutations in the last few years, including Cherry Vanilla, Berries and Cream, and the rather woeful Cherry Chocolate (reviewed in the 3/31/08 episode of the old podcast). I actually liked Berries and Cream pretty well, but the others ranged from "hardly different from basic Dr. Pepper" to "pretty horrible." Maybe the problem was they were just trying too many flavors.

The front of the bottle of Dr. Pepper Cherry that I picked up actually has the tagline, "It's so amazingly smooth, you have to try it to believe it!" on the front. Ordinarily I would say this was incredibly hubristic, but you have to give to Dr. Pepper here - they're right. I'm not sure how I would explain it - the cherry flavor, much like in the old Cherry Vanilla variety, is hardly strong. But the undertone that is there does just enough to make the regular Dr. Pepper flavor easier to drink. I'm not sure it's "amazingly" smooth, except that it is kind of amazing that just adding cherry flavor could actually make your soda taste smoother.

On the other hand, Cherry Coke is one of my favorite sodas ever, and it's certainly smoother than regular Coke. The irony is that I'm not even a huge fan of cherries or even cherry flavor most of the time. In soda, though, I really enjoy it for whatever reason. I guess I would say that it's a good complementary flavor - I don't want to eat an entire bowl of cherries, and I thought that Cheerwine was pretty good, but not great. However, you take that mild, sweet cherry flavor and mix it with the strong, rather robust flavor of cola or Dr. Pepper, and the combination manages to mitigate the few harsh aspects of the original soda's taste. (Just don't make the mistake of trying to pair it with yet another flavor.)

So if you like Dr. Pepper, put Dr. Pepper Cherry on your list. It's at least as good and possibly even better.

Ben and Jerry's Ginger Snap Ice Cream

Oh. My. GOD.

This ice cream is limited batch, so you'd better get your hands on it now, because there's no guarantee it will remain accessible and if you think it sounds good - like I did, buying it solely based on the carton's description (which you can read above) - wait until you try it.

I've always liked it when cookies and ice cream mix. Cookies and cream was probably my favorite hard-packed flavor growing up, I love ice cream sandwiches (and the recent Edy's variety that puts pieces of ice cream sandwich cookie into vanilla rocked), and I think my favorite flavor of ice cream ever is Haagen-Dazs' Sticky Toffee Pudding. (Yes, I know that's pieces of cake, not cookies. The principle is very similar.)

What makes Ginger Snap so great? Well, let's break it down. The base ice cream is "brown sugar cinnamon." Clearly that would be pretty amazing just on its own, but as a vehicle for complementary flavors it only gets better. Throw in a "ginger caramel swirl" - sounds insanely delicious, right? I found a sizable payload of it against the wall of the carton at one point - it is exactly as great as you would expect Ben and Jerry's caramel to be. And we're not even to the coup de grace.

The actual cookies themselves... I don't even know what to say. First of all, the pieces are enormous, which is fantastic (I can't have been the only one who always wanted the Oreo pieces in Cookies and Cream to be just a little larger). Second, it's more like just barely cooked dough than it is "cookie." The texture is soft and chewy, and the taste is perfect - that taste of ginger and hints of dark sugar that make the actual cookie such a hit on its own.

This is the kind of ice cream where you have to be careful, because it is easy to knock down a pint without even thinking about it. Every piece of cookie had me ready to hunt for more, and even if you don't find any for a couple spoonfuls, "brown sugar cinnamon ice cream with a ginger caramel swirl" is so good on its own there's really no compelling reason to stop until your conscience kicks in. If you like ice cream and you like ginger snaps at all, you have got to try this stuff before it's gone.

Cheetos Chile Y Limón

My bag of Chile Y Limón Cheetos doesn't actually look like the bag above - it's green and features Chester in the middle of a wrestling ring with an apparently nervous lime on one side and a pepper in a luchador mask on the other. Whatever.

Chile Y Limón Cheetos certainly deliver what the name promises - the snacks have a dark red color and a taste that combines a smoky, mildly spicy pepper flavor with a kick of lime, aided by the inclusion in the ingredients of "lime juice solids." However, there is a point at which the name no longer makes sense - and that's when it gets to "Cheetos."

Simply put, there is no cheese in Chile Y Limón Cheetos. Not even the barest hint of it. I scanned the ingredients twice to make sure I wasn't missing anything; nope. It's just not there. It's not like cheese is a snack food requirement, I guess, but your snack is named Cheetos! The slogan used to be "the cheese that goes crunch!" Would it have been that difficult to keep a slight underlying cheese flavor? It works perfectly well with the Flamin' Hot variety. And I think it would have made these snacks better. They're all right, but they seem to lack character somehow - there's a chile taste that hits first, followed by the lime taking over, and then the whole thing fades to a mild burn at the back of the mouth... and while all this is okay, I feel like there should be something else in there, right under the initial chile taste, preventing the lime from completely overwhelming everything until after I've swallowed. I think it would also make the aftertaste a little less starchy to have some cheese in there; right now, that's what we get, and while it's not unpleasant, I'd rather be tasting something else at that point if at all possible.

Really, these cover little ground that the Flamin' Hot Limón Cheetos don't - yeah, they're less spicy, which is fine if you're somebody's grandmother, but if you're eating Cheetos at all you ought to be able to handle a little spice on top of that. If you really want the Limón experience with a kick, that's where I'd go. It's a bigger kick, but it's much more satisfying, too.