However, last year they went in the opposite direction and introduced a blast from the past: Taco Flavor Doritos. This flavor originated in 1967 and persisted at least into the late 1970s, but was eventually retired.

The re-introduction of the Taco Doritos was an instant hit. Originally packaged as a limited edition, Doritos almost immediately announced that they would be keeping it on store shelves, and to this day I still see that alluring retro bag as I walk down the chip aisle.

The Taco Doritos did not come without controversy, however. Billed as the original flavor, the comments section of my review blew up. Battle lines were drawn. Some loved them, said they tasted just like the original, and expressed nostalgia as they remembered eating them ask kids.

Others were not so pleased. “These taste nothing like the original!” They shouted angrily from the rooftops of their Internets. “There’s sour cream in these! There was no sour cream in the original Taco flavor!”

It was a tortilla chip nation divided. However, to Doritos, it was money in the bank. Going off the business model that if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, they’ve recently released two new/old limited edition retro flavors: Sour Cream & Onion and Salsa Rio, complete with retro packaging. I swear, the packaging is the real allure. Even I cannot resist its siren song.

Sadly, like Taco Flavor Doritos, I never had the opportunity to try either of these flavors, so I’m flying blind as far as their authenticity when compared to the originals. And again, like the Taco Flavor, I ask you, the reader, to tell me in the comments section if they got it right or not. I am looking forward to it. Imagine I just said that in a Mr. Burns voice with my fingers steepled. Muahahahaha.

Limited Edition Doritos Sour Cream & Onion

Those who so hated the addition of sour cream to the Taco Doritos won’t have a leg to stand on here. Personally, I had some trepidations about this flavor. I don’t know why, but it just seems like sour cream and onion should stick to potato chips and leave the tortillas out of it.

It must just be me, though, because there’s an entire Facebook page devoted to bringing them back. Congratulations to the 511 people who Liked this page! You succeeded! Or it was just a coincidence. Either way, now your page is USELESS.

From what I can tell on the Internet, these were introduced in the late 70s and were discontinued in the early 80s. Because of this, I can legitimately say that I never had a chance to experience the original Sour Cream & Onion Doritos, unless I had an irresponsible mother who fed me Doritos as a baby. From what I know, that did not happen.

As a fun treat, I found this delightful old commercial for Sour Cream & Onion Doritos, wherein a Gene Shalit lookalike (I’m sure he gets lots of work) knocks over a table and causes a butler to faint with the power of Doritos crunch. You’re welcome.

Like the Taco flavor, I can tell from several websites even beyond Facebook that there are people passionate about these Doritos and they must all be over the moon that they’ve been re-released. I’m sorry that I can’t give you a comparison, but I can give you my opinion. And pictures of chips.

I’m happy to report that sour cream and onion isn’t weird at all on a tortilla chip. At least, not the way Doritos makes them. Unfortunately, they taste almost indistinguishable from Cool Ranch Doritos. Honestly, if I were blindfolded and forced to eat these chips, first of all, I’d be terrified and confused, and second, I would immediately guess Cool Ranch. If a gun were to my head, I would be dead. Over Doritos.

If I really stretch it, I guess there’s a little bit more of an onion flavor than in Cool Ranch. I was pleased to see some heavily powdered chips in the bunch. There’s something about seeing a Dorito loaded with little flavor bits that makes me happy. But…what’s that? Red? What’s red doing on a sour cream and onion chip? Is the onion red? Ah well, who cares. Slightly more oniony Cool Ranch. You could do worse.

Limited Edition Doritos Salsa Rio

There’s also a big following for Salsa Rio on the Internet. I should probably just stop mentioning that, because I’m beginning to think that every discontinued junk food has about 500 “BRING IT BACK” websites and petitions. Some of these people sound almost desperate. It’s creepy.

Salsa Rio apparently had a short run from the late 80s to early 90s, which means I technically could have tried the original, but I was still young enough that I have the excuse that I had no idea they existed. My dad did all the shopping, and once I expressed an interest in a certain junk food, he would always make sure I had it. Forever. I think it took me three years to get him to realize I was tired of Cool Ranch. God bless him for trying.

I have no awesome Gene Shalit-related videos for Salsa Rio, but I like the fatass tomato on the front of the bag and the name itself. Salsa Rio. River of Salsa. It evokes Willy Wonka-esque visions in my mind of salsa rivers running through fields of flowers made of tortilla chips. The grass is luscious, fragrant cilantro. There’s wallpaper that tastes like onions and garlic when you lick it.

I should probably just stop there.

Man, these chips look muy caliente! This bright red is usually reserved for something like a Tapatio or Flamin’ variety of chip. What really hits you first, though, is the tomato flavor. That may not sound appealing, but there was a strong backup team of onion, garlic, and a variety of spices that I couldn’t identify but knew were participating.

There actually is a bit of heat, although nowhere near the mouth-blistering heat that the eye-searing color might indicate. There’s no substitute for a real, quality salsa, but Salsa Rio does its best to replicate it in powder form. All the flavors blended really nicely, and I found myself reaching into the bag more than I thought I would.

There’s nothing wrong with Limited Edition Doritos Sour Cream & Onion; I just can’t get over how similar they taste to Cool Ranch Doritos. Maybe it was those three years it took to convince my dad to buy a different flavor of Doritos for me, but my mouth got bored with Sour Cream & Onion pretty quickly. I’m sure the bag won’t go to waste, but they just didn’t bring anything new to the table.

There are many flavors of Doritos that I haven’t had in a few years, but I found Limited Edition Doritos Salsa Rio to be a refreshing change of pace from the usual recycled flavors that Doritos spits out. The flavors were bold, the powder was plentiful, and all the different salsa-like elements worked well together. That little kick of heat was like icing on the cake.

Sour Cream & Onion could remain limited and I wouldn’t mind that, but I’d actually like to see Doritos go the Taco Flavor route and keep Salsa Rio around. At least until my Junk Food Betty and the Salsa Factory fantasy comes true.

Limited Edition Doritos Sour Cream & Onion and Salsa Rio Tortilla Chips

• Score (Sour Cream & Onion): 3 out of 5 Cool Ranch rip-offs
• Score (Salsa Rio): 4.5 out of 5 giant tomatoes
• Price: $4.29
• Size: 11 oz. bag
• Purchased at: Fry’s Foods
• Nutritional Quirks: Despite neither Sour Cream & Onion or Salsa Rio having cheese as detectible flavors, both list cheddar and Romano cheeses as key ingredients.  Doritos makes lactose intolerant consumers sad.

Way back in April of last year, the news broke that Taco Bell was releasing the Doritos Locos Taco in test markets. Unfortunately, I didn’t live anywhere near one of them. But on March 8, they will be making this…thing available nationwide.

What is the Doritos Locos Taco? Well, basically it’s a regular Taco Bell taco with one ridiculous addition – a taco shell made out of Nacho Cheese Doritos. You can also get a Supreme Taco, which basically just adds chopped tomatoes and sour cream to a regular taco. With a Doritos shell

If you can’t wait to find out what a Dorito and a taco taste like together, Doritos is doing a “Hometown Tweet-Off”, wherein the person who gets the most retweets by Tweeting using the hashtags #DoritosLocosTacos and #Contest will get a visit from the Taco Bell Truck, which will give out Doritos Locos Tacos to the winner and their probably bewildered neighbors.

Sources: GrubGrade, Fast Food Maven

What does this have to do with absolutely goddamn anything? Jack in the Box has a new BLT Cheeseburger. That’s fucking boring. You know what other companies call that? A bacon cheeseburger with toppings. However, there’s more to this story. So much more.

Jack in the Box has made a special website encouraging you to marry bacon. I know some gay couples who might believe Jack has his priorities a little out of order, but we’ll leave that hot button topic alone.

Political portion of this post now over, let’s take a look at this website. First off, there’s a video of a man marrying a BLT Cheeseburger, ending with the line, “You may now eat the bride.” There are jokes here ranging from generically unsettling to just plain crass, so I’ll let you choose which way you want to go on that one.

There’s also a section of bacon-related .gifs called “Wedding Gifts” with the “t” crossed out (get it? GET IT?!) and a Tumblr site, both containing items either boring or disturbing, the latter being a .gif of a woman eating a piece of bacon and then presumably devouring the face of the man next to her like a praying mantis that has just copulated.

Impossibly, things get even more disturbing with the “Make a Bacon Baby!” feature. You get a pretty clear idea of what this entails with the picture on the website, which looks like a female version of the Elephant Man’s face if she’d also been in a terrible fire and then had her head stuck on the body of a baby.

As if this weren’t horrible enough, Jack gives you the opportunity to make your own Bacon Baby. I’ve written seven paragraphs without mentioning what I’m actually reviewing, but since the title of the post is a jerk and always gives it away, you already know that all of this is really about Jack in the Box’s Bacon Shake.

I’ve had a previous experience with a bacon-flavored beverage, namely Jones Bacon Soda. To this day, it ranks #1 on the list of most horrible things I’ve ingested for Junk Food Betty, and quite possibly the worst thing I’ve ever tasted in my life. And I have made some serious mistakes with expiration dates.

I knew right away who would be my Bacon Baby: Jones Bacon Soda Creepy Pig-Nose Girl.

Appropriately terrifying.

The Bacon Shake itself looked surprisingly innocent, a light pink color with whipped cream and a cherry on top. One could walk around with it and no one would know you’re holding a complete abomination. Not even any bacon sprinkles on top. Although now that I think about it, it does mimic the skin tone of a pig pretty accurately. Ugh.

It actually took a little sucking up to, well, suck it up. I stood in my kitchen, taking deep breaths, while flashbacks of the Jones Bacon Soda experience ran through my head like I was a Vietnam vet on the 4th of July. It occurred to me that I have food PTSD. That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard of.

I finally got up the nerve and took the plunge. The first few sips through my straw were not unpleasant; the shake was thick and creamy, a little bit less sweet than your usual shake. As I got further in, however, the porcine flavor started to come through. It was like tasting a pork belly that had been smoked to preserve it on a olde tyme boat making a venture to the New World, but made more subtle, and then mixed with vanilla ice cream. A little smoky, a little bacon-y, but not overwhelming and not very salty.

I didn’t throw up, so that’s always a plus.

Honestly, the Bacon Shake was not the horrorshow I thought it would be. The smoky bacon flavor is subdued enough that it almost works with the vanilla flavor of the shake. Almost. The shake isn’t made with actual pig; Jack in the Box uses Torani Bacon Syrup to flavor it, which is scary in and of itself, because Torani syrups are the flavors you’ll often see behind the counter at your local coffee shop, which means…well, we can all see the terrible possibilities there.

The worst part of the Bacon Shake was that it had a lingering ham flavor that stuck in my mouth long after I’d finished dumping most of it down the drain. A lingering ham mixed with ice cream flavor. I did not appreciate it.

Jack in the Box’s Bacon Shake didn’t give me PTSD, but it did make me rinse my mouth out afterwards, and I can think of about 700 other flavors I’d like in a shake besides bacon. Contrary to what seems to be popular belief, bacon does not belong in everything, and I can now put milkshakes in that category. At the very least, I can say that the smoky flavor was subtle enough that it wasn’t completely discordant with the ice cream. Hell, if you like the combination of smoky, sweet and hammy, you may even enjoy the Bacon Shake. You may also have a bad palate.

Jack in the Box Bacon Shake

• Score: 1.5 out of 5 Creepy Pig-Nose Girl Bacon Babies
• Price: $2.79
• Size: Regular (16 oz.) cup
• Purchased at: Jack in the Box #161
• Nutritional Quirks: Bacon syrup. It exists. Enough said.

The Impulsive Buy also reviewed the Bacon Shake, unfortunately for them.

Or perhaps you’ll ring in the new year a little more quietly, taking inventory of your bunker’s contents for the dozenth time, making sure every shotgun, bottle of water and Tactical Sammich is in place for the coming zombie infestation/financial and governmental collapse/Mayan calender apocalypse.

In reality, unless you’re a hermit or incarcerated, at some point during the holiday season you’ll be going to a party, voluntarily or involuntarily. Whether it’s a workplace potluck, a New Year’s bash, or a get-together to watch Favorite Football Team play against Rival Football Team, there’s one thing that’s going to be present:

Chips!

Yes, that’s right, chips. During the holiday season, they are quietly ubiquitous, usually sitting near some salsa or onion dip, waiting for you to mindlessly shove into your mouth as you make awkward small talk with that guy whose name you can’t remember or yell impotently at some dude in tights running up and down a length of grass. You may not think of chips as a holiday food, but they’re always there. Waiting. Watching.

Okay, so they’re not really watching. (It’s the salsa that you should be worrying about.)

Chips love to party so much that Tostitos is the official sponsor of the Fiesta Bowl, one of the bigger…bowls that goes on during this…bowl season. I’ll be honest with you, my knowledge of football bowls begins and ends with the male side of my family watching them on tv. I don’t even know why they’re called bowls. But hey, chips go in bowls, so that works…right?

This whole weak chip-and-bowl setup would not have happened except for something I half-heard on my local news this morning. I had to rewind just to make sure I’d heard correctly. The plastic-looking anchorwoman mentioned something about the Chip Drop coming back. I eagerly waited for her to expound, but no further information was given.

What the fuck is a Chip Drop?

Thanks to the Internet, I now know the answer to that question and I am so glad that I do, because it is fucking awesome and ridiculous at the same time. The aforementioned Fiesta Bowl takes place around where I live, and apparently there’s a little tradition known as the Chip Drop of which I was previously unaware. Let’s let the local news website explain:

“The last Chip Drop was in 1998 when Tostitos was the party’s title sponsor. A massive tortilla chip was dropped from a crane into an even larger jar of salsa.

The chip is a triangular, 4-by-4 foot piece of metal covered in small mirrors to represent salt. It will be suspended from a truss system above the video structure and dropped about 15 feet. High intensity beams will shoot from the chip to add flash, complementing the block party’s midnight fireworks show.”

Holy balls, you guys. Fuck watching some stupid disco ball drop in Times Square on your television. Those of us in the Valley of the Sun get the opportunity to watch a giant metal tortilla chip covered in salt mirrors. And the chip shoots high intensity beams. It’s not often there’s something to gloat about from where I live, but the Chip Drop just kicked the ass of all y’alls New Year’s traditions.

What does all this have to do with what I’m reviewing? Well, I’m about to have my own personal Chip Drop with this bag of Mission Sweet Sugar & Cinnamon White Corn Tortilla Chips.

Far be it from me to criticize a chip company for trying to go all holiday on our asses. I mean, Mission could have just stopped at offering red-and-green food-colored tortilla chips, but they weren’t done there. They wanted to make a tortilla chip with some serious holiday zazz. I keep saying “holiday” instead of “Christmas”, because I discovered these too late to review before that particular event, but hey. You know you’re still drinking eggnog. There’s still a tree in the corner of your living room, rapidly dropping needles and becoming more and more of a fire hazard. Give Mission a chance.

I say that with a bit of trepidation on my own part, because, well, tortilla chips and sugar and cinnamon don’t sound like flavors that would jive to me. Tortilla chips go with cheese, salsa, guacamole…but cinnamon and sugar? I know a lot of people like the combination of sweet and savory, but this one didn’t sound like a good match.

Upon opening the bag, however, I started to change my mind. I was immediately hit with the comforting and nostalgic odor of Cinnamon Toast Crunch. Cinnamon Toast Crunch rocks.

And, amazingly, so do Mission Sweet Sugar & Cinnamon White Corn Tortilla Chips! Honestly, they taste like thinner versions of the Cinnamon Toast Crunch, with just a hint of tortilla at the end. In fact, I’d say these have an even stronger sugar and cinnamon presence. Almost every chip was heavily coated with both sugar and spice, making me feel like I was reaching into a cereal box and not a bag of chips.

I think Mission’s winning secret here is using white corn tortilla chips, which let the sugar and cinnamon dominate while leaving just a tiny bit of tortilla on the back end. I also think making the chips thinner made the tortilla flavor less prominent.

Because I have some sort of compulsion about chips and dip, I immediately wondered what would make a good dip for these chips. After almost going with Funfetti frosting because I will use any flimsy excuse to eat Funfetti frosting despite being a grown woman, I went with Duncan Hines Whipped Cream Cheese Frosting. Delicious.

When I initially bought Mission Sweet Sugar & Cinnamon White Corn Tortilla Chips, I figured they would be totally disgusting, but make for a fun holiday review. Merry Christmas, my taste buds are suffering for your entertainment! I should know by now not to judge a chip by its cover. These chips totally rock; unfortunately, they’re a limited seasonal flavor, so you’ll just have to go back to being that person that eats Cinnamon Toast Crunch straight out of the box the rest of the year.

My only problem with these chips is that I could never blow through a whole bag, just because they are so sweet. Others with a sweet tooth more prominent than mine will probably fare better, but I couldn’t eat more than a handful or so at a time before I went into sugar overload. Also, if you’re a fan of dipping like myself, I wholly recommend a whipped frosting with a vanilla or cream cheese flavor, but any frosting thicker than that and you’re going to get serious chip breakage, as these are thinner-than-average tortilla chips.

I hope you all have a Happy New Year’s! And don’t worry about Jake; he’s a total jerk and you deserve better.

Mission Sweet Sugar & Cinnamon White Corn Tortilla Chips

• Score: 4.5 out of 5 totally frickin’ awesome Chip Drops
• Price: $3.29
• Size: 12 oz. bag
• Purchased at: Fry’s Foods
• Nutritional Quirks: First ingredient listed is “ground corn treated with lime”. Thankfully, no lime flavor was detected upon consumption.

When I think of Christmas Hershey’s Kisses, I think of your run-of-the-mill Kisses wrapped in green, red and silver foil. Apparently, I am ignorant and wrong. There are actually several special flavors of Christmas Kisses available. Well, Hershey’s calls them “Holiday” Kisses, but c’mon. They’re Christmas. Don’t fall in with the PC hype.

There are four different Holiday Kiss flavors: Milk Chocolate filled with Caramel, Milk Chocolate filled with Cherry Cordial Crème, Candy Cane Flavored Candies and Dark Chocolate filled with Mint Truffle. I only bought the latter three, and I’m not sure why, because I love chocolates filled with caramel. Perhaps it’s because I’m already pretty familiar with what caramel inside of chocolate tastes like. Perhaps it’s because buying three bags of Kisses is my limit. Whatever the reason, I found the three that I bought to be the most intriguing, so this is what you get. Well, sort of. One of my bags of Kisses went a little…AWOL, you might say. More on that later.

How long have these Holiday Kisses been in circulation? I have no idea. This is the first time I had ever seen them, but that doesn’t mean they haven’t been around since 1963. Well, they’re new to me, and maybe they’ll be new to you, too. Listen, just read the words and look at the pictures. Hell, you’re not even going to read the words. It’s Christmas. If you’re here at all, you’ve already eaten five pounds of ham, seven sugar cookies poorly decorated by your young relatives, and bitten the head off of at least one gingerbread man, having a not-so-secret feeling of satisfaction as you watch Gingerdead Man 2: Passion of the Crust.

I really hope you’re not actually watching that movie, unless you’re doing it in an effort to repulse your relatives and get a moment of private time for yourself. Desperate times, desperate measures. I understand. I don’t judge.

Hershey’s Kisses Milk Chocolates filled with Cherry Cordial Crème

Growing up, cherry cordials were a staple in my house. Not just during the holidays; there always seemed to be a box in the kitchen cupboard, right next to the Entenmann’s donuts variety pack . I did not partake in the cherry cordials. As a youth, I was not a fan of chocolate, and I hated cherries and all things cherry-flavored. I blame that on having to take a horrible “cherry-flavored” medication twice a day for god knows how many years. You can see how the association would taint my opinion.

These days, I am older, and questionably wiser. At the very least, I am more open-minded about trying new things, especially things that I would throw a tantrum over as a kid. I recently learned that green beans ain’t half bad. Hey, it only took two decades to figure that out!

The foil wrapping on the Cherry Cordial Kisses doesn’t exactly scream Christmas. Bright fuchsia with curvy brown stripes that would make Yipes the Zebra jealous? It’s the candy wrapper equivalent of buying a pink plastic Christmas tree.

Encased in classic Hershey’s Kisses chocolate, a pink ooze flooded my mouth as I bit into the candy. It was very viscous, and had a strong cherry flavor. Unfortunately, the taste was rather artificial. The gooey inside was a little cloyingly sweet, but the chocolate actually worked well in taming it a bit.

I could see how some people would be turned off by the texture of the filling, but I grew up with Freshen Up gum, so I wasn’t put off by it at all. Man, I am really showing my age with these references. First Yipes, then Freshen Up. If you were born after 1986, Google them.

At first, I rather enjoyed the Cherry Cordial Kisses, but the flavor got a little overwhelming after about three pieces. I haven’t had a chance to try a real cherry cordial since I’ve broadened my food horizons, so I figured I’d let my mom try one, since she was always the big cherry cordial fanatic. She immediately spit it in the trash and said it was awful.

Well. There’s one opinion.

Hershey’s Kisses Candy Cane Flavored Candies

Come Christmastime, there’s no shortage of peppermint-flavored sweets out there. It’s kind of hard to get excited about yet another candy cane-flavored candy, when I’ve already had at least a dozen of them. Given this, I wasn’t exactly chomping at the bit to try out these Holiday Kisses.

I am not, however, immune to the charms of Christmasy packaging, and Candy Cane Kisses obviously have the most Navidad-oriented foil wrapping, with the little red candy canes standing out against the shiny silver background. Anybody reaching into a bowl of candy is instantly going to know what these Kisses are all about, even if they are illiterate and can’t read the classic Kiss tissue paper…unwrapper…thingie.

Does that thing have a name? Is it called a flag? I’m going to call it a flag. I’m writing this on Christmas Eve. I can’t be delving deep into the depths of Hershey’s Kisses history to find out what their iconic little piece of paper is called and probably trademarked.

Getting back to the candy itself, I found myself enjoying Candy Cane Kisses more than I thought I would. I like that Hershey’s put the effort into making these Kisses white with red stripes, thus mimicking the look of an actual candy cane as much as they could, given the shape of a Kiss compared to a candy cane.

I was also pleasantly surprised to find that, when you bite into a Candy Cane Kiss, there’s little pieces of crunchy candy that add to the already strong peppermint flavor. I’d like to say those little crunchy bits are actual pieces of candy cane, but after reading the ingredients list, I couldn’t find any indication that this was the case. The main flavors of Candy Cane Kisses come from white chocolate and oil of peppermint. That said, the chocolate and the peppermint work great together, and I did love the little candy crunches, even if they weren’t authentic cane. I found myself reaching for a handful after I’d eaten my first one. Afterward, my breath was minty fresh and ready for some hot mistletoe action.

Hershey’s Kisses Dark Chocolates filled with Mint Truffle

Speaking of mint, here we have another minty Holiday Kiss. Hershey’s wants to make sure you’re 100% free of ham breath this holiday season.

The Mint Truffle Kiss foil wrapping is appropriately green, with adorable silver snowflakes all over. You may notice that there is no picture of an individually wrapped Mint Truffle Kiss here. There is a reason for this.

There are times when living with a food blogger can be trying. For instance, you get to stand around in the store while I try to find the best package that looks like it will photograph well and have the best chances of the product inside not being crushed or otherwise damaged. And then, once the product has been brought home, it’s hands-off until the photographs have been taken.

I was hanging out with my mom, who was visiting during the holiday season, during this particular purchase. She does not know the rules of food blogging. Before I had a chance to take my coat off once we’d come home, she had already ripped open the bag of Mint Truffle Kisses and was sampling the wares.

I was distressed. I informed her that the package was not to be opened until a picture had been taken. She was mortified, as if she had accidentally thrown away my sure to be award-winning piece of moldy bread that I was going to present at the Science Fair. Before I could get a word in, she already had the Scotch tape out, and was working fervently to repair the opened package with Scotch tape, positioning and re-positioning the plastic until she had repaired the bag to the point that you could barely see it had been opened. Can you spot the repairs? I have to admit, she did an admirable job.

The entire time she was doing this, I was trying to tell her that it was no big deal, and that the more she fussed with it, the more I was just going to make fun of her in this article. I don’t think she heard me. She was too busy trimming off millimeters of tape so it wouldn’t show in the picture.

For as much effort as she put into attempting to restore the bag back to mint (har) condition, she did not seem to take into consideration the fact that I had not taken a picture of the actual candy. So enamored was she with the Mint Truffle Kisses, in fact, that she either ate the whole bag or took the rest of them back to California with her while I wasn’t looking. This means I have no pictures of the foil wrapper or of the inside of the candy itself. Luckily, I did get the picture of the bag, and managed to score a few of the candies to eat for myself, so I can at least tell you how they looked and tasted.

I know you want pictures. I am sorry that I have none. Luckily, there is a candy out there that is remarkably similar to Mint Truffle Kisses: Andes Crème Menthes! You may have found these candies on your pillow upon arriving at a hotel room. You may have gotten one with your check at a restaurant once or twice. Mint Truffle Kisses taste almost exactly like these candies.

These Kisses have a dark chocolate outside, unlike the other Holiday selections. I’m not a huge fan of dark chocolate, but the kind they used for these Kisses is a less cocoa-heavy dark chocolate, and I found it paired fantastically with the minty inside. If you bite a Mint Truffle Kiss in half, you’ll see a green filling, but unlike the gooey, oozing center of the Cherry Cordials, this filling is about the same consistency as the dark chocolate outside, making for a smooth chocolate mint experience.

I enjoyed each of Hershey’s Holiday Kiss offerings, to varying degrees. I liked the pairing of chocolate and cherry in the Cherry Cordial Kisses, but found the artificial cherry flavor a little too strong, and the texture of the gooey center might be off-putting to some.

I thought I would find the Candy Cane Kisses a big yawn, but the creaminess of the white chocolate paired with the crunch of the tiny (although faux) candy cane pieces resulted in a pleasant peppermint candy with a texture that sets them apart from other Kiss varieties.

Pairing a mild dark chocolate with a creamy mint filling in the Mint Truffle Kisses was a no-brainer. If you like mint chocolate chip ice cream, well, you’ve pretty much found that flavor in the form of a Hershey’s Kiss. You could serve your Christmas guests Andes Crème Menthes and get pretty much the same flavor, but you’d be missing out on the iconic Kiss shape and the adorable snowflake wrapping. There’s a reason why my mom ran off with these before I had a chance to take a picture of the candies.

Today is Christmas, so unless you’re an extreme procrastinator, you’ve probably already got all your Christmas candies set out in your Santa-shaped bowls for all to snack on as they wait for their ham or duck or tofurkey or whatever it is you slave over to serve before the wrapping paper starts flying. However, I hope you’ll keep these in mind for next year, if they’re still around, as a fun alternative to the regular ol’ gussied up Hershey’s Kisses. And try the green beans this year; you may find that you like them, after all.

Hershey’s Kisses Holiday: Milk Chocolates filled with Cherry Cordial Crème, Candy Cane Flavored Candies and Dark Chocolates filled with Mint Truffle

• Score: Milk Chocolates filled with Cherry Cordial Crème: 2.5 out of 5 late 1980′s gum references
• Score: Candy Cane Flavored Candies: 4 out of 5 candy cane Vaudeville Hooks
• Score: Dark Chocolates filled with Mint Truffle: 4.5 out of 5 carefully Scotch-taped bags of candy
• Price: $2.50 each
• Size: 10 oz. bags
• Purchased at: Target
• Nutritional Quirks: Candy Cane Kisses appear to not contain actual candy canes. The “truffle” in Mint Truffle is unexplained.

I had never even heard of M&Ms White Chocolate Candy Corn until it arrived in the Halloween package of love my mom sent me. Yes, two out of my three Halloween reviews have come courtesy of my mom. Yes, I am a grown woman, and I still get care packages from my mommy. Don’t act like you’re not jealous. I don’t care if you’re 15 or 50, getting a box full of goodies for Halloween is awesome.

I have to say, I’m loving the package. The bag subtly reflects the candy corn’s tri-color appearance, and there’s some corn stalks in the background, because everyone knows candy corn is made from corn. It’s going to be the next biofuel. Which is great, because the amount of uneaten candy corn in the world could probably get us by for a very long time.

And then, of course, there’s Red. Red looks pissed. Or…constipated? It’s hard to tell. Although, given his hand placement, it’s either intestinal distress or he hates how the costume makes him look fat. Regardless, he wants out of that fucking costume like right now. He must share Lewis Black’s views on candy corn.

Through pure chance or clever design on the part of M&Ms, the sample I took from the bag to photograph seemed to reflect the color ratio of an actual candy corn. Small white tip, large yellow middle, and an orange base that falls in between. They’re larger than regular M&Ms, but maintain the classic M&M shape.

I was already apprehensive about the idea of a white chocolate candy corn-flavored M&M, so when I caught a strong whiff of plastic off of them, my hesitance only increased. I’m on good terms with white chocolate, but…together with candy corn flavoring? It seems like a rather Frankensteinian pairing. My tongue shuddered. It was the wrong kind of Halloween scary.

Good news and bad news: M&Ms White Chocolate Candy Corns taste like…candy corns. Which, come to think of it, taste pretty much like how the M&Ms smelled. Like plastic. They really nailed the taste quite accurately. There’s a hint of white chocolate flavor at the end, and it has the texture of white chocolate with a candy shell crunch, but the flavor is strongly that of candy corn. Possibly even more than candy corns themselves. M&Ms out-candy-corned the candy corn. Take that, Brachs.

If you’re a fan of candy corn, M&Ms White Chocolate Candy Corns will delight your palate and look great in that bowl on your coffee table that has a zombie hand sticking out of it which moves and screams any time someone passes by it, annoying everyone in the room. If you’re Lewis Black, I assume you will shout incomprehensibly and throw them across the room while twitching violently. If you are Red, I guess you’ll just stand there looking annoyed. I’m assuming the cast of M&M characters don’t indulge in cannibalism.

If you’re me, you’ll appreciate the entertaining packaging and the accuracy of the replication of candy corn flavor. Unfortunately, like candy corns themselves, these M&Ms won’t be in my premium pile of Halloween candy. However, I always appreciate it when a company tries something new for Halloween. Even if it tastes like plastic.

M&Ms White Chocolate Candy Corn

• Score: 3 out of 5 pissed off Reds
• Price: Freeeeeeeee! (Thanks again Mom!)
• Size: 9.9 oz. bag
• Purchased at: I have no idea; somewhere in Southern California
• Nutritional Quirks: One serving (about 1/4 cup) contains 35% of your daily recommended saturated fat. Brach’s candy corn contains 0 grams of any fat. Make the wise choice. (Eat a Fun Size Snickers bar.)

The second thing I remember is Heinz ketchup, which made some cah-RAZY colors like green, purple, blue, and teal. Teal? Most kids probably don’t even know what teal is. This was in 2000, at which time I had (mostly) grown out of my desire to eat foods of inappropriate colors, but I do remember my grandfather bought a bottle of the green stuff. Just because. I tip my hat to his spirit, since it’s obvious a little bit of him rubbed off on JFB.

Pop Qwiz disappeared long ago and Heinz stopped making the colored ketchups in 2006, presumably leaving millions of children without the opportunity to eat extra food coloring while their parents roll their eyes.

But fear not! (Or be afraid, it is the season for it.)  Just in time for Halloween, and possibly only for Halloween, I present to you Vile Villains Hot Chocolate! Not a hell of a lot of info about them on the Internet, but I gather they’re only available at Walgreen’s, and they come in three colors: Wonderfully Wacky Purple, Deceivingly Orange, and Heartless Green. The chocolate remains the same, but the colors are Halloweenolicious.

This is a Disney Joint, so we’ve got three villains from their vast library of evil beings. I’ll talk briefly about each and show you the all-important pictures, but since the chocolate is the same in all three, we’ll check that out at the end.

Wonderfully Wacky Purple Hot Chocolate

Okay, I have objections right off the bat, here. Really, the Chesire Cat? First off, he’s not even a villain. Second, I suppose he could pull off representing purple, but isn’t there someone who would really embody the spirit of purple? Any guesses? Motherfucking MALEFICENT from Sleeping Beauty, that’s right! Only one of the awesomest Disney villains ever! SHE TURNS INTO A MOTHERFUCKING DRAGON. Wasted opportunity.

Oddly, all the powders look generally the same. I was expecting purple powder, but this is what I got. But hey, kids like shit that changes colors just like they like food that is oddly colored, so…bonus?

The hot chocolate itself was a little more pastel than I would have liked. Lavender is not that spooky. I had a heck of a time taking the photos because, as you can see, it gets that film on top that masks the true color of the liquid, but you can generally see it around the edges. I later realized I could have let it cool down and that probably would have fixed the problem. But done is done. Deal with it.

Deceivingly Orange Hot Chocolate

Here we have the Evil Queen from Snow White, disguised as a witch. She gives Snow White a poisoned apple in the story, but here she appears to be presenting a Jack o’Lantern, apparently to tie in with the orange color. I have to say, if Snow White had been given a pumpkin, the story would have turned out much differently, unless she decided to toast the seeds and eat them I suppose.

Deceivingly Orange is a strange name. Out of context, it makes little sense. Oranges are not so deceiving. You pretty much get what you’re asking for out of an orange, unless you bought a grapefruit by mistake, but that’s your own fault. In this context, Deceivingly Orange means several things – first of all, nobody expects their hot chocolate to be orange, and second, the poisoned apple is deceiving. Except now it’s a pumpkin. Why not.

I’m not a big fan of orange as a color, but I guess this one delivers the most Halloweeny of all the colors. Purple and green are great backup colors for Halloween, but if you’re going to go Halloween, you know you have to go black and orange. The black is surprisingly absent, but at least orange has a backup team.

Heartless Green Hot Chocolate

Here we see the Evil Queen from Snow White in her natural evil form. With that bubbling green cauldron, she feels the most natural of the three. I am, however, a little miffed that two of the three Vile Villains are from Snow White. There are a bazillion Disney villains; do we really have to dip into the same pumpkin bucket twice?

Also, she’s holding the poisoned apple. Where the hell was the continuity director on these things?

Much like with the purple hot chocolate, this drink’s color is disappointingly pale. It does look a little sickly, however, which could be considered in the spirit of Halloween, but I would have liked to have seen a deep, dark green. Same with the purple.

Now then, to the hot chocolate flavor itself. I ran into a problem right off the bat: Vile Villains Hot Chocolate does not contain any chocolate. No cocoa powder, nothing. Now, I understand the fundamental reason for this; cocoa is brown, and that would effect the color of the drink. I understand with the orange and the green, but if they had made the purple darker, couldn’t they have gotten away with adding some cocoa? And what about black? It seems like it would have been easy to incorporate cocoa powder into that. But hey, I wasn’t on the hot chocolate development team; who knows what hurdles they went through before they settled upon these choices.

Oddly, despite the absence of actual chocolate, the Vile Villains do possess a ghost of hot chocolate taste. The basic ingredients are sugar, nonfat dry milk, and non dairy creamer. This makes for a very sweet drink, and I think it’s the creamer that makes it taste a bit like hot chocolate.

My mom (who lovingly sent me these when I couldn’t find them at my local Walgreen’s) thought they were awful due to the lack of chocolate flavor, but I found them passable as a hot, sweet, milky drink. Then again, I may or may not have enjoyed a few sips of flavored creamer in my past, so perhaps I’m not quite right in the head.

In the end, the execution of packaging and coloring didn’t sit quite right with me, but I think kids would enjoy drinking hot “chocolate” that comes in a spooooky package and nontraditional colors. Temperatures are falling, Halloween is in full swing, and a hot sweet treat would probably satisfy most young palates. Adults will probably find the lack of chocolate flavor disappointing, unless they really enjoy the taste of non dairy creamer. I appreciate the effort to create a cool Halloween product, but Disney’s Imagineers could have put a little more thought into it. (Note: I doubt the Imagineers had anything to do with this product; I just wanted an excuse to use the term “Imagineers”.)

Vile Villains Hot Chocolate: Wonderfully Wacky Purple, Deceivingly Orange, and Heartless Green

• Score: 2 out of 5 totally kick-ass Maleficent dragons that should have been on the purple package
• Price: Freeeeeeeee! (Thanks Mom!)
• Size: 1.25 oz. package
• Purchased at: A Walgreen’s somewhere in Southern California
• Nutritional Quirks: No chocolate in the hot chocolate. Perhaps the largest quirk of all time.

If you’ve read this website for any amount of time, you know I appreciate a good piece of packaging, and Chips Ahoy! Brings it in spades. These are not just Chips Ahoy! cookies, they’re Chips Ahoy! Haunted Halloween cookies. BEWARE! It’s all black and orange and ghosts and bats and YEAH HALLOWEEN!

They didn’t just go all-out on the front and ignore the rest, however. There’s more! Tombstones and black cats! EERIE! (Chips Ahoy! are not very eerie, but I appreciate the sentiment.) BE AFRAID! (There’s not really much to be afraid of, besides maybe choking on a chocolate chip, which would be embarrassing.)

Even the ends get the spooky treatment. SPINE TINGLING! Love it.

On the other side, there’s even a recipe for Chips Ahoy! wiches, which a.) is a rather awkward name, and b.) totally should have been “witches”. There’s even a damn witch right next to the word! Chips, you dropped the ball. But I forgive you because your package is still 100% awesome.

I would have made the wi(t)ches, but I didn’t have any ice cream or Halloween sprinkles, and it just strikes me as odd to make ice cream sandwiches for myself. That’s a fun family activity. Just hanging out by myself with a pile of cookies and ice cream rolled in sprinkles seems sad. I don’t have enough cats to justify that.

“Have the guts to make it?” is also a lovely touch. I guess I just didn’t have the guts, though.

Oh hey, added bonus – there are cookies inside! I haven’t had a Chips Ahoy! in forever, but these seem smaller than I remember. If you don’t know what a Chips Ahoy! tastes like, well…it is a chocolate chip cookie. The crunchy kind, not the soft kind. Although there are Chewy Chips Ahoy! and I could probably put down a whole package of those. Oh, I just looked at their website, and I guess they have a “Chewy Gooey” kind now that has fudge inside and-

You know what, we’re getting off track here.

What sets apart Haunted Halloween Chips Ahoy! (can I stop with the exclamation point now?) from their regular chocolate chip cookies is the addition of little orange candy-coated bits of chocolate thrown in with the regular chocobits. Not exactly revolutionary, but look at them! They look about as Halloweeny as chocolate chips can look without being made out of bat wings and eyes of newt. Or some little ghost-shaped candies thrown on. Either way.

By appearances, you’d think the addition of the orange candies wouldn’t really make that much of a difference in the cookie, but I think they bring a little something to the cauldron. You can taste the candy shell, which adds a different sweetness than the cookie and the chocolate chips, and the added crunch is notable and rather fun. It’s not like the addition is groundbreaking (see: Keebler Chips Deluxe, every mom who has ever baked M&Ms into cookies), but it’s fun, and it’s Halloweeny, which is more than I can say for most other cookies. At least Chips Ahoy is trying.

And let’s not forget that packaging!

Chips Ahoy! Haunted Halloween Chocolate Chip Cookies

• Score: 4.5 out of 5 cauldrons full of cookie ice cream sandWITCHES
• Price: $2.50
• Size: 12.2 oz. package
• Purchased at: Walmart #3799
• Nutritional Quirks: No newts were harmed in the making of these cookies. As far as I know.

My Snack Rage started boiling. Okay, maybe not rage; more like Snack Annoyance. Spicy and cheese: not exactly an original concept. Buy hey, even if I’ve had those flavors about 50 different times, I still like them. So why not.

The definition of fusion is simple: the connection of two distinct things. There are many different types of fusion: there’s cell fusion, which is pretty important, since none of us would exist without it. There’s nuclear fusion, which creates things like supernovas and can also be used to kill us all.

One type of fusion I wish I’d never learned about via Wikipedia is tooth fusion, which is exactly what you would imagine it is, and makes me want to vomit. The picture just made things that much worse. Thanks a lot, Cheetos and Doritos. I’m pretty sure you weren’t responsible for the entry, but I’m going to go ahead and blame you anyway.

Fiery Fusion was not listed on Wikipedia, but Frito-Lay likes to make up catchy adjectives like “FANTASTIX!” to describe their food products, and I’m a fan of alliteration, so Fiery Fusion gets a pass. Right now they only have Sizzlin’ Cayenne & Cheese available under this label, but perhaps we will see future Fusions. I predict ranch will be involved. Always bet on ranch.

Doritos Fiery Fusion Sizzlin’ Cayenne & Cheese

Part of the reason I hated staring at these chips while I waited for the guy in front of me wearing the ragged shirt with 20 holes in it to finish paying for his case of Natty Ice in rolls of quarters was that the packaging is so ugly. Probably the ugliest I’ve seen in a long time. It’s like a sick mixture of what your puke looks like after you’ve drank cherry Nyquil and an unsuccessful hybrid color of nail polish I once made when I fancied myself a chemist and would try to mix different polishes to create the ultimate in nail coloration. If purple drank were this hue, Lil’ Wayne would probably have a lot more brain cells right now. Even rappers have aesthetic standards. Okay, that is a lie.

Fortunately, the chips themselves do not share this heinous color scheme. They are appropriately reddish-orange, and have a thick layer of flavor powder coating almost all the chips, which I like. The back of the bag says, “Get ready! The slow-burning fire of new Doritos Fiery Fusion chips is about to be unleashed on your unsuspecting mouth. Things might start smooth with the creamy flavor of cheese, but in no time your tongue will IGNITE with hot cayenne, jalapeño and spices.”

Bold words, Doritos. Surprisingly, I actually found these claims to be true. As I started eating, my first thought was, “Oh hey, these taste just like Spicy Nacho Doritos. How original.” However, as I continued munching, I did find the heat building beyond Spicy Nacho levels. My tongue did not literally ignite – if it had, I would call that a bad business move on Doritos’ part – but there was some definite heat that did blend well with the nacho cheese flavor. I couldn’t really differentiate the cayenne from the jalapeño from the spices, but I did enjoy the overall flavors.

Cheetos Fiery Fusion Sizzlin’ Cayenne & Cheese

The Cheetos bag carries the same ill-conceived color scheme as the Doritos, but there’s a little break at the top with Cheetos’ signature orange, plus there’s a picture of Chester looking super delighted as he prepares to sodomize an innocent wedge of cheese with a hot pepper. Seriously, he is going to pepper-fuck that cheese and he is loving it.

The back of the Cheetos bag reads a little different from the Doritos: “Chester’s at it AGAIN! This time combining the smooth flavor of cheese with a burning blend of hot cayenne, jalapeño and spices in new Cheetos Fiery Fusion snacks. It’s a spicy sensation!”

I like how Cheetos is always blaming/giving credit to Chester for their new flavors. “Chester’s at it AGAIN!” takes a more sinister turn given what I said in the paragraph above. “Oh that Chester, always playing the food fornication game! I wonder what two foods he will fuse via sodomy next!”

The Cheetos had the same slow build-up of heat as the Doritos, starting with the classic Cheetos cheese flavor and adding some heat as I munched along. The heat was not as intense as the Doritos, but I felt like I could actually taste more of the cayenne pepper, as opposed to just a generic heat. You can actually see some darker flecks on the Cheetos that don’t appear on the Doritos.

Overall, I liked Cheetos Fiery Fusion Sizzlin’ Cayenne & Cheese just a little more than the Doritos, if just for the more discernible cayenne flavor. Neither of the chips (or snacks in the case of Cheetos, whatever) disappointed; their claims of going from cheesy to spicy really did deliver. Is it the most original snack I’ve ever had? Well, no. Did someone on Frito-Lay’s marketing team let a blind person design the packaging images? Possibly. Will any of us ever be as happy as Chester is, inserting a pepper into a piece of cheese in a way that makes everyone around him uncomfortable? Probably not. But if you’re looking for a cheesy spicy snack, Fiery Fusion will satisfy. They won’t blow your mind, but they’ll satisfy.

Doritos Fiery Fusion Sizzlin’ Cayenne & Cheese

• Score: 3 out of 5 cringe-inducing tooth fusions
• Price: $0.99
• Size: 3 oz. bag
• Purchased at: Circle K #2821
• Nutritional Quirks: Nothing too crazy here. At least the chips weren’t the same color as the bag.

Cheetos Fiery Fusion Cayenne & Cheese Snacks

• Score: 3.5 out of 5 uncomfortable moments with Chester Cheetah
• Price: $0.99
• Size: 2 3/8 oz. bag
• Purchased at: Circle K #2821
• Nutritional Quirks: Can actually differentiate the cayenne flavor from “general spiciness”.

Heck, my very first review on Junk Food Betty was for Doritos Flavor Shots, and in the 2+ years I’ve been writing here, I’ve reviewed 11 different Doritos flavors. Cut me open and I bleed bright orange flavor powder.

Given all that, I obviously owe a debt of gratitude to Arch Clark West, the man who created Doritos. He got the inspiration while vacationing in San Diego, where he happened upon a small shack serving up fried corn tortilla chips. He took the idea back to what was then known as the Frito Company, and decided to spice the chips up a little with some seasoning. And thus, in 1964, the first flavor of Doritos, Taco Flavor, was born. (There’s a bit of controversy on what flavor actually came first, but you can read my review of the recently revived Taco Doritos here.)

Mr. West died on September 20^th in Dallas at the respectable age of 97, and his funeral will take place in Dallas on October 1^st. According to West’s daughter, those attending will have the opportunity to throw chips into the grave with West’s urn.

I couldn’t think of a more appropriate send-off.

Sources: The New York Times, Phoenix New Times