Tag Archives: limited edition

Junk Food

Limited Edition Choco Chip Oreo Cookies

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Limited Editon Choco Chip Oreo Cookies PackageIf I’m counting correctly, Choco Chip Oreos are the sixth Oreo to come out in 2016. An astonishing number. And yet, I’ve only reviewed one out of the other five. Why so lax? Why aren’t I on these like sugary creme on sugary cookie?

I’m just so Oreo-d out. I probably could have drummed up some interest in the Fruity Crisp ones, but I just never got around to them. My brain and my cupboard just didn’t have room for it.

But for some reason, these Choco Chip Oreos caught my attention. On the outside, it looks like a pretty boring premise, and not unlike the Limited Edition Cookie Dough Oreos from early 2014. But once you look deeper, it becomes somewhat of an Inception-esque cookie creation: The cookie part looks like chocolate chip cookies and the creme is “Choco Chip” flavored.

The sum of its parts is an Oreo, a cookie unto itself that has inspired countless knock-offs and mix-ins, that is masquerading as a chocolate chip creation, and entirely different type of cookie that also has countless mix-ins.

It has finally happened. Oreo has taken the cookie and folded it in upon itself, causing some sort of cosmic cookie implosion. This is the end, my friends. It’s been a good ride.

Okay, so that’s drastic. The cookie world will not end. In fact, there’s probably a PR being written right now about yet another Oreo cookie flavor. But for now, there is Choco Chip.

The name itself raises questions. Choco Chip could be a cutesy name, which is fine, but then Oreo really commits to the phrase by also calling the creme Choco Chip. I guess, unlike Cookie Dough Oreos, these are not made with “chocolatey chips”, which is also a dubious “ingredient”. Choco Chip just takes it one step further outside the zone of a real food item.

Limited Editon Choco Chip Oreo Cookies

When I opened the package I took a big ol’ whiff, and the smell was like the memory of chocolate chip cookies combined with something artificial…maybe the creme. It was an interesting olfactory sensation. It’s like chocolate chip cookies, but if this was a dystopian future and everyone had forgotten the recipe, so they just tried to make them from their grandmothers’ memories of their mothers’ kitchen.

Limited Editon Choco Chip Oreo Cookies Creme

As has been my habit when trying new Oreo flavors, I tried the cookie part first. I was pleasantly surprised to find that it did not, indeed, taste like a dystopian cookie memory; instead, it tasted like an almost-there Chips Ahoy! cookie. It had a very satisfying crunch – typical of an Oreo – and extra-crunchy bits that, while I had no illusions about being actual chocolate chips, added an extra layer of texture.

I’d honestly be curious to see how these Oreos stacked up against the newly-released Chips Ahoy! Thins.

But, as we all know, there’s two parts to an Oreo, and arguably the most important part is the creme filling. Like the cookie, it was flecked with a darker chocolate color, but again, these were not chocolate chips. Unlike the cookie, however, they added no different texture to the creme.

What was most notable about the filling was how much it didn’t taste like a chocolate chip cookie. Alone, it had a light, fake chocolate taste with a bit of an odd aftertaste, as well as Oreo’s typically over-sweet creme flavor.

Chocolate chip cookies have a distinct taste even without the chocolate chips, and the creme in Limited Edition Choco Chip Oreo Cookies totally failed to capture that flavor. It didn’t even manage to get a good chocolate flavor going.

The cookies, however, had a nice, chocolate chip cookie-esque flavor to them, which was bolstered by the crunchy texture and the added crunchy bits. I started to wonder if I was just imagining the extra crunchiness, so I ate way more Oreos than I usually can tolerate in an attempt to figure it out. My conclusion? I had a stomachache, and I’m pretty sure I wasn’t just imagining them.

When you eat a Choco Chip Oreo as a whole, you get a sad juxtaposition of good and bad, chocolate chip cookie and Choco Chip weirdness. If only they could have made the creme match the cookie; then they would have had a real powerhouse Limited Edition flavor on their hands.

I might just wind up twisting the rest of these apart, eating the cookies, and using the creme to make some sort of weird golem sculpture. After all, Halloween is right around the corner, friends!

Limited Edition Choco Chip Oreo Cookies

  • Score: 2.5 out of 5 Inceptioned creme golems
  • Price: $2.50
  • Size: 10.7 oz package
  • Purchased at: Walmart
  • Nutritional Quirk: The Choco Chip-iest ingredient listed is cocoa, which is depressingly far down on the list.
Junk Food

Hostess Key Lime Slime Twinkies and White Fudge Marshmallow Twinkies Limited Edition Ghostbusters

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Hostess Key Lime Slime Twinkies and White Fudge Marshmallow Twinkies Limited Edition Ghostbusters BoxHere we go, folks – not one, but TWO different Ghostbusters-themed Twinkies! It’s not what the world asked for, but it’s definitely what the world needs.

It feels like this is a thing that should have happened back in 1984, when the first Ghostbusters movie came out. The reason? This.

In case you can’t click that or you’ve never seen the original movie because you lived in a cave or you’re under 30 (and still living in a cave), Egon (the scientist nerd) uses a Twinkie as an analogy to let the rest of the Ghostbusters know how fucked they were by the amount of PKE (psychokinetic energy, DUH) in the city. He says that it would be like if the Twinkie he was holding was 35 feet long and 600 pounds.

To which Winston says “that’s a big Twinkie”, which I’m sure was repeated about 6,000 times around the water cooler the week after the movie came out, because nobody laughs harder than when your “joke” consists of regurgitating a line from a movie you just saw.

If the Internet had widely existed in 1984, I can’t believe Hostess wouldn’t have teamed up with the movie to get these Twinkies out there. But alas, 1984 was a simpler time. A time less crammed with weird promotional products.

It’s not like those things didn’t exist before the ol’ web – take your brain on a quick nostalgia trip and I’m sure you’ll remember Nintendo-themed cereal and the infamous Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Vanilla Puddin’ Pies – but back then, bizarre food was aimed at kids. Now it’s aimed at all of us.

And I love it, of course.

Key Lime Slime

Hostess Key Lime Slime Twinkie Limited Edition Ghostbusters

This had to be the easiest marketing meeting ever for Hostess. “When people think of Ghostbusters, they think of slime…what flavor rhymes with slime…C’MON PEOPLE, PUT YOUR THINKING CAPS ON!”

I love that you can see the green filling glowing ghoulishly through the Twinkie sponge cake. It’s like a subtle warning sign saying, “don’t open this ghost trap!”

Hostess Key Lime Slime Twinkie Limited Edition Ghostbusters Filling

In a fun twist, the Key Lime filling inside the Twinkie looks more neon and more like slime than the filling pictured on the package. The package looks sort of like the Twinkie is extruding Play-Doh; the real thing looks like a malevolent force crawling out of the snack cake.

The lime flavor of the cream is actually pretty mild, which was a nice surprise. It didn’t taste like a lime Skittle (RIP) was morphed into cream filling. That would have been jarring. It doesn’t taste exactly like a key lime pie, but there was a nice balance of lime and creamy vanilla.

I didn’t think I’d like Key Lime Slime Twinkies at all, minus the fact that they were slime-themed Twinkies. But the fact that they kept the lime toned down and mixed it with creamier flavors made it pleasantly snackable.

White Fudge Marshmallow

Hostess White Fudge Marshmallow Twinkie Limited Edition Ghostbusters

Here we have Amorphous White Blob, an out-of-focus picture of something that could be anything.

Sadly, this is a perfectly fine picture, but the amorphous part stands. White Fudge Marshmallow Twinkie isn’t winning any beauty pageants. But isn’t it what’s on the inside that counts?

This Ghostbusters Twinkie has a somewhat less straightforward description than Key Lime Slime: “White Fudge Covered Sponge Cake with Marshmallow Topping and Creamy Filling”. But wait, why isn’t the filling marshmallow-flavored? How is it topped with marshmallow but also covered with white fudge?

Hostess White Fudge Marshmallow Twinkie Limited Edition Ghostbusters Filling

Sure, the inside of White Fudge Marshmallow looks less threatening than Key Lime Slime, but there are surprises hidden in these white layers. If you look closely on top of the sponge cake, that’s not just an extra-thick layer of fudge – in between the white chocolate and the cake, there’s actually a layer of marshmallow!

Yes, that’s where the marshmallow is hiding. It’s like a super-thin Peep, or maybe a coconut-less Snoball (I don’t like coconut so I haven’t had one of those in ages).

This is a pretty inventive use of marshmallow, but that doesn’t mean it was good. It completely lacked the flavor of marshmallow, instead serving as a chewy, stretchy layer that threatened to tear apart the Twinkie from its white fudge covering, which was quickly melting between my fingers, creating a sticky mess.

Speaking of that white fudge, it completely dominated all the rest of the Twinkie flavors with it’s intense sweetness. If you enjoy the taste of regular Twinkie filling, you’ll never taste it here – it’s just sweet white fudge all the way down. Again, couldn’t they have made the filling marshmallow-flavored?

To me, the White Fudge Marshmallow Twinkie had a weird texture and was a sugar overload, but points for creativity and for giving the Stay Puft Marshmallow man a substantial amount of real estate on the front of the box.

I’m so happy that there are not one, but two limited edition Ghostbusters Twinkies. Key Lime Slime was a slam dunk idea with a surprisingly decent taste, but White Fudge Marshmallow was a step outside the box – plus it was a perfect homage to our friend Stay Puft. Flawed in flavor, but I could feel the heart was there. My hat’s off to you, Hostess.

Hostess Key Lime Slime Twinkies and White Fudge Marshmallow Twinkies Limited Edition Ghostbusters

  • Score(Key Lime Slime): 3.5 out of 5 obviously-absent Slimers
  • Score (White Fudge Marshmallow): 2 out of 5 hooray-inducing present Stay Puft Marshmallow Men
  • Price: $2.50 (each)
  • Size: 10 Twinkies (Key Lime Slime); 9 Twinkies (White Fudge Marshmallow)
  • Purchased at: Walmart
  • Nutritional Quirk: Honestly, nothing. It’s all just sugar and unpronounceable ingredients. At the end of the day, they are still Twinkies.
Junk Food

Limited Edition Hot Cocoa Chips Ahoy Cookies

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Limited Edition Hot Cocoa Chips Ahoy Cookies PackageAmidst all the candy canes and peppermint bark, a surprising new trend has emerged this Christmas as the frontrunner for this season’s flavor du jour: hot cocoa. Here are some of the things I’ve seen new this year that purport to have the flavor of that delicious beverage:

Hubba Bubba Hot Cocoa Bubble Gum
YoCrunch Marshmallow Hot Cocoa Yogurt
Angie’s Hot Cocoa Marshmallow Kettle Corn
Herr’s Crunchy Cocoa & Marshmallow Corn Snacks
Hot Chocolate M&Ms

Way to buck the trend there at the end going with hot chocolate, M&Ms.

While I’d like to be reviewing some of these items instead of just listing them, I’ve had a shortage of time and availability. I did manage to review Pizza Hut’s Hot Chocolate Brownie over at The Impulsive Buy, however.

When I found these Limited Edition Hot Cocoa Chips Ahoy! Cookies, I was stoked, because I’ve always liked Chips Ahoy. (I’m dropping the exclamation point from here on out because it just makes things confusing.)

I was even more stoked when I saw the suggestion that I heat for a treat. I’ve never been explicitly told by a cookie package to warm them up before. Besides, it’s cold outside (baby), so I could use a warm, chocolate treat to enjoy along with my vintage icicle Christmas lights.

If you look carefully on the package, these cookies actually have gooey innards that I assumed would melt once heated. I didn’t even notice that when I bought them. More anticipation!

Limited Edition Hot Cocoa Chips Ahoy Cookies

The side of the package instructed me to microwave two cookies on a paper towel for 6-7 seconds on high. Being a good junk food follower, I did just that. My cookies came out barely warm but smelling deliciously chocolately.

But my innards were far from gooey. Ignoring all precautions, I put the next cookies in for a whopping 20 seconds. I watched it from the side of my microwave, half expecting it to explode. It was actually sizzling when I took it out. And yet, pretty much the only thing that hadn’t melted was the filling. It did, however, leave an oily spot on the paper towel.

Limited Edition Hot Cocoa Chips Ahoy Cookies Inside

As with many chocolate things that are trying to taste like hot cocoa, these cookies did not taste like hot cocoa. They tasted like chewy chocolate cookies. But there was a distinct marshmallow flavor in there that I think came more from the creamy filling than the little white chips on top.

Hot Cocoa Chips Ahoy Cookies taste just fine straight out of the package, but warming them up goes a long way towards making you believe they actually taste like hot cocoa. While the inside didn’t melt even at high temperatures, it added a creamy dimension to the already chewy cookie as well as some marshmallow flavor. I’d recommend 9-10 seconds in the microwave for optimal cookie warmth.

These are a limited edition flavor, so I don’t know how long they’ll be around, but I suggest picking some up if you see them. I can definitely see munching on these with a mug of real hot cocoa while I open presents on Christmas morning.

Limited Edition Hot Cocoa Chips Ahoy Cookies

  • Score: 4 out of 5 dangerously sizzling cookies
  • Price: $2.00
  • Size: 10 oz.
  • Purchased at: Fry’s Foods
  • Nutritional Quirk: Contains actual marshmallow! Hooray!
Beverages

Jones Limited Edition Peanut Butter and Jelly Soda

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Jones Limited Edition Peanut Butter and Jelly Soda BottleThere was a time when Jones Soda was synonymous with weird food. Oh, sure, they were also one of the only current soda companies using pure cane sugar instead of high fructose corn syrup before it was cool to do so, but when I think Jones Soda, I think weird. And not just because of their Bacon Soda. Okay, a large part of it is because of Bacon Soda. But it goes back farther than that.

Sit down, kids, because I have a story to tell.

The year was 2004. Junk Food Betty was not even a gleam in my eye, but my heart already belonged to weird foods. It didn’t take any amount of effort to learn about Jones Soda’s Holiday Pack – it was all over the news and the Internet. Despite my crushing desire to try these sodas, which were Turkey & Gravy, Green Bean Casserole, Mashed Potato, Cranberry and Fruitcake, they were sold out immediately, and all I could do was read about them and sigh.

They did it again the next year, with some variations that were equally disgusting, but I was also not privy to that. There were a few more limited edition packs, the aforementioned Bacon Soda debacle, and a random Tofurkey & Gravy Soda year, but other than that, they’ve mostly stuck to Limited Edition Halloween flavors that are generally pedestrian or repeated over the years.

And then, out of nowhere – Limited Edition Peanut Butter and Jelly. I have many questions, like “Why now? And why not bring back those amazing Thanksgiving sets?” But really, I’m just giving thanks that Jones Soda is still keeping it weird, if only for a brief amount of time.

Here’s the description from Jones’ website: “PB&J…. The Jones Way! We took the popular kids sandwich and blended it up for our latest Limited Edition. Enjoy the flavor of Grape Jelly and peanut butter (and sleep well knowing we didn’t use any actual Peanuts or come in contact with peanut materials). This Limited Edition tastes great, whether for Kids who enjoy Peanut Butter and Jelly sandwiches, or adults reminiscing of their childhood.”

As someone with the mildest peanut allergy possible, I wouldn’t lose any sleep over the inclusion of real peanuts, although I would be more intrigued if they were included. I’m assuming actual grape jelly was also not used, but apparently Jones doesn’t care enough about people with life-threatening grape jelly allergies to mention that.

My mind was torn as to whether or not to pre-judge this soda as disgusting. On the one hand, peanut butter and jelly already has a sweet quality to it, and grape soda isn’t that bad. So there was a chance that it wouldn’t be that bad…right?

But on the other hand, it’s peanut butter and jelly soda. So things could, indeed, go very badly.

The label itself is both simple and adorable. The peanut butter side (chunky style, by all appearances, which is a bit unsettling when you’re about to be drinking the soda version of it) and the jelly side, moments before joining together in joyous edible copulation. I’m not making this sound any more appealing.

At least the color of the soda leans towards the jelly portion, a deep purple that suggests grape soda innocence. I appreciate that they didn’t go with the unhealthy-poop brown color of peanut butter. Small favors.

Jones Limited Edition Peanut Butter and Jelly Soda

Man, I wish I’d saved a dinosaur Welch’s jelly glass from my childhood, just for this occasion. Google it if you don’t know what the hell I’m blathering about.

I should really learn to stop smelling potentially-gross things before I taste them, but I can’t seem to help it. What my nostrils grabbed here was the unmistakable scent of grape jelly. Not grape soda. Grape motherfucking jelly.

And then I had to go and put it in my mouth, because I decided to start a website where I do that and then write about it.

Jones Limited Edition Peanut Butter and Jelly Soda Glass

Oh my god, immediately came the peanut butter. It was there, and it was fucking letting you know it. There was a moment when it first hit my tongue where I was fooled into thinking, “oh, this is very grape soda-ish”, and then BAM! Peanut butter takes over. Unmistakeable. My mouth was flooded with peanut butter, and then, after I swallowed, I got a grape jelly exhale out my nose. Oh my god, why is this happening.

And the peanut butter stuck around, too, just like real peanut butter sticking to your mouth. It doesn’t go away. It just clings to my taste buds, tormenting me long after I decided that three gulps was more than enough to really establish the flavor of this soda for review purposes.

Oh my gosh, it’s so bad, it won’t go away, even as I write this and have already put the glass down, far away from me. It’s not like good peanut butter, either. It’s like that super cheap peanut butter you find in off-brand Halloween candies shaped like dismembered body parts.

The jelly part tasted like melted jelly, which is bad. Why is this so bad? That shouldn’t be so bad, right? And yet, it is. I am actually making a sad face as I type this. It’s involuntary. My mouth is sending sad signals to my brain, probably wondering what it did to deserve this. I’m sorry, mouth. I’m so sorry. It was wrong of me to do this and you didn’t deserve it.

I really didn’t expect Jones Peanut Butter and Jelly Soda to be this bad, but it is, it’s so bad. I mean, I guess if you’re like, super into peanut butter and jelly, it might not be horrible, but Jones took two flavors that are so right for each other and turned them into an abomination. And then they added carbonated water.

I thought this might turn out okay, but I was very wrong. My forehead hurts from furrowing my brow. I am not aging gracefully. Thanks, Jones Soda.

Jones Limited Edition Peanut Butter and Jelly Soda

  • Score: 0.5 out of 5 “I guess if I only exhale the grape jelly it’s better”s
  • Price: $1.49
  • Size: 12 oz. bottle
  • Purchased at: Cost Plus World Market
  • Nutritional Quirk: It’s been made very clear that this soda contains no peanuts but it won’t leave my mouth whyyyyy
Beverages, Junk Food

Fearsome Foursome: Snak King Fright Bites Tortilla Chips, Jones Limited Edition Blood Orange Soda, Hershey’s Candy Corn Bar, Seattle Chocolates Dead Sea Salt Milk Chocolate Truffle Bar with Sea Salt and Toffee

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Snak King Fright Bites Tortilla Chips Bag Jones Blood Orange Soda Hershey's Candy Corn Bar Seattle Chocolates Dead Sea Salt BarHappy Halloween, everybody! I mentioned this before, but I didn’t get to review nearly the amount of stuff I wanted to review this month. And now, here we are, on the holiday itself. So get ready for a MEGA REVIEW.

Well, it’s not really mega, but I’m going to do short reviews of four different Halloween items. OooOOOOooo procrastination.

Snak King Fright Bites Tortilla Chips

Snak King Fright Bites Tortilla Chips Bag

I was so pleasantly surprised when I saw these at the store. Like I said in my Cheetos review, savory snacks just don’t get the spooky treatment like candy does, so this item deserves a shout-out. Way to go, Snak King. You are such a leader that you add “King of Snacks” underneath your logo, just in case people weren’t clear on that.

The bag itself is wonderfully spooky, with a strange, flat-topped vampire child, a ghost who appears very surprised or even scared by said vampire’s hair, a freaked-out tree, a happy Jack O’Lantern and a tombstone. Love it.

Snak King Fright Bites Tortilla Chips

And look at those goddamn chips. I expected to have a hard time finding properly shaped/intact examples, but a large amount of them were in this pristine condition. Not even a regular bag of Tostitos can accomplish that easily.

Of course, the color doesn’t effect the taste at all, and they’re actually decent as a tortilla chip. I expected the quality of the chip itself to suffer, but they were well-salted and on par with any other name-brand tortilla chip.

The only quibble I have is that they’re a little too lightweight to do any heavy lifting, like a salsa or guacamole. They worked well with cheese dip, with little eye hole leakage.

But who cares about that when you’ve got tortilla chips shaped like ghosts, pumpkins and bats, and all appropriately colored? If you’re not putting Fright Bites out at your Halloween party, you are clinically insane.

Jones Limited Edition Blood Orange Soda

Jones Limited Edition Blood Orange Soda Can

Apparently Jones released this can design and flavor last year also, but I missed it, so here we are. There were four available flavors and cans last year, but this year they only went with two – this and the zombie-themed Caramel Apple, which they were out of when I went to the store. This is probably for the best.

Count Vlah manages to look mildly scary but also comical at the same time, going with a bow tie instead of the traditional wrap around…thing fastened by an amulet. I just realized I have no idea what the hell that thing is called, if it even has a name. Maybe we should call this guy Professor Vlah instead.

Jones Limited Edition Blood Orange Soda

When I started pouring the soda into the glass, I almost had a spastic freakout because the soda looked pink. I could already imagine the thousand-word essay I would spew onto this page about how dare Jones make a Blood Orange soda pink and blah blah vlah. Fortunately for both myself and you, the end result was actually the appropriate shade of bright orange.

Jones Limited Edition Blood Orange Soda tastes like if orange Fanta grew up and moved out of its parents’ house. It’s mostly a regular orange soda, but the addition of real sugar that Jones always uses makes it much more clean and…mature, if you could possibly use such an adjective for orange soda. It also seemed a little more tart than other orange sodas.

I know a lot of people aren’t fans of orange soda, and Jones Blood Orange probably isn’t going to change your mind on that. But if you are a fan of the beverage, you’ll enjoy this iteration. Plus, you get to drink out of a vampire’s head.

Hershey’s Candy Corn Bar

Hershey's Candy Corn Bar Wrapper

This is a new item this Halloween, but just the idea of it didn’t thrill me. Oh boy, more candy corn in stuff that isn’t candy corn, which in itself already sucks!

I was also not thrilled by this packaging. It’s like Hershey’s either didn’t try at all, or tried too hard to look minimal and retro. If the latter is true, no kid is going to appreciate the effort. You’d score 1,000 more points by just throwing a zombie candy corn on the package. Instead, we get…stripes.

I guess the official name of this is Hershey’s Candy Corn Candy Corn Creme with Candy Bits. While that’s redundant, it did actually shatter my misconception that this was going to be white chocolate with candy corn bits. This only increased my trepidation.

Hershey's Candy Corn Bar

I gotta say, however, that the flavor really did surprise me. It took me a second to pin it down, because it wasn’t the generic, plastic candy corn taste I was expecting. It turns out that Hershey’s Candy Corn bar tastes a hell of a lot like cotton candy!

I have to assume this was a happy accident. I mean, I would have been a hell of a lot more stoked to see Hershey’s Cotton Candy, but that’s exactly what Hershey’s Candy Corn is.

It made my mouth confused, then happy, but then kind of sad again, because holy shit is this candy sweet. I ate one snack-sized bar and I felt overloaded with cloying sweetness. Also, while you can see the decorative little orange and yellow bits in the bar, they add nothing to the taste or texture. It would have been fun to have little crunchy bits in there.

So I wasn’t completely disgusted by Hershey’s Candy Corn bar, but that’s only because it tasted nothing like candy corn. If I got this in my trick-or-treat bucket, I’d probably toss it to the side, never to be seen again, and I’d never know that it tasted like cotton candy and ten pounds of sugar. Missed opportunity, Hershey’s.

Seattle Chocolates Dead Sea Salt Milk Chocolate Truffle Bar with Sea Salt and Toffee

Seattle Chocolates Dead Sea Salt Milk Chocolate Truffle Bar with Sea Salt and Toffee Wrapper

After eating Hershey’s, this sure does sound like some fancypants shit, doesn’t it! Truffles and sea salt and toffee, oh my!

I don’t usually go for these fancy chocolate bars, mostly because I’m not a chocolate fanatic, and also because I usually have enough sweets laying around from reviews to satiate any cravings I may have. But this guy was just too good to pass up.

Despite the muted color scheme, the eye is immediately drawn to this chocolate bar’s wrapper. It’s called Dead Sea Salt, and there’s a dancing skeleton on it! There’s also a cat, and like, fifteen different spooky fonts with random Halloweeny words like “bloodcurdling” and “fangs”. It almost looks like a geocities website, but somehow, the clutter totally works.

Seattle Chocolates Dead Sea Salt Milk Chocolate Truffle Bar with Sea Salt and Toffee

…Suffice to say that all the effort went into the packaging.

Seattle Chocolates Dead Sea Salt Milk Chocolate Truffle Bar with Sea Salt and Toffee Inside

No matter though, because that’s what made me buy the bar, so I guess it’s working! As for the taste itself, Seattle Chocolates brings the quality. The chocolate is rich, smooth and creamy, and there are crunchy toffee bits throughout that add great flavor and texture. The hint of salt is there just to add some flavor depth and a nice aftertaste.

That last sentence was me completely talking out of my ass. I don’t understand anything about fancy chocolates. I don’t even know where the “truffle” part came in. I just know that chocolate good, toffee good. Good bar. Good wrapper. Fangs.

Phew! While I wish I’d been able to spread this out over the month, I gotta say, marathoning it all out on Halloween day certainly got me in the spirit! Have a happy Halloween, boils and ghouls!

Junk Food

Limited Edition Marshmallow Crispy Oreo and Cookie Dough Oreo

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Limited Edition Marshmallow Crispy Oreo and Cookie Dough Oreo PackagesNabisco has really gone off the rails with their Oreo flavors. If I sound like a broken record, that’s because Nabisco has really gone off the rails with their Oreo flavors. This makes it really hard to come up with something unique to say about all these new Oreo flavors. Don’t get me wrong – I love variety. But this is getting exhausting. So exhausting I’d just like to get down to business. Cookie business.

Marshmallow Crispy Oreo

Limited Edition Marshmallow Crispy Oreo Package

Right off the bat, Marshmallow Crispy Oreos and I start off on the wrong foot. Upon seeing the package, all I wanted was a Rice Krispies Treat, and then I wanted an Oreo-shaped Rice Krispies Treat sandwich with Oreo filling.

Knowing from the package that neither of these are what I would find inside, I swallowed my prejudice, as it were, and dove into what registered-trademark-respecting Marshmallow Crispy Oreos really are.

Limited Edition Marshmallow Crispy Oreo

I have to say, first impressions were pretty damn close to what the picture on the package promises: a Golden Oreo with marshmallow filling that contains little crispy bites.

Since I figured I’d get the best impression of the filling by doing what everyone does with their Oreos, which is lick the crème, I…licked the creme.

Limited Edition Marshmallow Crispy Oreo Creme

It makes me mildly uncomfortable to put a picture of something I licked with my disgusting human saliva on the Internet, but I was so impressed with the number of crispy bits in the filling that I had to share. The open, un-licked cookie just doesn’t do it justice.

Defying the odds, the crunchy bits stayed crunchy in the creme and had that Rice Krispies-esque taste and texture. The creme itself did have a bit of a marshmallow taste to it, but it was a lot sweeter and came closer to the flavor of regular Oreo filling than I would have liked.

Unfortunately, that “regular Oreo” feeling came full circle when I ate a Marshmallow Crispy Oreo as a whole. The two Golden Oreo cookies already had a bunch of crunchiness to them, which made the crunchy bits in the creme pretty much disappear.

If you ask me, the best way to truly enjoy Marshmallow Crispy Oreos is to eat the filling separately and then use the Golden Oreo cookies to…uh…I dunno, dip into some cake frosting and then go into a complete sugar coma? That’s the only way I can think of to really make Marshmallow Crispy Oreos stand out from regular Golden Oreos.

Cookie Dough Oreo

Limited Edition Cookie Dough Oreo Package

If you’re to fall for the packaging on these cookies, the Cookie Dough Oreo looks a hell of a lot like a chocolate cookie, and is “made with chocolatey chips”. This verbiage sends up red flags, as “chocolately chips” sounds a lot like “not actual chocolate chips” or maybe “chips, but not really chocolate in nature”.

Limited Edition Cookie Dough Oreo

Upon opening my first cookie, I feared I’d never know the truth either way, as there did not appear to be any chips of chocolatey or chocolatey non-chips at all.

Limited Edition Cookie Dough Oreo 2

I tried a second cookie at random and found it to be a little more cookie dough-looking.

I’ve eaten my share of cookie dough back in the day, laughing in the face of E. coli or salmonella or whatever the hell they say is wrong with eating raw cookie dough. Given that I’m pretty sure my bones are made of expired Slim Jims and my blood is mostly processed cheese sauce, I just don’t have these kinds of concerns. I’m sure one day this will come back to haunt me, possibly in the form of coming back up to haunt me, but I like to live dangerously.

Enough about telling kids it’s okay to eat raw eggs; the point here is that I know what cookie dough tastes like, and I can definitively say that none of the flavors of this dangerous but delectable treat are present in Cookie Dough Oreos. There’s not even a chocolate chip texture.

In fact, the creme in these cookies tastes kind of like…a mocha caramel coffee drink? What the hell?

I was so flummoxed by this that I broke my rule of not reading other people’s reviews until I’d posted my own and went in search of other people’s opinions on these cookies, certain that somehow my tongue had gone haywire. Sure enough, The Impulsive Buy shared my sentiments almost exactly, reassuring me that I had not had a stroke.

That said, mocha caramel coffee Oreos are delicious. The problem, obviously, is that these are not Mocha Caramel Coffee Oreos, these are Cookie Dough Oreos, and, given that, they fail everything that cookie dough actually is, taste- and texture-wise.

Both Marshmallow Crispy Oreos and Cookie Dough Oreos disappointed my taste buds on some level. The former with its lack of distinct marshmallow flavor and disappearing crunchy bits, and the latter with its lack of chocolate chips and, well, cookie dough-ness.

That said, I’m not kicking either of these limited edition flavors out of my cupboard. Unlike Limited Edition Watermelon Oreos, there’s absolutely nothing offensive about either flavor. While Marshmallow Crispy is just rather pedestrian, Cookie Dough is straight rockin’, although not for any reasons its namesake would imply. Given that neither will be around long, I encourage readers to give them both a try.

Limited Edition Marshmallow Crispy Oreo and Cookie Dough Oreo

  • Score (Marshmallow Crispy): 3 out of 5 trademark infringements.
  • Score (Cookie Dough): 3.5 out of 5 WHY AREN’T THESE CARAMEL COFFEE OREOS
  • Price: $3.00 each (on sale; regular price $3.69 each)
  • Size: 12.2 oz.
  • Purchased at: Safeway #1717
  • Nutritional Quirks: Chocolate is the last ingredient listed in Cookie Dough Oreos. “Chocolatey”, indeed.
Junk Food

Jack Link’s Sriracha Beef Jerky and Burrito Beef Jerky

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Jack Link's Sriracha Beef Jerky and Burrito Beef Jerky PackagesUsed to be, if you wanted some beef jerky from the store, you had very limited flavor choices. These were usually Original, Peppered, and Teriyaki. But, much like everything else in the snack aisle, jerky options have exploded in recent years.

BBQ? Psh, of course. Jalapeño? Yep. Hickory Sweet A1 Steakhouse? I’m not sure what half of that even means, but it’s probably out there.

Jerky doesn’t even imply cow these days; you can easily find turkey jerky on store shelves, and bacon jerky, because if you can bacon it it’s gonna get baconed.

If you want to get real crazy, there’s websites out there that will ship you jerky made from alligators and ostriches and like, I dunno, platypus or something.

When I was growing up, we had a meat store right around the corner. I think it’s technically called a butcher shop, but the sign on the building just said MEAT in huge letters, so I thought of it as the meat store.

Amazing beef jerky came from the meat store. It wasn’t fancy; it was just quality. As you may imagine, ever since the meat store closed long ago, I’ve found store-bought jerky to be lacking. Too thick, too thin, too tough, too “this jerky is actually slicing up my gums” (that one is the worst).

Rather than live in a jerkyless world out of pure petulance, I’ve learned to adapt. And with new flavors coming out all the time, at least it keeps my mouth entertained.

Two of the newest flavors to grace the dried meat family are Jack Link’s Sriracha and Burrito. Both of these were intriguing to me, for reasons I hope are obvious.

Jack Link’s Sriracha Beef Jerky

Jack Link's Sriracha Beef Jerky Package

Sriracha is the new darling of the Internet, and if you can somehow incorporate the Asian hot sauce into your food product, I would consider it wise to do so. They’ve used it in everything from potato chips to popcorn. I’m pretty sure Kellogg’s is trying to figure out how to make sriracha cereal as we speak.

From Jack Link’s website: “Jack Link’s Sriracha Beef Jerky is packed with an explosion of hot chili peppers and garlic. This limited edition flavor will keep you comin’ back for more.”

The back of the bag expounds: “Jack Link’s Sriracha Beef Jerky is made with premium cuts of lean beef and seasoned with hot chili peppers, garlic and other traditional spices for an authentic Sriracha flavor.”

Jack Link's Sriracha Beef Jerky

The sriracha beef jerky is indeed hot, but it falls into that unfortunate but all-too-familiar category of “spicy hot but tastes nothing like the hot sauce it’s supposed to taste like”.

Sriracha has a unique flavor of, as Jack Link said, chili peppers and garlic, but their beef jerky just tastes generically spicy. If you blindfolded me, I’d never guess the sriracha was in there.

It’s a tasty, spicy jerky, but sriracha it is not.

Jack Link’s Burrito Beef Jerky

Jack Link's Burrito Beef Jerky Package

How could I not be interested in Burrito Beef Jerky? It sounds at once both awesome and terrifying. It also makes one wonder how it came to exist. How does burrito-flavored beef jerky go from the brainstorm room to shelves? I really would have liked to have been a fly on the wall for that one.

Just thinking about shoving a burrito’s flavor into beef jerky makes me laugh. It’s hard to be scared when you can’t stop being amused.

Mr. Link’s website description: “¡Ay, caramba! Jack Link’s limited edition Burrito Beef Jerky has an authentic south-of-the-border flavor creating the ultimate burrito experience.”

Yeah, guys? Gonna go with “¡Ay, caramba!” Do we really have to bring 1992 Bart Simpson into this whole thing?

Jack Link's Burrito Beef Jerky

After I tasted Jack Link’s Burrito Beef Jerky, I checked the back of the bag. “Jack Link’s Burrito Beef Jerky is made with premium cuts of lean beef, expertly seasoned with chili peppers, onion and garlic for an authentic burrito flavor.”

Sound familiar? Yeah.

That said, I actually liked the burrito jerky. Did it taste like a burrito? Of course not, it’s beef fucking jerky. But the garlic and onion flavors were really prominent, which tasted great with the peppers, which are much more subdued here than in the Sriracha Beef Jerky.

Both Sriracha and Burrito Beef Jerky are part of Jack Link’s new Limited Edition Wild Side flavors, which consist of these flavors and…uh…well, just these flavors, at least for now. What could be next for the Wild Side? Shrimp Cocktail Beef Jerky? Spaghetti Beef Jerky?

While I found that neither Jack Link’s Sriracha nor Burrito Beef Jerky actually tasted like their namesake, both were enjoyable. Sriracha packed in a good amount of heat, although not the actual flavor of the hot sauce.

Burrito never had a chance of tasting like burrito, but surprised me with the amount of garlic, and how well it worked with the onions and peppers. Jack would have done himself a favor by ditching the weird-ass Burrito moniker and going with a simple “Garlic and Pepper” type name.

Sometimes simple is best. Even if Burrito Beef Jerky still makes me laugh.

Jack Link’s Sriracha Beef Jerky and Burrito Beef Jerky

  • Score (Sriracha): 3.5 out of 5 platypus jerkies
  • Score (Burrito): 4 out of 5 eatings of my shorts
  • Price: $3.98
  • Size: 3.25 oz. bag
  • Purchased at: Walmart
  • Nutritional Quirks: “Burrito” not listed as an ingredient in the Burrito Beef Jerky. I CALL FALSE ADVERTISING
Junk Food

Lay’s Wavy Original Potato Chips Dipped in Milk Chocolate

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Lay's Wavy Original Potato Chips Dipped in Milk Chocolate BagPeople (and by people, I mean the Internet, of course) seem to be all in a tizzy over these new Lay’s Wavy Original Potato Chips Dipped in Milk Chocolate. When I first heard of them, I thought they sounded gross. But the more I thought about it, the more they made sense. Sweet and salty snacks have been around for quite a long time.

Kettle corn. Chocolate-covered pretzels. To be even more specific, Ben & Jerry’s Late Night Snack ice cream has “fudge-covered potato chip clusters”, and it’s been a popular flavor for years now. Heck there’s even a Wikipedia entry for chocolate-covered potato chips, which is definitely not the oddest Wikipedia page I’ve ever seen, but doesn’t exactly seem necessary.

In light of all this, LWOPCDiMC really don’t seem that crazy, after all. I guess it’s just the idea that this is the first time a snack titan like Frito-Lay has taken it on. It’s also a limited edition item, and given the season, I’m guessing you’re supposed to eat them for Christmas?

The packaging certainly isn’t Christmasy, but it does has a pleasing aesthetic. Lay’s managed to cram four different fonts into the chips’ name, but they all have a nice flow to them, as does the background. Despite being rather monochromatic, it has a certain elegance to it, like a glass Christmas tree ornament with a delicate filigree design. It’s the belle of the chip aisle ball.

It was a little disconcerting to pick up a snack-sized bag of chips and have it feel so…hefty. That was the chocolate at work, obviously. I didn’t see any full-sized bags of LWOPCDiMC, which made sense when I thought about it; the weight of so many chocolate-covered chips might end up crushing the bottom ones.

With the idea of chocolate-covered potato chips settling more easily in my mind, several key questions arose, and I was ready to get under the mistletoe with these chips.

Lay's Wavy Original Potato Chips Dipped in Milk Chocolate

The picture on the front of the bag led me to believe that these were chocolate covered chips. I should have paid attention to the super-long name of the product. These are chips dipped in chocolate. And in an interesting way: I would have expected one end to be dipped, but instead, one side was dipped.

One of my key questions was, what is the quality of the chocolate? The answer, as best as I can describe, is “middlin’”. There’s an obvious hierarchy of big-name chocolate, and I would put it well above Palmer, but just a step below Hershey’s.

The quantity of the chocolate on each chip was substantial. Despite having one side of the chip (mostly) naked, the layer of chocolate was quite thick, and also quite rich.

The chocolate and chip dynamic was interesting. Lay’s was going for a sweet/salty dynamic, and while there was some salty undertones to cut through the chocolate, it didn’t seem nearly as salty as a regular Wavy Lay’s chip. It was also hard to detect the flavor of the potato chip under all that chocolate.

What the chip did add was a welcome crunch. The thickness of Wavy Lay’s bore the brunt of the chocolate well, and I was impressed at the amount of completely intact chips in the bag. They weren’t quite as crunchy as the chips would have been on their own, but the combination of chocolate and crunch worked great together. It was kind of like eating a thin Crunch bar.

I half expected to dislike Lay’s Wavy Original Potato Chips Dipped in Milk Chocolate, but I was pleasantly surprised to be proven wrong. The chocolate was of a fair quality, and the Lay’s Wavy chips added a bit of salt and, best of all, a crunch that worked perfectly with the sweetness of chocolate.

I would have liked to have had a bit more of a balance between the two – I found the chocolate a little too rich to eat a whole bag at once, and the potato flavor of the chip got overwhelmed by its sweet counterpart. All in all, however, I think anyone who enjoys a sweet treat with a bit of salt would enjoy Lay’s Wavy Original Potato Chips Dipped in Milk Chocolate.

LWOPCDiMC don’t strike me as a gimmick or one of those things people would eat for the weird factor. These chips are something you could set out at your Christmas party that people who like chocolate with a bit of salt and crunch would enjoy just for what they are.

Lay’s Wavy Original Potato Chips Dipped in Milk Chocolate

  • Score: 3.5 out of 5 gettin’ intimate with potato chips under the mistletoe
  • Price: $3.49
  • Size: 5 oz. bag
  • Purchased at: Target (exclusive)
  • Nutritional Quirks: Get ready to satisfy 22% of your recommended daily saturated fat needs with just one ounce of chips. Hey, ’tisn’t the season for eating healthy, people.
Junk Food

Ben & Jerry’s Cotton Candy Ice Cream

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Ben & Jerry's Cotton Candy Ice Cream CartonCotton candy brings up mixed emotions for me. I realize that is probably the stupidest sounding sentence ever, but it’s true.

On the one hand, I think cotton candy is genius. Here’s a crazy paper cone with a bunch of what amounts to a spider web spun out of pure sugar on it!

On the other hand, spider webs are gross and sticky when they get on you, and so is cotton candy. One of my biggest pet peeves is having sticky hands.

Cotton candy is often associated with the fair. I hate the fair. Oh sure, it’s supposed to be fun, but to me, it’s just a giant mash of sweaty bodies, hay, and sad livestock. Fuck the fair.

I once volunteered at a booth at my local street fair, which is a different beast, in that it had no beasts. Or hay. I was in charge of making cotton candy cones, which was awesome for the first ten minutes, and then my arms started to hurt and the screaming children and people drunk on German beer made me remember why I don’t volunteer for things.

But on the third hand, I’m pretty fuckin’ good at spinning cotton candy, which is something I should really add to my résumé. Minus the “fuckin’” part. Because that would be unprofessional.

Check out that carton, though. B&J really knows how to make their flavors look fun. Their signature cow is holding some cotton candy, which is pretty amazing given that it’s a cow. Despite a lack of facial expression, she looks like she’s having a great time. Even though I hate the fair, I want to hang out with her. We could ride that Ferris wheel. Maybe I could win her a goldfish in a plastic bag. I’m not sure what she’d do with it, but I know she’d be delighted.

As if cotton candy wasn’t a fun enough flavor, Ben & Jerry upped the ante with candy sprinkles! Check that, it’s not just Cotton Candy Ice Cream with Candy Sprinkles, it’s Cotton Candy Ice Cream loaded with Candy Sprinkles!

Who doesn’t like candy sprinkles? They make pretty much everything better. Donuts. Cupcakes. I’m well into adulthood and I still have to resist buying Funfetti frosting, just because I remember those little multicolored chips being so awesome.

Tiny Tangent Time: I went to look up Funfetti frosting, and it was not what I remembered. The current incarnation of Pillsbury’s Funfetti frosting just has a container of sprinkles on top. The Funfetti I remember had little mini-chips of candy in it, yet I couldn’t find Funfetti like that anywhere on the Internet. Not even an old picture.

What I did find, however, were cans of Betty Crocker Rainbow Chip frosting, which just made me confused. The can was boring, and I distinctly remember the exciting look of Pillsbury’s Funfetti can as the can that contained the frosting I so loved.

I even went so far as to email my mom about this dilemma, since she was the one who made me oh-so-many graham cracker sandwiches containing what I thought was rainbow chip Funfetti frosting. Thank goodness my mom accepted my weirdness a long time ago; otherwise, an email with the subject line “Can You Help Me with Funfetti Frosting?” might raise some eyebrows.

I don’t know if it was a result of mutual hysteria, something my mother and I often share, but she completely agreed and was adamant that those little chips were Funfetti, and even agreed about the can design. But the Internet seems determined to prove us both wrong.

If you’ve managed to survive reading the last four paragraphs about frosting dilemmas, and can shed any light on this situation, please leave a comment! The Funfetti Question is now haunting me.

[Edit: If you read the comments section here, it seems like my mom and I are not alone in our memories. Credit my friend Andy for the link!]

Okay, seriously. Back to the ice cream.

Ben & Jerry's Cotton Candy Ice Cream

Soooo, I should have deduced this from the carton, but I was too enamored with the opposable-hooved cow and the idea of riding the Ferris wheel with her that I kind of ignored what the ice cream actually looks like.

The carton’s color scheme is pretty accurate, but seeing it in person, it’s a little off-putting. The cotton candy ice cream is, well, cream-colored, and the candy sprinkles are what I would describe as light magenta and pale indigo. I understand that they needed the ice cream to contrast with the sprinkles, but a blue or pink base for the ice cream itself would have been fun. I also would have liked the sprinkles to be brighter. Also, they weren’t exactly loaded in there, but they weren’t sparse, either.

For being little more than spun sugar, cotton candy does have a distinctive flavor, and Ben & Jerry’s brings it to life in ice cream form, which is not surprising. They almost always nail their flavor, for better or worse.

In this case, I’d say it’s both. Have you ever gotten a tummy ache from eating too much sweet stuff at the fair? If you’ve ever been to the fair as a kid, the answer is probably yes.

That’s what B&J’s Cotton Candy Ice Cream is like. The first couple of bites are like, yeah, this totally tastes like cotton candy! But as I continued to eat, it became, yeah, this is like, when I’m almost done with a cone of cotton candy and I can feel a ball of concentrated sugar in my stomach. They nailed the flavor, but they did it too well. It’s so rich I could never imagine having a whole bowl of the stuff. (Although really, who eats B&J’s out of a bowl, anyways?)

Ben & Jerry's Cotton Candy Ice Cream Sprinkles

But what about those loaded sprinkles? I’m sad to report that not only did they not add any extra flavor to the party, their texture was barely distinguishable from the ice cream itself. I would get a little hint of candy crunch on some bites, but for the most part it seems like they assimilated with the ice cream and lost all their crunchy powers, rendering them not much more than decorative dots.

So many things went right and wrong with Ben & Jerry’s Cotton Candy Ice Cream. They nailed the flavor, but it was too rich to really dig into. They had fun-colored sprinkles, but the base color was unappealing, and while the sprinkles looked like they should have crunched like Nerds, they just disappeared into the ice cream. The carton promised fun fair times with a cool cow, but instead I felt like sitting down on one of the dirty picnic benches and waiting for my stomach to recover.

I hate the fair.

Ben & Jerry’s Cotton Candy Ice Cream

  • Score: 2.5 out of 5 opposable-hooved cows
  • Price: $2.98
  • Size: 1 pint
  • Purchased at: Walmart #3799 (Walmart exclusive)
  • Nutritional Quirks: At 23 grams of sugar per 1/2 cup, it’s definitely living up to cotton candy sugar standards!
Junk Food

Limited Edition Watermelon Oreos

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Limited Edition Watermelon Oreo PackageYou know that thing where your brain starts writing suicidal checks that your body knows it will never cash? That was me, walking to the grocery section of Target for the fourth time, thinking to myself, “If they don’t have Watermelon Oreos today, I’m going to kill myself.”

This obviously did not happen, since I am still here.

I kept being promised by red-shirted employees, who sounded like they actually knew what they were talking about, that the Oreos would be in stock the next day. On the first day, here’s how my morning started:

Me: “I have to go to Target today.”

Husband: “Uh, okay. Why?”

Me: “I have to get Watermelon Oreos.”

Husband [pause]: “I would have rather you told me you were going to go bang your secret boyfriend in the filthy Target public bathroom than tell me you’re going to spend actual money on Watermelon Oreos. That is disgusting.”

Unfortunately, there was neither gross secret-boyfriend banging nor Oreos on that day.

On the second try, I was so pissed off that I bought an iced coffee from the in-store Starbucks. I’m not sure who I thought I was committing revenge on, besides my wallet, but it made sense at the time.

On the third strike (after being told the second time that they’d definitely be there that weekend), I told Target it was lucky it was so close to my house because if my Regrets Per Mile were any higher, the building would be burning to the ground.

A smarter person would have learned after the first time to just call the store before going, but I kept being fed creamy broken promises sandwiched between two cookies of sheer hatred towards calling retail customer service.

As you can tell, I finally found success. Unfortunately, my secret boyfriend had the day off and the bathrooms were out of service. But I got what I really came for, which is a cookie meant to taste like a large summertime fruit.

The Internet Hype Machine is in full force on this one, for reasons I can’t quite understand. Oreos have already gone Birthday Cake, Candy Corn and Gingerbread. I guess once the machine gets rolling it’s hard to stop.

There’s also some talk about Limited Edition Watermelon Oreos being racist, which is pretty much the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard. Oh, okay, there’s a stereotype about black people liking watermelon. You know who else likes watermelon? Children. Adults. College kids who fill them with vodka.

I’d like to think Nabisco was aiming a little more innocently on this flavor; namely, “Watermelon is a classic summer flavor and it’s also a weird filling choice for Oreos. Let’s do this.”

Actually, the exact wording that I found is, “’We chose Watermelon because it is a fun, summer flavor that goes great with the Golden OREO cookie,” Oreo spokesperson Kimberly Fontes told TIME.

She left out the part about the hype, but I think it’s implied.

Internet blah blah-ing aside, let’s take a look for ourselves.

First off: packaging. I like that Oreo generally sticks to the formula of “blue packaging for chocolate Oreos, yellow packaging for Golden Oreos.” It makes it easy to identify what’s what on store shelves, especially since Oreo has come out with 700 different flavors/styles now.

The rest of the packaging is simple but effective: a giant slice of watermelon dominates, with a little untwisted Watermelon Oreo off to the side. It’s bright, it’s colorful, and it screams summertime.

Golden Oreos were the obvious choice for this flavor, because it’s basically a vanilla-ish sugar cookie, which fits a watermelon-flavored filling much better than chocolate would. Plus, it contributes to the overall color scheme.

As you can see, the creme is half-green, half-pink. Pretty much a no-brainer. My only lament, which I’m pretty sure other reviewers have already expressed, is the lack of tiny little black specks to represent watermelon seeds. C’mon, guys, those seeds are iconic. You could argue that these are seedless Watermelon Oreos, but if you did so, I would laugh in your face because we’re talking about a fucking cookie and you’re sperging out about semantics. Which would make me a hypocrite, because that’s exactly what I’m doing right now.

Furthermore, the watermelon slice on the package has seeds. Oreo, you know we’re going to be twisting off that top. Make the effort. Plus, some teensy crunchy candies would just add to the fun.

Then again, I may be putting the cart before the horse, here. You’re not really going to care about missing black specks if you’re busy vomiting into your kitchen sink because Limited Edition Watermelon Oreos are so disgusting.

Limited Edition Watermelon Oreo In Package

I wasn’t sure what to expect when I opened my package of Watermelon Oreos, but what I was least expecting is what I got – the sweet, bakery-like smell of Golden Oreos. Not a hint of watermelon in sight. Or sniff, rather.

The second thing I did, of course, was twist the top off, because that’s what you do with an Oreo. The inside looked pretty much like the package advertised – a swirly half-green, half-red creme, just like the color scheme of a real watermelon.

Limited Edition Watermelon Oreo Cookies

Well, not exactly. It’s more like mégot pastèque à l’aquarelle. In case you don’t speak French, that translates to “watermelon butt in watercolor”. At least, that’s what Google tells me; I don’t actually know French. I just wanted to sound fancy. With butt-shaped creme jokes.

I then licked the creme and was instantly hit with a familiar flavor – Watermelon Jolly Ranchers. It tasted obviously artificial and nothing like a real watermelon, but it was definitely distinct. It also wasn’t overly sweet, which I liked.

What I didn’t like was pretty fundamental – watermelon-flavored creme. I’m not adverse to artificial watermelon candy; I actually like Watermelon Jolly Ranchers and Watermelon Jelly Bellies.

When I ate the Watermelon Oreo as a whole cookie, an interesting phenomenon occurred. While the watermelon flavor was strong when tasting the creme straight, it became remarkably muted when paired with the Golden Oreo cookies. The cookies themselves have a quite sweet and vanilla flavor, and the watermelon took a back seat to this, for which I was thankful. It was odd that the creme had such a strong flavor on its own but diminished so easily when eaten with the cookies.

After eating four of the cookies, I was left with an uneasy feeling that was both inexplicable and familiar. I was suddenly reminded of Watermelon Jelly Belly Pudding Snacks. I don’t know what it is, but it seems like there’s a place for artificial watermelon flavor, and that place is neither cookie creme nor pudding.

Nabisco nailed that artificial watermelon flavor, so I have to give them points for that. But on the other hand, Watermelon Oreos are just…not necessary. I appreciate the summertime marketing ploy and weird-factor hype, but the actual taste of the creme just didn’t sit well with me. Paired with the cookies, the toned-down flavor got a little better, but overall, it was just too bizarre for my taste buds.

But hey, at least I didn’t barf.

Limited Edition Watermelon Oreo

  • Score: 2 out of 5 watercolor butts
  • Price: $2.99
  • Size: 15.25 oz. package
  • Purchased at: Target (exclusive)
  • Nutritional Quirks: It’s a fucking Watermelon Oreo. Need I say more?

Other reviewers who seemed to like these more than I did: The Impulsive Buy, Food Junk, Junk Food Guy, Brand Eating