Slap Me On the Tongue

I find that the ability to review sour snacks comes and goes with the seasons. Sometimes there’s a good batch of holiday snacks (like for Christmas or Halloween). Other times some new upstart will arrive on the scene, or a brand will desperately try to reinvigorate a candy to attract new eyes. I can go months without seeing anything new, and then a glut of new flavors, ideas, and brands will show up and suddenly I have all kinds of things to review. This October is one of those kinds of months.

I have three new snacks (or, at least, new to my area) to review, and we’re going to take them all on to see if any of them are worthy sour successors or just more candy duds.

Shaq-a-licious Sour XL Gummies

It’s fascinating to me that Shaquille O’Neal has somehow had a career that far outstripped his time as a basketball player. The man commonly called Shaq was good at basketball, although when you’re over seven feet tall it’s hard to be bad at basketball. Being seven feet tall makes you good at a lot of sports, like volleyball (where you can stand near the next, drink a beer, and deflect anything without trying) or basketball (where you’re already closer to the net), and Shaq used that natural gift to have a long and successful career in the sport. But he also looked to broaden his time in the spotlight, starring in some films (like Kazaam), getting his own video game (Shaq-Fu), and eventually becoming a company head and spokesperson for the likes of Papa Johns and Reebok. Some of these ventures make sense. Others do not.

Shaq-a-licious gummies is one of those ventures that doesn’t make sense. Sure they’re extra large gummies (because Shaq is extra large) and some of them come in the shape of his face (which is just weird), but… why Shaq? WHat about Shaq says, “yes, this man can have a candy kids will love.” He’s not Mr. Beast (which is also a good thing since Shaq, unlike Mr. Beast, doesn’t have a face you want to punch) but he’s also not that popular, is he? He’s Shaq. He was famous in the 2000s. Do people care about Shaq? Really?

Whatever the case, his gummies aren’t that great. Nothing about these sour gummies really feels special. The size I find to be a detriment, in point of fact, because these aren’t gummies you can pop in your mouth and chew. They’re large, forcing you to bite into them, to hold them, to slowly work through them. Some might like to have the ability to hold and savor their candies, and that’s fair, but I don’t want to do that with a gummy that’s getting sour powder stuck to my fingers. It’s not pleasant.

Beyond that, these things don’t taste great. Their flavors are distinctly fake, with an almost noxious edge to them. The Green Watermelon is especially bad, and after taking one bite of the gummy I wanted to stop (but I did finish the whole thing, just for a fair review). They’re also not sour in the slightest, despite the sour coating on them. These are sour candies that say they’re sour but barely even count as “tart”. They’re disappointing in all respects, large in size but lacking in that yum factor that makes me want to go back for more.

Sour Patch Kids Glow Ups

If the Shaq candies were disappointing, the Sour Patch ones were outright gross. I like Sour Patch Kids generally, finding them to be fun, little gummies that pack solid flavor. Something happened to the mix, though, when they went for the glow up, though, because these glow in the dark candies are gross. Worse, they lack the sour bite that Sour Patch Kids are known for. Something very wrong happened here.

The candies come in a bag in two flavors, Strawberry and Watermelon. Of the two, strawberry tastes better because it at least has the identifiable flavor. Yes, it’s “red”, but the red berry of their fake strawberry is generally good. The watermelon, though, is really gross. It doesn’t taste like much of anything, which means you taste the actual meat of the gummy itself more and that is not a pleasant flavor to have to savor.

The glowing effect is made from turmeric, turned into a “confetti” and worked into the candy. It makes them glow a faint orange, which is kind of amusing, but it comes at a cost. Even in comparison to the normal gummies, these ones taste particularly waxy. That’s especially the case with the watermelon ones, I found, but even the strawberry ones lack the truly strong flavor I expect. They’re still soft and chewy, but the lack of flavor and that waxy consistency was really gross. I found, even despite trying multiple times to give the candies a chance, I couldn’t get through the bag (which is a rare thing for me with sour candy). I don’t know what they did but somehow Sour Patch screwed up their own mix. It’s sad.

Sour Strips Tropical Mango

Of the three selections I found, this was the only one I liked… but only by degrees. I’ve reviewed Sour Strips before, enjoying the various flavors I’ve found (rainbow, blue raspberry, and pink lemonade). They’ve become a standard grab for me when I’m in the mood for sour candy, packing in big flavor and a lot of sour punch into their candy strips. Mango is a new flavor that I hadn’t seen before and I was interested to see just how that would mix with the candy strips.

It almost doesn’t. The strips taste a fair bit more tropical than mango. The flavor tastes blended, and I’m sure that’s because doing pure mango flavor would be cost prohibitive. So while I can taste some mango in the candy, especially on the back end, they’re more pineapple flavored than anything else. I suppose that’s fine, although it wasn’t what I was expecting from the label on the bag, and it certainly screws with my brain just a little.

They’re also not quite as sour as I expected. In comparison to the other items I reviewed this time, yes, they’re the most sour item of the batch. They have a good bite and a lot of sour flavor. But I’ve had a lot of these Sour Strips over the last few months and I know how sour they can be. By that metric, these fall somewhat short. For someone like me they don’t taste sour enough, although I’m sure the average candy consumer will still feel like they’ve been punched in the mouth. But that’s the thing: I want that punch and this mango version lacks that. It makes me sad.

These aren’t bad, and for anyone that likes sour and mango flavors I’m sure they’ll see just fine. But I wanted more, expected more, and they fell a little short. Honestly, everything I got fell short, and that just makes me regret getting any of these to review. Sadly, that sometimes happens.