The Sourest Special Day

My original intent this time around was to do a grouping of Valentine’s Day snacks, specifically of the sour variety. But while I had found a couple of Valentine’s Day themed sour snacks, both from Sour Punch, I hadn’t found a third one to go with the group… or even a fourth one, since I did feel weird about doing one of these listings and having two entries from the same company. So I waited, and then went on a road trip, and a random gas station had all I needed… just a couple of days later than I needed them.

Ah well. At least we can look at even more sour snacks, this time in a slightly expanded list:

Sour Punch Bites Rad Reds

Calling these a Valentine’s Day candy is a bit of a cheat. While the bag I picked up did have Valentine’s Day theming on its design, technically Rad Reds are available all year, in normal packaging, if you can find them. It’s the same mix, in the same flavors, any time of year, so the only thing that makes this a “Valentine’s Day” treat is that it’s red. That doesn’t really feel like that much of a change, really.

Thankfully the actual candies are pretty good. This is a bag of the Sour Punch Bites, which are weird versions of the straws. They’re wider but more stout, with a much bigger hole down their centers. It’s like the Sour Punch company decided to compete with Bugles, making something you could fit on your fingers and then bite off after. Still, the basic mix is the same, and the texture was pretty good, soft and chewy, because they were the Valentine’s Day variety so they hadn’t sat on the shelf for very long.

One thing I will note, though, is that it really is hard to distinguish the flavors in the bag. There are four flavors – Strawberry, Watermelon, Cherry, and Raspberry, and three of the four taste almost exactly the same. Cherry has a stronger, sharper bite than the rest, but they all really do blur together, especially because they’re all red colored. Pulling a flavor out of the bag was like playing roulette; you never knew what you’d end up getting… but then you also wouldn’t be able to distinguish them that well anyway, so who cares? As Topher Grace in Ocean’s Eleven said, “all red, baby.”

Sour Punch Hearts

By comparison, these suck. Despite being Sour Punch candies, they really didn’t taste or feel like standard Sour Punch candies. They were much, much worse. The bad comes in three flavors – Watermelon, Strawberry Lemonade, and Fruit Punch – but there’s an acidic, foul taste to all of them because of the Strawberry Lemonade. Whatever flavoring they used for the citrus bite gets all over all the pieces in the bag, and it makes all of them taste horrible. This is the wrong kind of tang I want from my sour candies. This tasted off.

The hearts themselves also didn’t feel right. There’s a softness, a give, to a proper Sour Punch candy and these were too firm and hard. I don’t think this was because they sat on the shelf for too long. They were Valentine’s themed, and they weren’t at the hardness you expect from older, long-past-expiration candies. No, these felt like they were made to have the chew of a Tootsie Roll, and it was by design. They were unappealing in both flavor and chewy texture, and I don’t think I’ll get these candies ever again. A real miss from Sour Punch here.

Sour Patch Kids Strips

Like with Sour Punch, you expect a certain minimum level of competency from Sour Patch Kids. They’re a reliable candy that’s been around for decades right now, and their flavors are all pretty well known and expected. And yet, there’s something seemingly off about these strips and I can’t quite put my finger on it. The flavors are there, but something doesn’t taste quite right, while the texture is, at times, off putting.

I will note this isn’t the case for all the strips in the bag, making it feel like a real crap shoot when I pulled one out to eat. There are five flavors in the bag – Lemon, Lime, Orange, Raspberry, and Blue Raspberry – and generally they tasted like their kid-shaped counterparts. They were decently flavorful, although maybe not quite as bright and sweet as the kid versions, and they were generally sour at the level you expect from Sour Patch Kids.

But then, every once in a while, I’d get a dud. The very first belt from the bag was a raspberry one, and it was bland, lacking the identifiable flavor. It was also hard and waxy, making for an unappealing chew. Plus, it wasn’t sour at all. I think somehow a few duds got into my bag, as I had a couple of others that were just as bad. I had bad versions of Orange, Lime, and Lemon as well, although they were rare. Still, the fact that a few of these duds got into the bag makes me wonder how the batches are made and mixed and if this is a regular occurrence.

These weren’t terrible, when I got a good one, but the number of bad belts I had in this full bag made me question if I even wanted to finish the bag. It’s like it’s both a hit and a miss here, but the misses are bad enough that I don’t even want to chance the hits. I’ll likely throw the remains of this bag away and then get other Sour Patch items instead.

Sour Patch Kids Chews

Although maybe I’ll avoid these as well. In theory these should be good. They’re taffy but flavored like Sour Patch kids, with a sour core of the Sour Patch powder to give you a bite when you chomp down. In practice, though, these might be even worse than the belts. The problem isn’t the flavor because, while mild, they are identifiable as the standard Sour Patch Kids flavors: Lemon, Lime, Orange, Raspberry, and Blue Raspberry (although I will note my bag only came with one blue taffy in the whole set, which was a real disappointment).

The texture, though, was all off. The taffy itself is good, being light, airy, and chewy. But that first full chomp into the center brings out the powder, and it’s gritty, graininess throws everything off. It’s like getting a soft chew and then discovering gravel or sawdust in the middle. While it doesn’t taste bad, the texture makes the whole experience far less appealing. This feels like an experiment that shouldn’t have made it out of the test kitchen, and yet the Sour Patch Kids people went forward with it anyway. I’m not at all sure why, but this is another bag I am unlikely to finish. While tasty, the texture is so off putting.

Zappo Sour Blue Raspberry Chews

Thankfully we end on a high note. I hadn’t heard of Zappo before, and they looked like off-brand chews with bare minimum packaging. But hey, I’m not one to shy away from a food experiment, so while I was picking up my Sour Patch selections I grabbed these as well. In for a penny, and all that, and thankfully these actually proved to be the highlight of the road trip. Soft and chewy, with a good blue raspberry flavor and decent tartness. All around this was a success.

Texture wise, these are kind of like a Starburst. They even come wrapped similarly, although the Zappos chews are a little longer and thinner. The flavor on them reminds me of Starbursts as well, my lost (and beloved) Sour versions that Starburst no longer makes. They were really good, with that sour bite I wanted and a nice, soft chew that satisfied. Of everything I sampled for this list, these are the ones I’m most likely to go back to. They promised me a blue raspberry chew, and Zappo delivered.