Hershey's Snickerdoodle Kisses

Blech! It didn't use to be this way, but truly, all the creme-based Hershey products are Bad. What happened? Those cinnamon toast crunch kisses were great. And of course hugs. Alas :(

Weirdly, this bag feels much lighter than the other kiss bags, and I've handled a lot of kiss bags. I think it's the plastic itself? Eco? Or cheapo? Or my brain sending me to the Alice in Wonderland space again? Who can say. Anyway, it feels different, materially.

The smell is so overpowering. Not like "delicious cookie" but like "Artificially Flavored Cinnamon Coffee" or something. The taste is that, plus the same ol' janky creme. Cookie bits are fine, like buckwheat biscoff, but they are wrapped in Blech. Wrappers are cute. Too bad. A notch above the strawberry ones I think, just because they improve(=taste more like cookies) with more eating rather than the opposite.

Overall
Cost: 5/10
Taste: 5/10

G.H. Cretors Cheese & Caramel Mix

I'm still out there searching for a normie nut-free caramel popcorn, and haven't found one that's accessible to me yet. But the fixation is so strong that I went back to the unsatisfying Cretors well, this time for their flagship cheese/caramel mix. On the one hand: wtf Kati, you hate sweet/savory combos so what are you doing? But on the other hand, it must be popular for a reason, right? Also, maybe I can brute force a taste-change in myself, like I did with coffee and alc and avo (rip avo). Just gorge on sugared veg until I'm gagging. 

But, I dunno if that's in the cards. This was not as jarring as I expected, but I think that's more down to it being neither properly sweet nor properly savory. The caramel corn is the same as before: weirdly puffy and soft, with a weirdly milk-heavy (creamy?) "caramel" coat. The cheese corn tastes stale and like a lighter version of Utz white cheese corn. Together they create the sensation of "expired vending machine snacks" (plural).  One upshot is that a serving is slightly bigger due to the less calorie dense cheese corn. Maybe once I finish this bag I'll be less caramel corn obsessed. TBD. 

Overall
Cost: 5/10
Taste: 6/10 

How the Grinch Stole Hershey's Kisses Strawberry Sugar Cookie

Good luck parsing that title. These are super similar to the Hershey's strawberry ice cream bar and the Hershey's strawberry ice cream cone kisses. That is to say, not my favorite. To reiterate, it's like a cookies 'n cream milky shea butter cream paste with some strawberry flakes and hard "cookie" wafer bits. I never liked a cookies 'n cream so I also don't really like this, although it is nut free and also candy. Some of them have a bad rancid/acidic aftertaste, too, like a burnt trash chemical. Haha. 

However, they get major points for aesthetics. I don't know if there are any "Grinch" superfans out there, but if so they'd be delighted. There are four different bold pink & green wrapper designs, and the kiss itself is a very pretty pale pink. The tags also read CINDY LOU - GRINCHMAS. (What is "grinchmas"? Is -mas a morpheme now? Merry Kissmas!) I sure hope the next new Hershey product I'm not allergic to isn't another cream oil-paste base!! 

Overall
Cost: 5/10
Taste: 5/10 

Like Air Pufforn - Peppermint Mocha

What da hell? It's like the universe saw I enjoyed espresso cookie and decided to produce a new (weird) coffee dessert flavored snack. I think Like Air is just throwing everything at the wall now. I bet they won't even be nut free by this time next year! Anyway, I was shocked (and disturbed) to see that the ingredients really do contain peppermint, chocolate, and coffee. And of course corn puff. My "cheesy savory base"+"sweet powder topping" mismatch issue here is back in full force; unlike the caramel corn flavor this powder isn't strong enough to cover up the "this is a cheese puff" sensation. It's too bad because the powder is tasty - after all it's chocolate mint with sugar and coffee in it!! If they put it on some, like, popcorn, or rice puff, or quinoa(?) it would make more sense in my mind. I still haven't seen those mint chocolate snoopy goldfish this year, but if they come back I'm gonna buy like 50 bags of them because they are what this perhaps aspires to be. As it is, this makes no sense at all. But it is nut free so I will keep trying all their perverted creations as they appear to me (I'm shocked that my store is promoting these so much though -- who else is buying this crap?? TikTokos??)

Overall
Cost: 5/10 [honestly I don't remember, oops]
Taste: 6/10 (lol)

Espresso Martini Milano

These were so good. They are gone now but at least my body is 90% pure energy. They truly do have a strong coffee flavor, plus the usual light vanilla wafer & chocolate. I did indeed get espresso martini vibes. A decadent coffee dessert! 

Overall
Cost: 4/10 [5-6$, what am I, cookie-rich?!]
Taste: 8/10

LIFE WTR

I'm extremely primeable, so after talking about pepsico I immediately bought this stupidly named water. Sorry... wtr. It must be vegan. The bottle is pretty nicely shaped, and it feels light even though it is 1L. I enjoyed the drinking experience. The taste is "water", not as good as Fiji water but better than the lowly Pepsifina. 

Overall
Cost: 5/10
Taste: 6/10 

La Croix Key Lime

This is pretty wild! A dessert flavored la croix - quite impressive. I don't like key lime pie that much, but I definitely like it better than Seltzer, so this is an upgrade. They distilled a lime essence here for real. Unique!! Tangy and almost creamy. Wowo.

Overall
Cost: 5/10
Taste: 6/10