Haribo - Harry Potter

God, sometimes I get so sad about how all the things I used to love are ruined by people being terrible. Of course the difference is there aren't R.Kelly and Pinker gummies being sent to me free in the mail (although that'd also be terrible). Anyway, as always I didn't buy this for myself and resent that it exists and wrote a negative review on the actual product site. But you get the real truth of it... in hopes that they rebrand as Scary Dotter gummies or something. Mm. For once they tell you the serving size in gummies: 6. Blessedly, these have a super weird rancid sweet flavor about half the time, so I don't yearn for a Dotter rebrand. They can just ef right off. The Ron and Hermione versions are essentially the same as Harry's, except the little red face is a different face and the animal is alternatively an owl, a rat, or a cat. After eating a lot of these, I determined that there's two 50/50 shots (both independent): having a white bottom and being weirdly gross tasting. So each shape is the same color but comes in four varieties, my favorite being white bottom x not gross and my least favorite being no white bottom x gross. Lol. 

Golden Snitch: Actually a Yellow Snitch; it's lemon sorbet flavor. This is worse than lemon flavor haribo (or maybe just the bad IP vibes sinking in?); it tastes a little rancid and rotten. I'm not getting lemon OR sorbet! Ick! (yay that ick)! 2/10

Blue Lightning Bolt: Cotton Candy flavor -- this also tastes weirdly rotten and bad. Hooray! Slightly more berry flavored than the snitch, but mostly not good. 5/10 

Yellow Letter: More lemon sorbet (bad) with a white bottom (doesn't cancel out the bad)! 3/10

Clear Owl/Rat: Hedwig? It's caramel, which tastes just like lemon sorbet (bad). Scabbers is the same, and Crookshanks too. They all have evil looking eyes, which is confusing. New Haribo canon? 3

Clear Mug 'o (Butter)beer: Caramel with foam bottom, but 50% of them were somehow not gross like the owl. IDK man. 6/10

Brown Hat: Cola with and without foam bottom. Now we're talking. 7/10

Green Potted Plant: apple, tastes good but what plant does Harry have!? Is my HP knowledge atrophied? (Probably for the best, but shocking) 8/10

Green 9 3/4 sign: with foam bottom; ALSO tastes weird as hell. what is happening?!?!?! 3/10 

Red Lumpy Circle: I guess this is supposed to be Harry et al's head? It's cherry, and tastes pretty good (or sometimes gross). Looks like a football most of the time.

Overall
Cost: 8/10
Taste: 5/10
Missing Out Factor: 2/10 :D 

Skinny Pop Harry Potter Butterbeer

Surprise surprise, this stuff tastes great, just like the butterbeer goldfish and the kisses. Like those, I did not buy this myself, and like those, I resent what JKR did for the world's ability to enjoy their childhood fandom and related snacks!!! My donations continue apace. Anyway, this isn't very sweet, but it is nut free and vaguely cinnamon-gingery. I could eat the whole bag in one sitting easily. It's like a butter-lite version of butter popcorn, but sugar. No artificiality. I love it :(

Overall
Cost: 5/10 [2.70$]
Taste: 8/10

Harry Potter Butterbeer Goldfish

Gosh darn it, just like the stupid butterbeer kisses, these are way better than they have any right to be. I didn't buy these either, got 'em free in the mail, and I left a one star review in protest. But alas, the truth is, they taste like slightly salty sweet graham crackers, with a caramelly (butterscotchy?) smell that's super appealing. I ate them all in one sitting!!!

Here's hoping Goldfish will release a non-Harry Potter branded "caramel goldfish" equivalent so I can buy these in the future without compromising my morals. Bla.

Overall
Moral cost: 1/10
Taste: 8/10

Hershey's 'Harry Potter' Butterbeer Kisses

Bleh. I'm backdating this post in a misguided(?) attempt not to bring any commercial attention to Harry Potter related merchandise. Why do I then have said merchandise, you ask? Because from ages 11-24 (roughly) I was completely, soul-consumedly obsessed with Harry Potter, as were many in my cohort - and so now people sometimes give me Harry Potter stuff despite my repeated "Here is what is going on with JKR and why I don't want to financially support Harry Potter stuff anymore" entreaties. Since I think it comes out of love for me (and cognitive decline?), I will guiltily eat these (and donate some cash to charity). But I hope they're bad because I don't want to yearn for them and be stuck in a moral dilemma!

Well, they're OK. Very different from normal kisses: not chocolate! They smell just like Hershey's caramel topping for ice cream sundaes. Which is good...on ice cream sundaes. It's a lot just on its own. Is caramel the same thing as butterscotch, by the way? I didn't think so, but now I'm not sure. The inside is a creme texture, but with basically the same taste as the caramel shell. Is this what butterbeer tastes like? (I am also avoiding Harry Potter World so I'll never know). It's very sugary. Like drinking the sweet dregs of a melted Friendly's Caramel Fudge Blast. Which is, like, pretty good I guess. Just unexpected given the form factor. Alas, [would that it were] earwax!

Overall
Cost: 5/10
Taste: 7/10
Wishing I could go back to unfettered memories of gaybledore and carpetbook: 10/10
Wishing I could go back to a time before I read all the horrible comments on reviews of these elsewhere: 10/10