Cavalcade of Awesome

Well, if you’ve read this blog a few times you know I love stalking the supermarket and gas stations for awesome, awesome drinks, snacks, candy, etc. I’m always browsing gas station mini-marts, grocery stores, dollar stores, etc for new and different items that look cool. Have you noticed there are like 8 different kinds of Cheetos? Don’t get me wrong, I’m a Cheetos whore. I could eat nothing all day but bags of those dangerously cheesy corn puffs. I could bathe in the cheese powder they use to flavor the Cheeto, it’s that good. I could write an entirely separate article about Cheetos flavors alone (hey, not a bad idea). But today I’ll discuss the multitude of other things I found at my local grocery just recently. There are lots of limited edition flavors of popular candy bars floating around all over the place, as well as new varieties of your favorite cereals. Here’s some cool items I’ve found in the last few weeks. I’ll show you what they are and let you know what I think of them.

Let’s go…

Frosted Flakes Gold – Kellogg’s has decided to take their cash cow sugar infused cereal, Frosted Flakes, and transform it into something they can call healthy and still sleep at night. They have ENERGY written everywhere possible on the box, so at first glance, I thought they were jumping the “energy” craze and infusing Ginseng, Vitamin B and Taurine into the flakes. I mean, that’s what kids need, right, MORE energy? Genius. However, it looks as though this new Frosted Flakes just has whole grain flakes…and honey, nothing more. My next question is, what were these flakes before if they weren’t whole grain? Synthetic grain? Half grain? They’ve also reduced the sugar content by 1g. Yep, 10g instead of 11g. Bravo, Kellogg, for taking such a bold step in making your cereals “healthy”. Throw away that oatmeal and bran muffin. Toss those fruits and vegetables. Eat Frosted Flakes Gold for breakfast, lunch and dinner and you will live FOREVER! Hey, Kellogg’s, how is this different from the other whole grain Frosted Flakes you tried to sell in 2005 called Tiger Power? Oh, this one is called Frosted Flakes GOLD…and it has honey. Okay, gotcha. *wink, wink*

Cap’n Crunch Treasure Hunt Crunch – The many varied editions of Cap’n Crunch will continue until either Quaker runs out of ideas or civilization as we know it ends. I’m banking on the latter. Quaker invents yet ANOTHER limited edition version of Cap’n Crunch, but this time, doesn’t really give a reason why. I would say this was in celebration of Pirates of the Caribbean 3, but that was almost a year ago. I like that the shapes turn the milk blue like the ocean. Nice touch. Cap’n Crunch is like the Swiss Army Knife of breakfast cereals, they can change into anything (Christmas Crunch, Halloween Crunch, etc). With all of these holiday versions popping up, I’m waiting to see the inevitable Cap’n Crunch version for Ninja Day on Dec 5. They can call it Death By Ninja Crunch. The corn puffs would be shaped like deadly ninja weapons and they turn the milk bloody red.

Twix Java – Honestly, I didn’t want to try this. Twix is one of my favorite candy bars and the thought of Mars Bars defiling one of America’s signature snacks with the flavor of coffee leaves me feeling violated. In case you didn’t know, I don’t like coffee, nor do I like even the smell of coffee. However, I sucked it up and bought the Twix Java and Steph and I tried it. The verdict: I was impressed. The coffee flavor was subtle, it stayed in the background and enhanced the chocolate flavor to give the whole bar a nice overall taste. I can’t believe I’m saying it, but I really, really liked Twix Java. There are several other variations of Twix, including Twix PB (which has a chocolate flavored cookie and no caramel) and my favorite, Peanut Butter Twix (which has peanut butter instead of caramel and a regular flavored cookie). Twix PB was a nice try with the chocolate cookie, but without the caramel, it feels like something is missing. Try them all before they are gone.

Snickers bars – Mars Bars has really been juggling the contents of their Snickers bar into different versions to see what catches on. Snickers Nut & Butter Crunch eliminates the caramel entirely and leaves nuts, peanut butter and nougat. I really liked it, but I miss the caramel. Also, Nut & Butter Crunch is the greatest name for a candy bar…EVER. Snickers Xtreme eliminates the nougat completely leaving a bar chock full of caramel and nuts. An interesting, if sticky, taste. Snickers Almond packs in fistfuls of almonds into an already crowded bar…it’s one of my favorites. Snickers Charged takes regular Snickers and adds more caffeine, taurine and Vitamin B. Have a Snickers Charged with your Red Bull and see if you can get your heart to explode! It’s fun for all ages!

I finally found this late last year. I was withholding judgment until I could taste it a few times. And I kinda hate it. Last year I tried another diet chocolate soda from Canfield’s, and to me, it tasted the same. Bad. Very bad. The chocolate was OVERWHELMING. Like a chocolate sundae soda. This may be good, as my wife suggested in an ice cream float, but as a standalone drink, it’s awful. It’s a shame, too, because I really like Diet Dr Pepper and Cherry Vanilla Diet Dr Pepper.

Budweiser and Clamato – This frightens me. The description on the can should read, “Beer mixed with a Clam/Tomato juice in an unholy union to bring about the ‘End of Days'”. WTF?! Who asked for this? To answer your next question, no, I didn’t buy it. Nor did I try it. If I could find and buy a single can, then maybe I would purchase and consume this deathly, red elixir. I mean, I tried Pepsi Ice Cucumber, why not this? However, they were only selling packs of 4 cans and there is NO way I’m buying more than one. I’d be afraid the other 3 cans would come to life and try to kill me and Steph while we slept. No one is safe from Clamato. NO ONE.

Lard – I actually found this at my local Winn-Dixie the other day. A box of lard. I thought I had walked through a time warp and arrived at a Winn-Dixie back in the mid-’50s. I didn’t know they still sell this. Notice the box says CERTIFIED lard. Is there a lard association (lard ass, LOL) in charge of the certification process for lard? What are the rules you must follow in order to certify your lard for sale and human consumption? It’s things like this that I think about while standing in the middle of the grocery aisle staring blankly at a box of lard. People stare and quietly judge when you do this. I don’t recommend it.

Anywho, those are some of the fun things I’ve found these past few weeks in my local grocery stores. There’s lots of cool stuff out there, keep your eyes open and maybe you’ll see something on your own.

See you in the aisles! (Remember, don’t stare)

Oh, by the way, today is my official 3 year anniversary working for Winn-Dixie Stores, Inc here in good old Jacksonville, FL. Time sure does fly by. Have a good weekend everyone.

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This entry was posted on February 28, 2008 at 4:11 pm and is filed under Budweiser, Dr Pepper, food, retail, reviews, snacks with tags Budweiser, Dr Pepper, soda. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.