Gatorade Mashups Cool Blue + Fruit Punch

 

Product circa: 2025

Note: This is a Presumptive Ephemeral Nom.

A cool idea.  This sounds delicious, right?  For whatever reason, it's not.  They don't marry at all.  I'd rather have each constituent product individually. 

Gatorade Lightning Blast & Midnight Ice

 

Note: These are Presumptive Ephemeral Noms.

Even though these are touted as "New Flavors", they are almost certainly available only for a limited time.

With names like these and the profuse blending of artificial flavors, it's often tough to discern the flavor components without looking online.  Lightning Blast is very melon-forward for me, with what seems like berry flavors following.  Midnight Ice undoubtedly has grape in it, with tropical flavors surrounding it.  Neither are especially good or interesting. 

Lay's Thai-Style Red Curry

 

Product circa: 2025

Not a Lay's product imported from Asia, but a rare instance of US domestic Lay's adopting the flavors of exotic food.

This shit's the bomb, it evokes a perfect red curry: lemongrass, coconut, tomato, chile, garlic, and the spices that make up the curry base.  Bravo!

Herr's Special Hot Stromboli

Product circa: 2025

This flavor was the winner of a potato chip flavor contest.  As a big fan of Herr's and complex chip flavors, I went into this with high hopes.  While there are a ton of flavors going on, this largely tastes, to me, like pepperoncini and cheese.  That's it.

Post Malone & Selena Gomez Oreos

 

Products circa: 2024 & 2025, respectively

How do I feel about the increasing prevalence of celebrity-themed ephemeral noms?  I'm not entirely sure.  The problem is that the celebrities tend to be fairly unimaginative with these products, inasmuch as they have any say at all in how it's created.

Post Malone: Supposedly a salted caramel and shortbread flavor, it tastes like any other brown sugar or caramel-leaning Oreo that I've had a million times.

Selena Gomez: A creme of overwhelming cinnamon and vanilla.  The chocolate cookie is an interesting addition here, as opposed to a vanilla cookie, which would have been the more obvious choice.  Overall delicious, but very intense.

White Chocolate Marshmallow Crispy Treat M&M's

 

Product circa: 2023

Post-hoc thoughts.  These were delicious.  The crispy M&M's in general are really a home run; I remember when they first came out.

Mountain Dew Fruit Quake

 

Product circa: 2022

These are post-hoc thoughts from memory.  Ostensibly a fruitcake-flavored Dew (I love fruitcake), instead this is really perhaps the best fruit punch soda I have ever had, with a heavy concentration on cherry.  Fantastic.  I hope they re-release it with a more welcoming and crowd-pleasing name/branding.

Oreo Coca-Cola (cookies, not soda)

 

Product circa: 2024

It feels like I've been waiting forever for this exact product, but I'm dismayed to find that how Oreo has executed this is much more of an enigma than I expected.

The smell and initial taste is unmistakably cola, but as you keep chewing, you might be surprised to find cola's constituent flavors identifiable here.  Notably, I explicitly get cinnamon and lemon/lime, both of which are indeed in your average cola.

It's almost like I would have liked this more if I had gone in with a different mindset.  I expected a creme cookie that tasted like gummy cola candies, and instead I got a complex cola flavor, almost like those expensive boutique cola brands.  I'm disappointed in my own reaction.

Overall, an impressive product from Oreo, one that I never would have expected from them.

Oh yeah, it also has popping candies in the creme to emulate a cola's carbonation.  Those can fuck off. 

Moon Pie Key Lime

 

Product circa: 2024-2025

Note: This is a Presumptive Ephemeral Nom

There's a small handful of Moon Pie flavors out there, and I would love to see more!

Seemingly a plain (vanilla?) Moon Pie (a mini one, in this case) covered in a thin frosting that is so green, it has hints of blue in it.  The frosting is the only part of the snack flavored like key lime, and it has an ever-so-slight perfume of lime in it.  Overall, this is fairly unpleasant. 

Spotted in the Wild: Oreo Loaded

 

 

Note: These are a Presumptive Ephemeral Nom. 

I found these in Walmart.

I'm not going to buy them.  They look like a hybrid of the Oreo's The Most Stuf and their Cookies & Cream variety.  I'm pretty confident how they'll taste.  And I know most of its contents would go to waste. 

 

Lay's Argentenian Style Steak

 

I'm not sure if these are regional to here in South Florida or if these are available nationally.

HALLELUJAH there is beef flavoring in these chips, and it shows.  They lead strongly with a flavored of steak, specifically charred steak.  Next up is heavy black pepper.  There are the typical aromatics like onion and garlic, and a hint of parsley which is boosted by some vinegar powder.

These are good, but they probably should have been marketed as some other product/flavoring, like "Steakhouse" or something.  If they want to mimic chimichurri, they need to get bolder on the botanicals, like parsley, garlic, chile, and citrus.