A documentation and review of limited time, special edition, or otherwise hard-to-find noms.
Product circa: autumn 2024
This is a Presumptive Ephemeral Nom.
Seemingly just a Big Cup with a layer of chocolate sauce/syrup thrown in. It sounds dumb, but my stupid monkey brain really likes the decadence of it. I'm not sure it actually tastes especially unique, except for perhaps that this slightly shifts the sweet/salty balance in the normal product a bit toward the former... but the texture and thought of chocolate sauce in my candy makes my mind's pleasure centers go brrrrrrr.
Product circa: Halloween 2024
Nice use of an arbitrary rhyme to make this arbitrary snack themed for Halloween.
The white chocolate coating has been colored an alarmingly bright shade of orange. This tastes like if the Cinnamon Crunch Toast cereal were made into a candy bar - and it's absolutely delicious. A great combination, perfectly balanced with sweetness and texture. A home run!
This is a presumptive Ephemeral Nom.
Product circa: 2024
Like Cajun seasoning, this seasoning is tough to pinpoint: along with the cheese powder, there is clearly black pepper, chile pepper, tomato powder, and maybe thyme? More herbs, probably. The heat doesn't disappoint. This is good stuff. I doubt I'd buy it regularly if it were available always.
Product circa: 2024
What an odd crossover!
Just as it seems to promise, this is beef jerky covered in what tastes like the exact same seasoning from Chili Cheese Fritos. It's all well and good until even the cheese becomes apparent as you chew. Unfortunately the cheese doesn't pair well at all, and it's even a bit putrid and disgusting.
Whichever Taco Bell marketers called this product a "gelato" knew exactly what they were doing. You could probably call this a sherbet, as it does technically have milk in the ingredients list, but this is more of an "Italian ice" product, than anything. Essentially no creaminess, and yes, its flavor is noticeably that of Mountain Dew Baja Blast. In the end, the marketers chose the most outrageous sounding frozen dessert to pair with a Mountain Dew product so that suckers like me would try it out of morbid curiosity.
Product circa: 2024
I'll usually bypass even the most esoteric of slushy products, but I had to try this one out at Target.
Unfortunately, it doesn't have the signature bergamot flavor of Froot Loops at all, and instead it tastes precisely like a melted assortment of Skittles candies.
Product circa: 2024
I've long contended that Pepsi is way better at making flavored colas than Coke, and at this point, one could argue that they are more prolific as well. While Coke has been making more and more "odd" colas, they have often involved various levels of exclusivity, with some being harder to find than others. Pepsi has continued to issue colas over the past few years, and their availability has mostly been wide and long in duration, and as always, they taste better.
Pepsi Peach is perfect for what it is trying to be. Artificial peach flavoring is ubiquitous, being mostly employed in candy, but beverages as well. The flavoring is extremely strong and can be overpowering and artificial-tasting. In this product, it is not. They used the perfect amount to pair with the Pepsi flavoring, and while it doesn't exactly taste like you're biting into a juicy peach, this stuff is perfect, and I wish they made it year-round.
Product circa: autumn 2024 (for football season?)
My skepticism of this product was corroborated by the ingredients list. As expected, these have no meat flavoring in them whatsoever. In fact, at this point, most sandwich-flavored snacks can safely be assumed to be sandwich toppings-flavored ones.
At first taste, these seem to be mostly a copy of the "sour cream & cheddar" genre of chip. If you concentrate, however, you can get some added onion powder. And eventually I realized that the cheese flavoring on these is exceptional, with a deep, aged, and vibrant flavor. They're also noticeably oilier and saltier than normal.
These are perhaps the best cheese-flavored chips I've ever had, but they taste nothing like a cheesesteak.
Product circa: 2024 and most likely earlier
Oddly enough, the first impression I get of these is tomato powder. It's in the ingredients list, and I'm not sure why. But other, these are heavy with herbs and spices, and with the tomato, it reminds me most of pizza-flavored snacks. There's also a heavy dose of steak sauce-like umami here. Overall, I'm not sure it's better than the original, but it's a nice change.
Note: This is a presumptive Ephemeral Nom
Product circa: 2024, and probably before and after
I think I've seen this one around over the years, but I'm finally getting to try it.
Very salty and heavy on MSG, both of which are very high on the ingredients. Then the flavor is very green: green chiles, like jalapeno, maybe even tomatillo, then green herbs, like parsley and cilantro. Not too heavy on onion and garlic. Very decently spicy. But heavy on salt. I wish the flavors were stronger; this snack is fairly subtle.
The yearly tradition returns. Evidently this is known as "VooDEW 6.0".
Anyway, the flavor of this stuff hasn't been announced yet, but people online have been saying it continues the "Halloween candy" tradition by being flavored like a strawberry candy of some sort - some are staying strawberry Nerds, strawberry Starbursts, and even others.
I'm pretty underwhelmed with this one. It definitely has a candy-like flavor that approaches cotton candy/candy floss. When I push myself, I can understand the strawberry Nerds comparison. I'll update this post when I learn of the reveal.
Product circa: Summer 2024
Supposedly a berry pineapple Dew, I would say that the berry here manages to support the pineapple, such that, to me, this is ultimately a pineapple Dew. And that's good, because it's probably the best pineapple Dew I have tasted so far.
This is a Presumptive Ephemeral Nom.
Product circa: 2024
Regular Goldfish crackers covered in hot sauce seasoning. The seasoning manages to taste exactly like Frank's Red Hot Sauce (I put that shit on everything!). I wish seasoning like this was sold in shakers bottles. This was a really pleasant change of pace.
It turns out that I tried these back in 2012, but I don't think I recall seeing these on store shelves since.
What's funny is that I just re-read my old post about these, and my description of them from 2012 is still accurate to how they taste now... but I like them now, and I didn't then. I guess my tastes have changed?
Product circa: Spring 2024
This is part of the 20th Bajaversary, which is a joint celebration between Taco Bell and Mountain Dew. I'm having trouble finding the significance of the year 2004 in this "anniversary". Said to be part of this celebration is the permanent release of Mountain Dew Baja Blast products in stores, as well as Baja Laguna Lemonade & Baja Point Break Punch.
Anyway, these things are fascinating. They start with a bright and tangy mango flavor that can't help me think of sugary breakfast cereal... maybe it's the sugar and corn crunch together that's giving that aura. The heat then slowly shows itself, and this is some of the most impressive heat I've experienced on a Doritos product. There's probably some savory elements in this snack as well, such as onion and garlic, but if so, they are very subdued. Honestly, this tastes like spicy Doritos that have Kool-Aid Tropical Punch powder sprinkled over them. Overall, a fun experiment, but not a snack that I would reach for unironically.
Product circa: 2024
This is a Presumptive Ephemeral Nom.
Overall, pretty disappointing. There is the flavor of the mustard, there is a sweetness, and there is a slight vinegar taste. But it's all too muted; they need to dial the flavor up by 3 times here.
Product circa: Independence Day 2024
Should they really keep doing this for the US Independence Day? They will run out of vocabulary words eventually.
Star Spangled Splash: Dew with generic red fruit. It's not bad, but I've tasted this kind of Dew at least a dozen times.
Freedom Fusion: A peach lemonade Dew which will naturally be compared to the KFC exclusive Sweet Lightning. I've only had the latter once or twice, and it wasn't memorable enough to recall. This stuff is very tasty, with a little tartness that goes a long way. I would say that they should have upped the peach flavoring, but if they had, I probably would be saying I had wished they dialed it back. They deserve a lot of credit for this one.
Liberty Chill: Another one of the occasional "omnibus" varieties that combines an absurd amount of flavors into one beverage (in this case, 50). This is a mess... it's overly sweet, and if I try, I can pick out "blue", and "cherry", and that's about it.
Product circa: summer 2024
In a rare move, the pizza delivery company Little Caesar's has an exclusive soft drink variety (sold right in the cooler in their locations).
While this product does actually contain pineapple juice (which is commendable), it doesn't taste like it. It tastes like Pepsi with the same artificial pineapple flavoring like something like a Life Saver candy might have. In the end, the two don't pair very well.
Product circa: 2024
With mystery flavors like these, I usually give it an honest effort to discern the flavor before looking up internet opinions. In this case, my guess seems to be correct. These are flavored like a thai coconut curry or tom kha soup. Hot chile leads the flavors, with creamy coconut milk specifically (not coconut), and even lemongrass in the mix. After some internet searches, it seems others have come to the same conclusion. I don't love these, but this is a very impressive execution. Bravo, Doritos!
Product circa: 2024
The taste of strawberry candy first, and it's a little tangy. Remarkably close to something like a pie filling. Buttery maple comes in next, like a cheap pancake syrup. Bacon fat is an ingredient here, which is commendable, but it's hard to detect; it takes a few bites before your tongue gets used to the buttery fruit in order to notice a light smokiness.
The first few chips are very off-putting, but I'm embarrassed to say that after you eat a few, these become pretty tolerable. Definitely up there as one of the most bizarre chips I've ever eaten, up there with Lay's Cappuccino and Lay's Chicken and Waffle.
Product circa: summer 2024
I've long contended that Pepsi is much better at making flavored colas than Coke. This stuff features Pepsi with a flavor that manages to taste like lime peel, and not just the fake lime flavoring that they most likely used. The lime is so subtle, however, that I'm not sure I'd be able to detect it, if you told me that it was regular Pepsi. With that said, I like how they did it here, I think it's great, and I'm so glad that they tried this in the first place.
Product circa: summer 2024
These are Doritos with "Salt & Vinegar" and "dill pickle" chip seasoning combined into one. For me, they are way too intense... they even literally hurt my tongue after only a handful of chips. A bit much.
Product circa: autumns 2012-2013
One of those instances where brands trying to use a very small amount of green apple flavoring, along with sugar, to approximate a "red apple" flavor, seeing as red apple flavoring in candy basically doesn't exist. These aren't the greatest, but I'm glad they tried. The flavor combination works well enough.
Product circa: Post-2020 seasonally
They actually have a pumpkin flavor along with the requisite spices! With that said, they are nothing special... in the bottom half of pumpkin spice-flavored junk food.
Product circa: 2020
For some reason, I really like the idea of yogurt-dipping more types of candy. I love that they tried this, but in my opinion, the hard/chewy texture of the Skittles candies is so different from the soft yogurt that I think this was a poor choice for a yogurt variation. I'll just be sitting here what other products could have benefited from a dip instead.
Products circa: 2022
My bottles haven't aged great, but to me this tastes like Coke with an added streak of fruitness. I've seen a few online sources claim mango flavoring has been added, along with a few others. Not bad. But I really just wish that Coca-Cola would dispose of these artsy names and actually tell us what to expect from the product.
Products circa: the 2010s
There's not much to say about these. They are very tasty, but not drastically more remarkable than the original flavors. Though I do tend to think that the Starburst variations are always better than the original flavors, I never met a Starburst I didn't like.
Products circa: 2016
These were part of a poll product for consumers to choose the next permanent M&M's variety. Not pictured here is the third contestant of the contest - Honey Nut M&M's.
The Chili Nut is better than I thought. I was prepared to say that only capsaicin was added to the chocolate, but I don't think that's right. After a few candies, I believe I taste the savoriness of chili, that's not unlike Tabasco sauce (without the fermented flavor).
The Coffee Nut is trying to do a lot more than I expected. I think they might have added vanilla to it, and even milk powder. It's got more of a latte vibe than just coffee. It's not bad, but not something I'd reach for. Then again, I don't reach for M&M's ever.
(For the record, I have no idea if the M&M's variety should be named before or after the "M&M" title. I have recorded both on this site, per what the packaging says.)
Product circa: 2015
I always love it when Birthday Cake or Cookie Dough snack varieties are able to capture the "flour" taste that goes along with the real world varieties, but it's no wonder that these M&Ms do not capture that effect. In the end, they taste like regular chocolate M&Ms that have a bit of extra vanilla extract in the chocolate recipe.
Product circa: Intermittently since 2017
Neat cross-brand! As is typical of Jelly Belly, these taste very loyal to the food that each is emulating. They even managed to add the flavor of brown/fried dough - no idea how they did that.
Product circa: Intermittently from 2008, to maybe even the present; might have been seasonal for Valentine's Day or Christmas.
A very impressive feat. They managed to make these taste like actual cherry cordials and not the artificial cherry that flavors every candy or soda we've ever had. I don't know what the "cherry cordial" flavor is, but they got it. Other than how incredible a technical feat this is, it's not overwhelmingly tasty.
Product circa: re-release (year unknown) from original 2015 release
True to form, these taste exactly like the cake pictured, with the toasted coconut apparent. There's both white and toasted coconut here, as promised. A photorealistic experience... what a delight!
Product circa: 2019 - present (intermittently)
A golden cookie with maple creme-flavored filling. I'm not usually a fan of maple, but these are fantastic, and it's because the creme tastes like natural maple syrup, and not the American pancake syrup from the long squeeze bottle. Extremely tasty!
Product circa: 2021
A very fun cross-branding! The filling of these pastries definitely has the signature bergamot flavor that would remind you of Froot Loops, but it tastes more of lemon than anything. With that said, the citrus filling is absolutely delicious, and I don't think there's ever been lemon Pop-Tarts? I'd love to see these on sale again someday.
While technically not a limited time product, as it seems to keep popping up every year at different times, Sprite Tropical Mix deserved a post. Why? Because Coca-cola needs to be commended for producing this stuff, and especially doing so regularly. Luckily for us, Tropical Mix tastes almost exactly like Sprite Remix from 20 years ago - which Sprite Remix, I can't tell... maybe a mix of both? Every time I see this in a cooler, I grab one and buy it. It mixes pretty well with light rum, as well.
Product circa: Spring 2024
Cherry lime isn't exactly a very innovative flavor to add to Sprite, but I think this works pretty well. The cherry is restrained, and I don't even taste the fake lime flavor... perhaps they added just enough to provide a bitter balance to the cherry. Overall, not bad, but nothing something I'll yearn for when it's gone.
Product circa: 2023
Sprite Lymonade is a nice foray, but I always thought it was missing a little something, and so I never bought it much. Evidently what it was missing was strawberry. The Lymonade Legacy is fantastic, and it's a shame this didn't end up being the permanent Lymonade product.
Product circa: Spring 2024
A significant amount of tomato powder and sugar (maltodextrin?) lend an overwhelming feeling of ripe tomatoes, more than any snack I've ever tasted. The chile feels more like sweet bell pepper, and the restrained spices in the recipe make the sweet, fresh vegetables the star here. It totally invokes what it intends - a tomato-heavy salsa, or pico de gallo... gazpacho, even. It's like sticking my face into a fresh vegetable garden. Very impressive.
Product circa: 2022
A variation like this feels a little lazy. It's a Milky Way bar with the nougat changed to chocolate nougat. It's not bad. It's reminiscent of a Milky Way Dark bar, but it's not as good, because almost nothing is as good as a Milky Way Dark bar.
Product circa: 2022
Just a Snickers bar with crispy rice in it. The flavor isn't different, but I was surprised how enjoyable the crunch and chew of the rice are.
Kind of an odd choice. Pop-Tarts changed the appearance of the pastry to look more like baked pretzel dough, added salt to it, and otherwise changed nothing else about the product. It's mediocre at best.
I haven't had enough gochujang to decide if these taste true, but I guess it gets pretty close. An immediate umami bomb with chile and soy to start, with onion and garlic in the rear. Nicely spicy and sweet, but just a bit too much tang for tastes.
An odd variation at a seemingly arbitrary time, this purports to be raspberry spiced Coke. After drinking a fair bit of this stuff, my take is that it tastes mainly of raspberry, with perhaps the smallest bit of cinnamon, and the rest is almost like a pleasant black pepper. Almost like Coke and Dr. Pepper had a child. There's a lot of polarizing talk about this product on the internet, but I enjoyed it.
Coca-Cola Y3000 - God, the marketing copy is so exhausting. We get it, this is what Coke from the Future would taste like. AI Coke. Yeah. After tasting this myself, it was hard slogging through the Google search results to see what others actually thought of it. Most opinions hew close toward "fruit candy". The closest my own brain got was "rainbow sherbet" or even blue raspberry. Regardless, "artificial fruit" is definitely the vibe here. It's pretty tasty, but not tasty enough that I'd want to have permanent access to this.
Coca-Cola Ultimate - Made jointly with Riot Games, the marketing says that this is flavored like "+XP", which is short form for gaining character experience in a video game. Fine. This stuff is very subtle, and I actually went through several bottles and a 12-pack just to research it more heavily. The internet opinions on this product are all over the place, and frustratingly so. My take is that this has a generic fruity flavor which I can't pin down (but leans "green"), and is slightly sour. And it's not lime. So the closest I can peg here would be white grape or unripe mango (if you've ever tasted one).
Products circa: Spring 2024
Laguna Lemonade: Tasty enough, but with a fake-tasting mango flavoring that pales in comparison to the Mountain Dew Mango Gem released a few years ago.
Point Break Punch: A fruit punch that's decidedly more "tropical" in flavor than the other million fruit punch Dews that have been made. But something is off with the balance of the sweetness... either there's too much sugar, or not enough acidic bite. But a nice change, overall.
Product circa: Spring 2024
Awful. Whatever buffalo flavor they have added here goes horribly with the "aged" cheese flavor base of the original.
Product circa: 2020 and onward, only at Dollar General stores
My hype for this one didn't help. Supposedly a pineapple Dew, the fruit flavoring here is so subtle that is tastes straight up bland. I'll be on the lookout for more to make sure it wasn't just the can I bought.
