Kemps Winter Snowmen

Winter is almost officially over, so let's get a winter limited edition snack out of the way while we still can.

I'll never forget one of my favorite childhood treats: ice cream Santa Clauses that came out only at Christmas time.  They didn't have a stick by which to eat them, or any hard coating to make them easier to hold.  They were just shaped, colored mounds of ice cream.  And yet they don't seem to exist anymore, and worse, nobody I know remembers them.

A mixture of vindication, pleasure, and nostalgia hit me in the gut as I ran across these in the supermarket.  They're not quite the same thing, but they're clearly meant to be similar in spirit.  There is also a Christmas tree version.

Unwrapped and bitten, these things strike a similar chord to the one I remember as a kid.  This variety is Neapolitan-flavored, and so almost each bite tastes different, which I really enjoy.  It's possible that the manufacturer adds a certain ingredient to the recipe that better allows the ice cream to stay a bit firmer while in the hand (and with no stick or chocolate exoskeleton to support it), and I think the product has a different mouth feel than normal ice cream as a result (as I always remembered).

These aren't quite as good as I remember, but it just may be the nostalgia coloring my judgement (as it's notorious for doing).  This is almost into the 3-NOM range.



Kemps Winter Snowmen:- Good

Doritos Sour Cream & Onion

I saw these Doritos in a store a year or two ago and have regretted not picking them up ever since.  They've finally come back, and I nabbed them with an amount of greed that surprised even myself.

Unfortunately, the payoff wasn't huge.

These aren't a perfect translation of sour cream & onion potato chips because they can't be; the exact flavors used for potatoes don't exactly harmonize the same way with corn.  Unfortunately, I don't think Doritos' choice of flavors harmonize with corn either.

These amount to more like a Cool Ranch Lite than sour cream & onion.  There's plenty of onion in the seasoning, and also a good bit of supporting herbs and spices, many of which are found in the brand's Cool Ranch variety.  There's also the light cheese/sour milk powder on there to simulate the sour cream, but overall it tastes like something other than sour cream and onion.  While moderately tasty, A die hard SC&O fan would find these very disappointing.


Doritos Sour Cream & Onion:- Good
Original Doritos Nacho Cheese(for comparison):- Great

Pop-Tarts Frosted Pumpkin Pie

Pop-Tarts adds to their autumn/winter seasonals with Pumpkin Pie.  This variety has been issued for a year or two now and it's worth picking up when you see it.

When you open the plastic, there's an immediate aroma of canned pumpkin.  Very nice.  The frosting is speckled with familiar autumn colors.

After a bite or two, flavors that you fully expect begin to come through.  Pumpkin hits you first, then brown sugar, with perhaps a bit of vanilla, nutmeg and allspice following faintly behind.  The sweetness is barely there, just enough to cover any bitterness from the spices.  The maltiness from the pumpkin and the restrained sweetness make for an almost savory experience.

Toasting the pastries brings out more sweetness than before, but still lower than what you would expect from Pop-Tarts.  The spices also manage to be more pronounced when warmed.  It's a different experience when warmed versus cold, but it's hard for me to recommend one over the other.

I usually eat my Pop-Tarts with a cup of unsweetened tea or coffee nearby so that I can counter each saccharine bite with a bitter counterpoint.  This method has made me realize why sweet pastries are a must for a traditional British tea time, with a beverage's bitterness cutting through a snack's sweetness that can sometimes linger a bit too long.  No such strategy is requires with Pumpkin Pie Pop-Tarts.  The experience is in a refreshing balance that isn't over-sweetened and, as it often is, causes me to recommend this product heartily.


Pop-Tarts Pumpkin Pie: - Great

Original Pop-Tarts(Strawberry, for comparison): - Good

Ice Cream Oreo Cookies N' Cream

This time, instead of Oreos in ice cream we have ice cream in Oreos.  Specifically, we have Oreo ice cream inside of Oreos.

In some sort of silly meta food marketing idea, Oreo has decided to create another ice cream-inspired flavor, but this time the ice cream flavor would be cookies and cream-- simple vanilla ice cream containing crumbled chocolate wafer cookies-- thereby spending production and marketing money in such a foolhardy way that it leaves me surprised.

This is like making a variety of Doritos flavored like "Taco Bell Doritos Locos Tacos", or like Rice Krispies making a cereal meant to taste like Rice Krispies Treats.  Oh wait, they actually created the latter... and thank god you can still order it online, because it's incredible.

Reveling in the absurdity, I opened the package and sunk my teeth in, literally.  In a surprising fashion, they actually tasted exactly as I expected them to, which is to say not quite the same as the original Oreo.  The additional specks of cookie crumbs in the seemingly unchanged vanilla creme adds the slightest bit of extra chocolate cookie flavor, and perhaps a slightly dryer texture on the tongue and on the swallow.

Almost identical to the original, and I'm not sure I could have told you it was different with my eyes closed.


Ice Cream Oreo Cookies N' Cream: - Great
Original Oreo(for comparison): - Great

Vintage: Mountain Dew Pitch Black (re-release)

Famous for releasing flavored versions of their products, Mountain Dew released a variation for Halloween of 2004 called Mountain Dew Pitch Black.  Pitch Black claimed to be flavored with "black grape".  While black grapes aren't technically a thing, I imagine PepsiCo simply refers to very dark heavily-sugared varieties of red grapes.

The combination of grape with Mountain Dew's pan-citrus flavor doesn't seem like it would work, but it does.  This is because while the drink is dark purple and would indicate overwhelming grape flavor, the grape is restrained in the recipe and manages to accent the Dew in a "this doesn't really taste like grape" kind of way.  Pitch Black was one of the best sodas of all time, in my opinion.

A year later PepsiCo released a sequel to Pitch Black: Mountain Dew Pitch Black II.  The flavor was mostly the same, but this time it contained a kick of sourness like an under-sweetened lemonade.  While novel, I felt the change was for the worse.

But in a move blessed by the angels, the company brought back the original Mountain Dew Pitch Black for a few months in mid-2011 as a Limited Edition "Back by popular DEWmand."

I can't say for sure if this Limited Edition Pitch Black is identical to the original, but it sure seems like it.  Like Dark Berry, this Dew is sweetened further past the original formula.  The flavor of the mix doesn't actually taste like grape soda, but instead of a generic "berry" that's sweeter and heavier than what your average berry product might taste like.  The peppery sweetness weighs down the bright citrus and transforms it into a different animal.  I'm not sure a blind taster would be able to tell that this is a Mountain Dew.  Overall, a fascinating study in what a Dew can be, and I urge PepsiCo to, if they can't bring it back again, at least continue to innovate on this level.

I only have one 20oz bottle of this 2011 Limited Edition left, and it's already gone flat.  I'll see how long I can make it last.


Mountain Dew Pitch Black: - Outstanding
Original Mountain Dew(for comparison): - Great

When Ephemeralness Becomes Permanence

Just this weekend my consumer sense tingled as I passed a product package that registered as different to the corner of my eye.

It turned out to be Birthday Cake Oreos, as has previously been seen... but wait!  This product packaging recognizes that it is no longer 2012, Oreo's 100th Anniversary year, but also this packaging does not say "Limited Edition"!

Could Oreo have made Birthday Cake Oreo cookies permanent due to their success?  Let's hope so.  A cursory search on the interwebs do not officiate this permanence, but I will keep my eye out for news.

Will I take down my Birthday Cake Oreo review if it's gone permanent?  No.  That post was the very first one on this site and I can't bring myself to remove it... but also, as a detail of policy, I will only remove Presumptive Ephemeral Nom posts if I see that they are indeed permanent.

Canada Dry Cranberry Ginger Ale

Each year during autumn and winter Canada Dry issues a cranberry version of their ginger ale for the holiday season and the ensuing cold months.

I'll usually buy a bottle each year for novelty, but I'm not sure it's worth much more than that.

The aroma seems unchanged.  On the sip, you can tell the stuff is more sour than the original.  It actually then begins to give you a fairly accurate flavor of cranberries, subtle as it is, but then spicy ginger soon takes over the delicate fruit.

This product's redeeming qualities are that it looks gorgeous in the glass at your holiday dinner table, and it goes quite well with a bit of gin.


Canada Dry Cranberry Ginger Ale: - Good
Original Canada Dry Ginger Ale(for comparison): - Good