QUICK REVIEW: Limited Edition Cap’n Crunch’s Beach Bash Crunch Cereal

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Limited Edition Cap n Crunch s Beach Bash Crunch Cereal

What is it?

As sad as it is to say, eating a bowl of Cap’n Crunch’s Beach Bash Cereal is as close as I’m going to get to actually going to the beach this summer.

Jokes about my current status as a dirt-poor student aside, Cap’n Crunch’s Beach Bash is Quaker’s newest nautical adventure, and combines beach-themed crunch pieces with magical milk-color-changing-sorcery to bring the ocean to your breakfast table!

How is it?

Visually, Beach Bash is about what you’d expect for a beach-themed cereal. Eighty percent of the pieces are standard Cap’n Crunch squares, which happen to look like water wings. The other 20 percent are shaped like stereotypical beach stuff — starfish, floaties, and sharks.

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Taste-wise, it’s Cap’n Crunch. Sweet, crunchy, slightly corn-y, and not much to write home about on its own. If you like regular Cap’n Crunch, then you’ll probably like this, because this doesn’t taste any different.

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The real fun happens after you pour milk into your bowl. Beach Bash has the same milk color-changing technology featured in Halloween Crunch, and uses it here to make your boring old milk turn into an entire miniature ocean! Call me simple-minded, but I like to play with my food, and there’s something about chasing cereal-sharks around a little cereal bowl ocean with my spoon that I find to be both really fun and oddly satisfying.

Is there anything else I need to know?

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Since the cereal has to soak for a couple of minutes in order to make the milk change color, Beach Bash’s quality is contingent on its ability to not instantly turn into mushy cereal-gruel after getting wet. Luckily, this IS Cap’n Crunch that we’re talking about here, so milk viability isn’t an issue. The cereal in my bowl remained pleasantly crunchy after ten minutes of soaking, which was more than enough time for my milk to turn bright blue.

Conclusion:

While I probably won’t make a special trip out to the one Walmart in my area that has this to buy it again, I’d say Cap’n Crunch’s Beach Bash is worth trying, even if it’s only for the novelty factor.

Purchased Price: $2.98
Size: 20.3 oz. box
Purchased at: Walmart
Rating: 7 out of 10
Nutrition Facts: (3/4 cup) 100 calories, 15 calories from fat, 1.5 grams of fat, 0 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 0 milligrams of cholesterol, 190 milligrams of sodium, 40 milligrams of potassium, 22 grams of total carbohydrates, less than 1 gram of dietary fiber, 11 grams of total sugars, 1 gram of protein.

REVIEW: Sparkling Ice Mystery Fruit Flavor Sparkling Water

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Sparkling Ice Mystery Fruit Flavor

Flavor innovation is all the rage recently. From mystery Peeps and Oreo to the ever-popular public vote or creation like Lay’s and again Oreo.

Now enter Sparkling Ice’s new Mystery Fruit Flavor Sparkling Water. With so many of the recent mystery entries being food it’s nice to see a beverage brand decide to follow this trend.

This mystery sparkling water has a cloudy-white appearance as to not offer any hints to the correct flavor. A trick color would have been pretty fun, though, as it would play with your mind as you wonder about its true purpose.

Upon opening the bottle, you get an immediate whiff of just citrus. It definitely smells like it could be lemon-lime like (how lame would that be or absolutely genius depending on how you look at it) but it also does have a little something extra as if maybe another fruit is thrown in there. While executing the sniff test, I couldn’t quite put my finger on it.

Before drinking I decided to examine the bottle for any clues to see if the mystery gods dropped any breadcrumbs for us. Look at the back, for example, the question mark graphic contains line art of different fruits.

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There’s a lemon or lime or orange, a strawberry, a blackberry or raspberry, some cherries and then one that looks to me like a tomato. Remember a tomato is a fruit, not a vegetable, so it totally counts! How clever!? However, I’m not holding my breath that’s the flavor.

The others are your most basic fruits. LAME. The ingredients list shows lemon juice and green tea extract but they are both trumped by natural flavors as an ingredient. So not much help there either.

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Taking my first sip I’m completely underwhelmed. It tastes like, umm, fruit? Again there are the citrusy undertones but it’s hard to pinpoint what else it actually is. I was initially thinking something kiwi but Sparkling Ice already has a kiwi strawberry flavor so it can’t be a recycled one.

Then it hit me.

What’s exotic and different but also kinda kiwi-like? A dragonfruit! As I kept drinking that’s all I thought of, and once I started thinking about it, that’s all I could taste. So that’s my guess.

Overall, it’s a nice tasting zero sugar sparkling water, but I was expecting something more captivating. Just be warned it definitely tastes diet-y as in you can make out the artificial sweeteners from a mile away, but nothing worse than a diet cola.

When the flavor is revealed, I hope it is something more trendy or out there like avocado toast. Just please don’t be lemon-lime coupled with generic fruit, unless it’s an official Sprite or Mist Twist partnership because we all know brand mashups are pretty hot right now. It would be neat and almost make up for the boring flavor.

Almost.

(Nutrition Facts – 8 fl. oz. – 0 calories, 0 grams of fat, 0 grams of sodium, 0 grams of carbohydrates, 0 grams of sugar, and 0 grams of protein.)

Purchased Price: $1.00
Size: 17 fl. oz. bottle
Purchased at: Giant
Rating: 6 out of 10
Pros: Liquid mystery item for once. No color trickery. Pretty good citrus fruity beverage.
Cons: Packaging and ingredients offer no help. Tomatoes and avocados are in fact fruits. TBD for when the flavor is revealed and it’s a huge let down.

QUICK REVIEW: Milky Way Fudge Minis

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Milky Way Fudge Minis

What is it?

A Milky Way with the usual chocolate malt nougat swapped out for chocolate fudge nougat. That’s about it.

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How is it?

These are delicious, much the same way a regular Milky Way is. The fudge nougat has a slightly more pronounced cocoa flavor and the texture is a hair denser, the effect of which is 10 percent more chocolateness – not a huge bump. If I was blindfolded and someone handed me these and said “Here’s a Milky Way,” I likely wouldn’t be able to tell it was different.

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These made me ask “why?” in a way no other product variation has. It’s too similar to the original. When I bite into a Milky Way Caramel Apple or Midnight, I’m getting a materially different experience. I would give a plain Milky Way a 9, but I’m deducting a point for lack of originality here. They taste good, but a variant should stand apart from the original.

Is there anything else I need to know?

The package makes a bold promise on the stretchiness of the caramel.

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I tried to recreate it, but only got this far:

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Conclusion:

If you’re a Milky Way fan, just buy a Milky Way. The experience is so close, there’s kind of no point in these existing.

Purchased Price: $2.98
Size: 8.9 oz. bag
Purchased at: Walmart
Rating: 8 out of 10
Nutrition Facts: (4 pieces) 150 calories, 6 grams of fat, 4.5 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, less than 5 milligrams of cholesterol, 50 milligrams of sodium, 24 grams of carbohydrates, less than 1 gram of fiber, 20 grams of sugar, 19 grams of added sugars, and 1 gram of protein.

QUICK REVIEW: Peanut M&M’s Sweet & Salty Snack Mix

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Peanut M M s Sweet Salty Snack Mix

What is it?

A mix of two types of M&M’s — peanut and peanut butter — with peanuts and pretzel balls. There’s also a milk chocolate version available with milk chocolate and Crispy M&M’s mixed with almonds and pretzel balls.

How is it?

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Solid, but unspectacular. Even though the pretzel balls are pictured sparingly on the outside of the bag, they seem to be the most populous of the residents inside the bag. The peanuts are a touch disappointing in that they are neither sweet nor salty.

It might have been better if they were salted or honey roasted; instead, they are just kind of there and don’t differentiate themselves from their brothers and sisters encapsulated in chocolate with a candy coating. Despite those shortcomings, the mix of the four components does accomplish the stated goal of being sweet and salty, and overall it makes for a tasty, satisfying snack.

Is there anything else I need to know?

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Using a trick perfected by potato chip industry, the bag is much larger than it really needs to be based on the contents inside. While the label proudly trumpets that it is “Sharing Size,” I’d advise using restraint before announcing to friends, family, or co-workers that you are indeed open to sharing a bag. The label says there are “about 8 servings,” but if you invite more than two others into your circle of sharing then no one is going to get much.

Conclusion:

There’s really nothing remarkable about this product, and it would be pretty easy to just create this mix yourself (even if you not a DJ).

With that said, I’ve never seen those little pretzel balls at the store and doing it yourself is never as easy as it looks. So if you like Peanut M&M’s, you’ll enjoy these even though they certainly won’t change your life.

Purchased Price: $2.98
Size: 7.70 oz. bag
Purchased at: H-E-B
Rating: 7 out of 10
Nutrition Facts: (1 oz. serving) 130 calories, 7 grams of fat, 2.5 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 0 milligrams of cholesterol, 90 milligrams of sodium, 16 grams of carbohydrates, 1 gram of fiber, 8 grams of sugar, and 3 grams of protein.

QUICK REVIEW: Mtn Dew Berry Monsoon

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Mtn Dew Berry Monsoon

What is it?

Mtn Dew Berry Monsoon is quite possibly the most exclusive soda in stores right now!

Oh, wait, I mean store.

That’s right because it’s available only at Sam’s Club — and, even then, only at the soda fountain. Luckily for me, I happen to be a member of The Club, so I grabbed a cup of this ultra-exclusive, berry lime-flavored soda during my last Sam’s run.

How is it?

Coming from someone that drinks enough Mtn Dew to have a lucrative Dew Nation Rewards account, pretty good! The berry flavor is definitely more prominent here, but the hint of lime provides a nice countenance for the fizz, which is a bit on the lighter side.

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If you can imagine mixing together three-fourths of a cup of Mountain Berry Blast Powerade with one-fourth of a cup of 7Up, then you would get a pretty accurate representation of what Mtn Dew Berry Monsoon tastes like. You’d even replicate the color, which is nearly identical to that of Berry Powerade.

Is there anything else I need to know?

This stuff is a great deal if you have a Sam’s Club membership, or if you know someone with one that you’re able to drag along with you to get you in the door. I paid less than a dollar for my 24-ounce cup, and, yes, you can get refills. You’re probably going to want to because Berry Monsoon’s likeness to carbonated Powerade makes it particularly satisfying after shopping and hauling cases of chips and toilet paper around the store.

Conclusion:

If you shop at Sam’s Club, like Mountain Dew, and are looking for something a little lighter to quench your thirst over the summer, then I think that Mtn Dew Berry Monsoon is something you’ll enjoy! Hopefully, PepsiCo will incorporate this flavor into its regular selection, because I’ll be sad to see this one go.

Purchased Price: 89 cents
Size: 24 oz.
Purchased at: Sam’s Club
Rating: 7 out of 10
Nutrition Facts: (8 fl oz.) 60 calories, 0 grams of fat, 0 calories from fat, 35 milligrams of sodium, 16 grams of total carbohydrates, 16 grams of sugar, 0 grams of dietary fiber, and 0 grams of protein.

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