I often wonder if my solitary Valentine’s Days are born from the sharing of my encyclopedic knowledge of esoteric nerdom such as Vulcan mating rituals with my dates.

Nah, probably not.

Whatever the cause of my party for one dinner reservations, my experience with love potions begins with #9 and ends with hormone-fueled Hogwarts’ hijinks. When said potions are described as smelling of turpentine, it does not exactly inspire confidence in the alchemical arts.

Baskin-Robbins has remedied this issue by once again bubbling up a cauldron of Love Potion #31 which consists of chocolate chips and raspberry-filled chocolate hearts and a raspberry swirl mixed within both raspberry and white chocolate ice cream.

Evident at first sight, the color of love is fully on display due to the judicious application of actual raspberries that lay an authentically natural saccharine foundation. Every bite is awash in an intense raspberry essence as aggressive as a Vulcan on bath salts during pon farr.

Playing a complementary role, the white chocolate half of the ice cream in this witches’ brew of dairy delight exudes a dulcet butteriness. Wisely eschewing the standard eye of newt, the pervasive dark chocolate flavored chips perfectly complement the powerful raspberry sweetness with nary a note of excessive bitterness.

Its rarer raspberry-filled candy companion shares a similar excellent balance in a heart shaped package born of cocoa rather than the unsavory bits and bobs of creepy crawlies. They present a slightly milkier chocolate and syrupier raspberry filling than the main bowl that makes the occasional bite really pop.

Love Potion #31 presents a delicious holiday inspired flavor with an adorably heart shaped, raspberry filling on top candy flourish. Embracing this deliciously dark dairy art, I might finally get to show off my collection of Klingon themed bondage gear.
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Purchased Price: $2.39
Size: Small scoop (2.5 oz.)
Rating: 9 out of 10
Nutrition Facts: (Small Scoop) 170 calories, 9 grams of fat, 6 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams trans fat, 25 milligrams of cholesterol, 45 milligrams of sodium, 19 grams of carbohydrates, 16 grams of sugar, 1 gram of dietary fiber and 3 grams of protein.

Blaze. Inferno. Flame. Burn. Fire. Heat. Heatwave.

Already used.

Wildfire. Firestorm. Angry. Fury.

Hmm, possibilities.

Combustion. Conflagration.

Okay, scraping the bottom of the barrel, but I guess they would work.

What am I doing? I’m coming up with new spicy Doritos flavor names using my computer’s thesaurus. As you can see, we’re going to run out of names soon.

But that issue is for the future. Today is today and today we have a new spicy Doritos flavor — Blaze.

On the back of the bag, it says Doritos Blaze is like licking a volcano. After I read that, I wasted about an hour or so wrapping my head around what is quite possibly the dumbest thing ever printed on a Doritos bag. Are we talking active or dormant? If it’s dormant, it going to taste like the Earth. If it’s active and you’re trying to lick the lava that’s pouring out of it, I’m pretty sure your face will melt off, along with your tongue, before you can do so. Yes, this is what I spent an hour thinking about.

The next hour was spent wondering why I don’t like Doritos Blaze.

Its aroma reminds me of bell peppers. It also has a sweet and spicy smell that makes me think of Panda Express. Inhaling the air in the bag also gave me clues that these chips were going to burn.

I’ve had spicier chips, but these are packing some decent heat. The first chip isn’t so bad, but eating more will cause the heat to spike (Doritos Spike?). At a point my mouth begins to feel like I’m playing out a scene from a Game of Thrones fan fiction focusing on dragon erotica. There you go, the person who came up with the “It’s like licking a volcano” line, a line that’s dumber than yours.

After consuming a few chips I had to stop eating them, but not because the heat was getting to me, even though it was and I had to grab some water. Instead, I had to stop because I didn’t care for their taste. Along with the heat, there’s an underlying sweet, peppery flavor, but it doesn’t make me want to eat more. Although they’re Doritos, there isn’t a cheesiness to them. I wish there was because they might’ve been better tasting.

Doritos Blaze is one of the most disappointing varieties of the popular tortilla chip I’ve ever had. It’s definitely spicy, but it doesn’t have a flavor that makes me yearn for it. Maybe its new name should be Doritos Bummer.

(Nutrition Facts – about 12 chips – 140 calories, 7 grams of fat, 1 gram of saturated fat, 180 milligrams of sodium, 17 grams of carbohydrates, 1 gram of fiber, less than 1 gram of sugar, and 2 grams of protein.)

Purchased Price: $3.49
Size: 9.75 oz. bag
Purchased at: Walmart
Rating: 4 out of 10
Pros: Spicy. Cool name.
Cons: Sweet, peppery flavor doesn’t work for me. Doesn’t have a flavor that makes me want to eat a lot of it. Saying “It’s like licking a volcano.”

Over the course of this here blessed lifetime, I have come to consider myself quite worldly in the grand scheme of most things barbeque. I’ve sampled and enjoyed the various takes and numerous styles of this homegrown culinary tradition throughout this sticky-fingered country, leaving a long trail of broken hearts and used wet wipes along the way. With that little preamble said and done, I have to admit the new KFC Smokey Mountain BBQ chicken has left me a little more perplexed than usual.

While it claims to be something of a mixture of the various “sweet, smoky flavors of Southern BBQ” — interpret that however you will — the vague drenching of this supposed sauce on my two-piece seems to have more in comparison with the off-putting artificial flavoring of BBQ-seasoning dusted on a bag of cheap store-brand potato chips than any tried and true ‘que creation I’ve ever come in contact with. It’s really the only thing found in nature that, after numerous unlikable bites, I can honestly compare it to.

Having been a moderate fan of KFC’s attempt at Georgia Gold honey mustard barbeque (and, to a somewhat lesser extent, its moderately gentrified take on Nashville Hot Chicken), this generalized take on what it consider to be Smokey Mountain flavors, seemed half-hearted at best, right down to the chintzy drizzle over my extra crispy pieces. They resembled nothing like the glorious coating on every photogenic cut of poultry in every piece of promotional material.

Of course, like most KFC products, the chicken itself was right on, juicy and tender, hot and crispy and served with a kitchen fresh smile. The problem here is totally with the Smokey Mountain sauce, which is comically salty and overly sweet to a fault, necessitating more than the daily recommended allowance of trips to the soda fountain to swish and spit that mouth-binding fraudulent Southern sass that the Colonel wrongfully thinks represents said mountainous regions.

Now, with all that being said in regards to both the two-piece bone-in or three-piece tenders meal, I will casually admit that the sauce does work better when you order it as part of its totes adorbs Chicken Littles menu, the plump sesame seed buns, pickles, and mayonnaise working together as an excellent buffer, bringing out the more flavorful qualities of the Smokey Mountain sauce as a probable condiment while religiously oppressing the glaring flaws of its main reason for being.

Even though I’m always eager to see whatever concoctions the flavor wizards deep in the Dixieland Laboratories of the KFC Sassafrassin’ Sauce Studios come up with next, this is definitely one that should’ve gone back for a little more quality control testing, honey. Until then, I’ll just keep sneaking in my pocket-sized flask of Cholula Green Pepper hot sauce to pro-actively blanket that two-piece extra crispy myself. Ya’ heard, KFC?

(Nutrition Facts – 2-piece chicken only – 260 calories, 150 calories from fat, 16 grams of fat, 3.5 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 110 milligrams of cholesterol, 810 milligrams of sodium, 7 grams of carbohydrates, 1 grams of fiber, 0 grams of sugar, and 22 grams of protein.)

Purchased Price: $4.99
Size: 2-piece (drumstick and wing)
Rating: 4 out of 10
Pros: Makes a good condiment for a sandwich. Chicken Little fits in a pocket.br />
Cons: Too salty. Tastes like cheap BBQ chips. Skimps on sauce.