Snacks Across the Pond

Please welcome to Snacks Across the Pond guest reviewer Melmoth, of Killed in a Smiling Accident.

Playing Watson to Philip’s Holmes, I had been asked to deal with the liquorice menace that had infiltrated SAtP. Philip told me that he wasn’t really a fan of liquorice and that it would perhaps be better reviewed by someone who could keep the stuff in his mouth long enough to taste it; it was because of this that he decided to find a liquorice connoisseur to pass the reviewing duty on to. Unfortunately he couldn’t find one, but he did fine me, and I said I’d eat anything that was free, so I guess that was close enough to a connoisseur to qualify.

It’s a good job he looked for someone with a discerning palette too, because as I excitedly turned the packet over and over in my hands, the promotional blurb caught my eye:

Generations have enjoyed the root of the liquorice plant in its natural form for over 3,000 years. With this in mind and combining our original low fat recipe, this soft eating liquorice has been created to ensure that even connoisseurs of liquorice will be pleased with the quality.

Wow, I didn’t even know there truly were liquorice connoisseurs until now. Apparently there are, and they get displeased with poor quality liquorice often enough that it’s worth putting a bold disclaiming statement on the back of your product. One imagines secret sects of liquorice eaters, charged with guarding the ancient secrets of good liquorice passed down through the generations since the time of Jesus, who will unleash their hidden order of warriors upon anyone who dares to produce an inferior liquorice product. Somewhere there are smoky, dimly lit rooms secreted away in the back of gentlemen’s clubs, where the ability to snort a liquorice bootlace up your nose, pull the snorted end out of our mouth and floss back and forth with it, gains you entry to these private chambers where heavily-whiskered portly gentlemen eat liquorice allsorts off of the bodies of virgins.

REAL, liquorice lovers will truly appreciate this exceptionally superior product.

Standard defensive disclaimer against those fake liquorice lovers from the orient, sent to infiltrate liquorice lover society and sow seeds of discontent. The capitalisation is their own, by the way.

On to the (potentially slightly over-hyped) liquorice itself, then. A quick grab of the paper bag and tear at the top… and tear at the top… and TEAR at the TOP. Good lord, this has to be the toughest paper known to man, either that or I have just discovered that red liquorice is my kryptonite and I have become desperately weakened. There were a few more frustrated and slightly angry attempts, including one where I sneaked up on the the bag so as to catch it unawares, and another time where I wrestled with it on the floor and tore at it with my teeth. Success! The teeth worked and I was in. Upon closer inspection it appears that the ‘paper’ bag is some devilish foil bag with a faux-paper surface tacked on to the outside, probably to cater to all those liquorice connoisseurs who might be turned off by more modern packaging.

Never mind, however, because the smell that greets me once I’m in to the bag is truly scrumptious! There’s definitely a hint of raspberry, and there’s the liquorice too. Sweet, slightly tangy, and very appealing. Time to get stuck in to one of these little suckers. I say little, but each sweet is over an inch long and perhaps half a centimetre or more in diameter (if you’ll pardon the mixed measurements), and as such they’re quite the mouthful if attempted in one go.

First chomp and I know I’m going to enjoy them. The texture is interesting, softer than the wine gums that we get here in the UK, but still quite chewy, enough to get stuck in one’s teeth a bit. It’s a good sort of gooey. The flavour is certainly interesting and had me wracking my puny brain for several days after first tasting because I new I’d experienced it before, some dim and distant memory from my childhood, one of those annoying memories that tugs at the corner of your mind but never comes into focus. To describe the taste accurately is tricky, there’s definitely raspberry there, not true raspberry but that jelly raspberry flavouring one expects when a sweet says ‘raspberry’ on it, pleasant nevertheless. There’s a hint of liquorice in there, it takes a bit of chewing and tasting to get it, but it’s definitely there, but to be honest I think even a non-liquorice lover would be able to enjoy these without too much trouble. I’m sure the secret sect of liquorice lovers has dispatched their elite agents to assassinate me even as I write this heresy.

They’re exceedingly addictive, and I easily managed four or five before I knew what was happening. They are also quite sickly once you’ve had four or five. I think the bag, 275g in size, lasted the best part of a week, with my chomping one or two a day when they took my fancy; they’re the sort of sweet that works well when you just want something to nibble on and leave yourself satisfied and not needing those heavier fattier snacks. It does take some restraint to only have a couple though, and there was at least one other occasion where I had enough to turn my dreams slightly raspberry that night.

Overall I enjoyed the connoisseurs’ liquorice, it’s not something I would normally think to buy for myself, but if I ever see anything approximating this antipodean treat here in the UK I’ll be sure to pick up a pack.

I did eventually remember where I’d tasted that flavour before, it was from a time when I was curiously addicted to candy cigarettes. I’m not sure if they have these across the Pond or down in Oz, they certainly seem to be banned in the US; the standard sugar version has the flavour I was thinking of, but the chocolate ones are also a lot of fun. Perhaps another snack to review at another time.

Anyway, it seems that the liquorice connoisseurs have broken down my door and have reached the bedroom where I barricaded myself in with this laptop. I shall send this review on to Philip before I meet my doom. Remember me fellow snack eaters, my reviewing was short but sweet, with a low fat liquorice extract flavouring.