Candy Sticks

Candy Sticks

What Is It: This is the modern day version of what used to be candy cigarettes. This particular bag has 3 different sorts of boxes including Tom And Jerry, Flintstones, and Scooby Doo.

Packaging: Pretty fun bag and boxes. They could have made the sticks themselves made look different according to what cartoon they were representing but that's a minor quibble. 

8 out of 10

Taste/Final Analysis: Whether they're called candy cigarettes or sticks they're the same now as when I was a kid. Honestly they're not that exciting of a candy as they're a bit chalky in both flavour and texture. Basically it's just a stick of sugar but somehow all of the fun packaging makes it seem better than it really is.

5.5 out of 10

Sweettarts Chewy Sours

Sweettarts Chewy Sours

What Is It: A roll of chewy, sour Sweettarts. Well that was pretty obvious. They used to be called Shocktarts but that was too clever I guess. They come in pink (cherry), purple (grape), yellow  (lemon), green  (lime), and blue (blue raspberry).

Packaging: It looks pretty much like an ordinary roll of Sweettarts package wise. It does say "sours" on it. Honestly they should have made it look unique in some way. 

4 out of 10

Taste/Final Analysis: Well despite their unoriginal packaging and name these things are delicious. All of the colours have great sour flavour with the blue being the sourest and my favourite too although the pink cherry ones are a very close second. The other flavours are very good too but those two stand out to me ( hey I used too, to, and two all in the same sentence!) Seriously this is a darn good candy.

8 out of 10

Mike And Ike's Root Beer Float Candies

Mike And Ike's Root Beer Float Candies

What Is It: Root beer flavoured chewy candies. 

Packaging: Lots of cool artwork with the root beer barrel and float. Really cool box. 

9 out of 10

Taste/Final Analysis: This definitely nailed the root beer flavour on this. Unlike other Mike And Ike's products there's only the one flavour here. Despite it being root beer "float" flavour there is no ice cream flavour here to speak of. I prefer the old school root beer barrel hard candies for my root beer candy needs but this isn't a bad effort. Mild recommendation unless you're really really into root beer. 

5.5 out of 10

Krave Black Cherry BBQ Pork Jerky

Krave Black Cherry BBQ Pork Jerky

What Is It: The title says it all. 

Packaging: It comes in a purple package with a big black box with the product description in the middle. Seen better, seen worse although I do like the purple. 

5.5 out of 10

Taste/Final Analysis: This was some darn fine jerky here. The cherry and barbecue flavours work so well together and in a jerky you can chew and chew on that and savour that tremendous flavour. Great snack for any occasion. 

9 out of 10

Clancy's Cheese Balls

Clancy's Cheese Balls

What Is It: The store brand cheese balls of Aldi's.

Packaging: It's a pretty basic orange bag with some basic graphics and a clear spot to see the cheese balls. Basically it was very basic.

Basic out of 10

Taste/Final Analysis: Just like the packaging the cheese balls were very basic as well. They had a pretty decent cheddar flavour but nothing too exciting. The texture was okay but would get stale very quickly. The bag was in the neighborhood of one dollar so the inexpensive nature was a positive. At the end of the day a middle of the road (basic) cheap snack.

Basically basic out of 10

Philadelphia Peach Cream Cheese

Philadelphia Peach Cream Cheese

(I give full credit to my daughter; Elizabeth, who I bought this for since I don't like peaches.)

What Is It: Peach cream cheese with real peaches mixed in it.

Packaging: Has the traditional silver container that Philadelphia cream cheese always has bit with some nice peach artwork on the top and side. Looks really good.

8 out of 10

Taste/Final Analysis: This was very high quality cream cheese like you would expect from this brand. The problem was the lack of peach flavour. It's not like it wasn't there but there just wasn't a lot of it and there just weren't that many little peach pieces mixed in either. It was good cream cheese with a hint of peach flavour more than it was peach cream cheese. Not bad but not quite what was advertised either.

4.5 out of 10

Sriacha Ketchup

Sriacha Ketchup

What Is It: Sriacha flavoured ketchup that I bought at Aldi. I see no other brand names or at least none I can understand so I'm giving Aldi credit for this.     

Packaging:  It looks like most any other ketchup bottle I've ever seen.

5.0 out of 10

Taste/Final Analysis: You're probably wondering why I'm reviewing ketchup but this is uniquely good. A really good bite and proper ketchup flavour to boot made this a hit with me. It's particularly good with potato products like fries and tater tots. I know Heinz made a similar product but for me you're better off getting this cheaper brand because it's every bit as good.

7 out of 10