Sooo sorry for the lack of posting. I won’t get into the details but things have been crazy but I fully intend on keeping up with the snacks. My stupid non-snacking life takes over sometimes.
Anyway, I’m not usually a fan of pre-made canned salads, I’ve seen other offerings like chicken and ham salad in a can too, maybe even egg, but I hope not.
I have my suspisions that one of these two owns the other but could be wrong, it just seems to be the trend that eventually one company will make everything. I just thought it was mildly interesting that the color and gradient on the packaging are exactly the same.
Bumble Bee:
I could get right to the point and just say gross, no more please but I’ll use a few more adjectives. Ethan described this as “soupy” not in the consistency so much (although it applies somewhat) but the taste was like canned soup. You know that “dead” taste of things that used to be fresh and are transformed into a bland, tasteless, shelf-stable version of it’s former self, like canned spinach, asparagus, etc..
I thought I detected some tomato flavor and assumed from the texture and taste those reddish-orange bits were tomoato but they were infact carrot.
Pretty gross all around, didn’t taste like tuna so much as mayo and transformed carrot and celery.
Brunswick:
Different but the same. Very slightly better in the way that this tasted more like “normal” tuna salad. Same deal with the texture but we found this less offensive enough to not make a face when we ate it. This also had considerably less carrots and no tomato-like taste.
Wrap up:
Brunswick wins for being less disgusting, although not by much. Needless to say I’m not feeling very good right now and drinking a Tab to hopefully burn away any funkiness going on in my stomach (that’s what I’m telling myself).
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I found Dad’s root beer at my local dollar store (which I’ve grown to love to find so many second-rate products), I don’t know anything about it but I’m always up for trying a new root beer hoping it will be a new favorite, which I think I did find but I have to do more research on how to get a bottle since I just had it from a tap in a little store in the middle of NH.
Anyhoo, the available opponent this time was A&W so we sat these two down and let them battle it out.
A&W:
I thought I’d try a different angle with the drink photos (I’ll go back to the old way), but the A&W looked pretty lighta nd the foam didn’t last more than a few seconds after it was poured. We liked the taste of this, it was very “peppy” to me and Ethan said it had a good, dependable root beer flavor and the sweetness was just right. For me I’d like it to be a little creamier like this mystery tap rootbeer I had in NH but the flavor of A&W is really satisfying.
Dad’s:
I was impressed with Dad’s because the foam didn’t completely dissolve even after sitting for an extended amount of time and had a nice deep brown color. We felt this had an interesting aroma, which Ethan described as “herby”. As far as flavor it was flatter than A&W and tasted artificial, which goes to show foam isn’t everything.
Wrap up:
Even though it doesn’t look as impressive, the deep flavor and “zazzyness” of A&W really makes it a more satifying root beer than Dad’s. It’s not a terrible soda but we wouldn’t go out of our way to buy Dad’s again.
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Although this cheese and cracker snack combo is offered by a few different brands, these two were on sale, so that’s what I got.
I’ve always considered this type of offering to be a second-rate snack in general. For some reason it sticks out in my mind when I was in college and working at Crabtree and Evelyn in the mall and my manager was working a billion hours because the store just opened. We always had candy or chips in the back room that we’d snack on but one day in the middle of her open-to-close shift she sat in the back room and pulled out one of these sandwich cracker packs and said “finally some real food!”. I remember being confused and asking her why she didn’t just go to the food court (though not much better, a little closer to “real” food) but she declined and was content with the crackers because they had cheese in them. I just remember wondering when she was going to get sick considering the amount of hours she worked and that she counted these as a substantial meal. She looked pretty bad by the time I quit.
Anyway, my mom just happened to be in the neighborhood after I got home from the store and FINALLY got a cell phone so she called to see if I was around and just in time to help evaluate these!
Keebler:
Mom and I both noticed how butter these crackers were, which we liked. The salt was just enough too and I felt it really complimented the butteriness of the cracker. Mom felt that the cheese had a chemical taste to it while Ethan and I had trouble tasting the cheese at all. It was just there for texture as far as I experienced.
Lance:
Mom felt the cheese was the same in this with it’s chemical taste. I could taste the cheese a little more, not so much the sharpness of cheddar but it did add a creaminess that Keebler lacked. Ethan said he still didn’t really taste any cheese. The cracker was less buttery and salty but more dense, which mom liked.
Wrap up:
Mom liked the Lance crackers better because of their density and felt like a more substantial snack and Ethan and I went with the Keebler. I liked the intense butter flavor of the crackers and Ethan didn’t specify in his notes (he conveniently came downstairs right after my mom left and tested these with his own).
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I was excited to hear a couple of months ago that Pepsi and Mountain Dew were coming out this summer with “Throwback” versions which contain cane sugar instead of high-fructose corn syrup.
Not that I even like Mountain Dew but of course I just had to try both versions and see if there were any noticeable differences.
Pepsi:
There’s not much to say, especially since we just reviewed Pepsi in the Shasta post so I’ll just say it tastes like Pepsi and for more description see two posts below 
Pepsi Throwback:
Surprisingly, there was not too much of a difference. Ethan and I could tell there was no “syrupyness” to it and we did like that there was a little bit of what I’d describe as a “snap” to it. It seemed to taste cleaner in a way and I think throwback was a great idea, but in the end we both felt that the difference in taste probably wasn’t enough for them to continue production of this after the summer.
Mountain Dew:
As I mentioned I’m not a big “dew” fan. I won’t get too much into the review since we’ve already done it but feel free to check out the Mello Yello vs Mountain Dew post. Ethan being the former Mountain Dew drinker said he did like how citrusy this is and although it does taste very artificial, he said it was in a “good way”. This is just too much for me to take more than a couple of sips of. Too sweet and I don’t like drinking things that look like anti-freeze.
Mountain Dew Throwback:
Before I even tasted this I liked it better because it was so nice to see the old logo again and for me the evaluation could have stopped there since um… I don’t like Dew (have I mentioned that?)
I left this to the expert and Ethan said he was surprisingly disappointed because it tasted watery. He went on to describe it like bad iced tea, like it was just water sugar and bad fake lemon (I guess opposed to the good fake lemon in modern Dew)
Wrap up:
I’d like to say that we were wowed by the throwback versions of both of these but we weren’t. While I did like the “crispness” of Pepsi throwback, it wasn’t the awesome experience I was expecting. Ethan was surprised that he preferred the modern Mountain Dew (or “Mtn Dew” as they now call it) over the throwback version for it’s more citrusy flavor and substantial consistency. If I had to buy one, it would be Dew throwback, I’d dump it out and just walk around with the bottle with the cool label.
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Ethan and I went to at our friends’ (Mark and Sara) house and in addition to my retro Marushka cake, we brought over a tub of Alouette and Rondele (I know they both don’t use capitalization but I can’t help it) both in the “garlic and herbs” variety. It’s kind of funny that Sara also had “Pub Cheese” in this flavor too but we realised it’s made by Rondele so we just kept the evaluation down to these two.
Alouette:
This cheese spread was very fluffy and as titled, very herby and garlicy.
We liked the light, airiness of the cheese and we all agreed it was very creamy. Ethan described it as having some “zazz”. I forget why now but I would think it’s because of the amount of garlic. The cheese on it’s own seemed very mild and just a springboard for the herbs and seasoning.
Rondele:
Rondele was even softer and creamier. Mark commented that it was almost “buttery” and Sara felt it had a little sharpness to it like a cheddar. It was interesting that this was both mild and sharp at the same time. I liked that it wasn’t as garlicy and we all agreed it was “herbier” than the Alouette.
Wrap up:
While we all thought these were both good but Mark ended up voting for Alouette while the rest of us went with Rondele for the mild-yet-sharp, flavor and it’s fluffy consistency. Alouette was very good but ultimately, we felt it had a pinch too much garlic that overpowered the spread.
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I was walking out of the dollar store with my little purchase and heard the cashier say to the next customer behind me, “Shatsa, huh?”. I stopped in my tracks and pivoted to turn back towards the drink section.
I thought Shasta was long gone but it may be a regional think like Mellow Yellow.
I bought my 4-pack of Shasta and stopped at a mini-mart on the way home for a Coke and a Pepsi for evaluation.
Coke:
As I probably have mentioned before, Ethan is a huge Coke fan and I’m a Pepsi girl, somehow we are happily married, but I knew we would both probably be biased so no big surprise that Ethan enjoyed the Coke and stated it’s a “good, solid cola”. Although he finds that Coke in a can has some sort of faint aftertaste that is not present in bottled Coke. I think Coke is good, I’m not one of those people that act like their world is turned upside down when a server asks them “is Coke okay?”. It’s a decent cola product.
Pepsi:
Without thinking about the name I actually thought “this has extra ‘pep’ to it”. Ethan thinks Pepsi is a “semi-tone higher pitch” than Coke. Seems slightly sweeter too. There is just something about Pepsi this is subtly more interesting. I don’t know what it is but I just like it.
Shasta:
Shasta was surprisingly watery compared to the previous two. The cola flavor was much less intense and was a little soapy or something. We kept trying to find adjectives for this but it was just so void of flavor and substance that we just kept looking at each other and srugging our shoulders.
Wrap up:
Coke and Pepsi definitely are more substantial colas. After that I think it just depends on your blood type or something which one appeals to you more. Shasta unfortunately was not the treasure I was hoping it would be and because of it’s flavor deficiency, we agreed it was the second rate version of the two better known colas.
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Unfortunately I didn’t get to see my 3 year old nephew who likes Teddy Grahams to have him compare these but I get the feeling he’s not too picky when it comes to second rate versions of snacks. Ethan and I evaluated these on our own. Admittedly we’re not graham cracker connoisseurs, and I’ve never had either of these products but it looked like a perfect showdown waiting to happen.
Teddy Grahams:
These little cookies are probably about an inch high with a shiny glaze of sugar/honey/high fructose corn syrup. I felt they were a little bland but Ethan said he thought graham crackers are supposed to be bland anyway. So there was really nothing too noteworthy about these, I didn’t really taste any honey flavor but we did both like that they had a good satisfying crunch.
Teddy Bear Cookies:
Right off I wasn’t crazy about these because they look like this lady I used to work with that would come into my office and complain all day. Although they were larger, we both found these to be even more tasteless than Teddy Grahams. These had the taste and softer crunch similar to an animal cracker. There was some weird, unnatural aftertaste that we just couldn’t put out finger on but we didn’t like it.
Wrap up:
Teddy Grahams wins for having a good hearty crunch and no weird aftertaste. Other than that they’re pretty bland, but in this case not questioning what flavor you’re tasting is a winning factor. Plus the fact they they didn’t remind me of long days in the office listing to Ruth ramble on about how she gets no respect from her work-study students might have had something to do with it but I do have Ethan’s opinion to back me up on the decision.
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I always thought of bottled Frappuccino as a disappointment because if you go to Starbucks and order a Frappuccino, you get something that resembles a frappe (or as some parts of the country call it a milkshake, although I won’t get into the fact that a frappe has ice cream and a milkshake is just milk and syrup but anyway…) So being that the bottled version is more like an iced coffee, when I saw Caribou’s “coffee drink” I felt these were close enough to compare. Ethan doesn’t drink coffee at all so I evaluated these on my own.
Frappuccino:
I usually drink iced coffee black with no sugar so of course this took a little bit of adjusting to. It’s very milky and they’re not shy on the sweetening. I almost had a hard time detecting the coffee flavor at all but it is in there it’s just over powered by the milk and sugar. Too sweet to drink more than the amount poured in this picture.
Caribou Coffee Drink:
Caribou is noticeably darker. A little easier on the sugar as well but still somehow lacking coffee flavor. I feel like there is a mocha quality to this and even checked the ingredients to see what they added to make this not taste like coffee but coffee is the first ingredient followed by milk, sugar, sodium bicarbonate and then “natural flavors”. I kept tasting it expecting this to get better but it just didn’t.
Wrap up:
I don’t feel so good. Both are pretty sugary and I don’t respond well to that. Between the overwhelming milkiness of the Frappuccino and the odd, non-coffee taste to Caribou’s coffee drink, I never want to have either of these again. Usually wherever you’d buy one of these (mini-mart), there should be a Dunkin’ Donuts nearby (if you’re in New England) so just hold out a few more minutes and get a real iced coffee instead.
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Devil Dogs are one of my brother-in-law Rick’s favorite things. When I saw these Little Debbie “Devil Cremes”, I had to bring them up to New Hampshire and have him give his opinion.
What my sister and I never liked about Devil Dogs is how dry the cake is. I found out that Ethan felt the same way and even Rick admitted they are a bit dry.
I’m actually surprised they’re still made because of how dry they are but I guess enough people don’t mind.
Devil Dogs:
We all agreed the cake was pretty dry. I felt that it also wasn’t very chocolaty and Ethan said both the cake and the creme were artificial tasting and had a slight chemical aftertaste. Steph and mom weren’t impressed either but Rick seemed fine with it even with the admitted dryness of cake.
Devil Cremes:
Mom thought these looked more appealing because they’re darker, I agreed. The cake was soft and moist and Rick pointed out that they were thinner, making for a more balanced creme-to-cake ratio. I liked the creme because it was like what they use in their Swiss Rolls. Mom said she could live without them (as she says about most things) but they weren’t bad.
Wrap up:
Devil Cremes win. Even Rick, who confidently declared Devil Dogs would win even before tasting both, strayed from his favorite and went with Little Deb. Everything was better about these, the cake, creme and overall balance. I guess like mom, I could live without either, but if I had to choose, I’d definitely pick Devil Creme over Devil Dog.
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There are so many root beers out there, but these were the two available in the store that I stopped at on the way home today. I don’t know exactly what gives root beer it’s distinctive flavor. I checked out a few recipes and it seems like it’s vanilla and wintergreen and sometimes ginger, licorice and something called sassafras (which I will look up later). I like root beer every now and then, but my love affair with it seemed to end after Ramblin’ was discontinued.
Mug:
Upon opening the bottle we noticed that this smelled very root beery, like the scratch and sniff stickers I used to have. The taste is pretty decent, a lot better then Ethan had remembered it - he used to think Mug was the “bottom of the barrel” for root beers. This was a little too sweet and Ethan said it tasted almost like Pepsi with herbs.
Barq’s:
When I tasted this, I said I thought this had more of a bite and Ethan immediately said “That’s their motto,” - so I guess it’s accurate. Ethan thought the flavor was more of a “true” root beer flavor. The bubbles were a little more present although like Mug, there was no “head” on either of these, but I’m not sure if that’s possible out of a bottle.
Wrap up:
Ethan liked Barq’s better but was surprised that Mug wasn’t all that bad either. I felt both were pretty much the same and feel like I should try harder to find a Ramblin’ equivalent, although I’m not sure if I remember exactly how it tastes. But if there is a root beer that is a little smoother or creamier, I’d love to try it.
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