Sugar Savvy

Typical of my British obsession, I love Maynards Wine Gums. Lately I’ve noticed new Maynards products on the shelves and, with much hope for the best, opened my gob and dug in. Wine Gums are, for those who don’t know, similar to Jujubes but a little firmer. In my opinion, their taste is richer and more adult, far superior to a plain old Jujube.

Maynards Sour Wine Gums seem to be regular Wine Gums encrusted with a sour crystal substance. The first one up was green and I was rather disappointed. Is this candy really supposed to taste sour? I suppose in direct comparison to a plain green one, it was slightly sour. But the sour coating really just got in the way texturally of the pleasant taste of a Wine Gum. Then I ate a sour yellow one which tasted quite a bit like lemon, but also wasn’t particularly sour.

The oddest thing occurred when I tasted the sour orange one. Instead of making my mouth pucker and salivate like you would expect any good sour candy to do, it simply tasted like an actual sour orange. Not a terribly nice candy experience, to be sure. Purple is my favorite Wine Gum, it has the most wine-like taste, if you will. Although these candies contain no actual wine, which makes me wonder what the name is all about. I think to be blown away by these, one would have to be really bored of plain Wine Gums. Which I’m not. Next candy…

The package of Maynards Mini Fruit Gums says, “Sweet, but not too sweet.” Well, they sure got that right. Compared to most candy on the market this was the least sweet tasting thing I’d had in a while. The lemon was mild but I’d hoped for tangy. The lime delivered on the tang but that somehow made the overall lime taste kinda bitter. The orange was also bitter but tasted okay whereas the strawberry, which is often my favorite, was awful. It tasted like strawberries about to go bad. Most surprising was that the cherry one tasted really nice, like authentic cherries. I would suggest that Maynards develop a fragrance based on this product, the overall smell inside the open package was the best thing about this purchase.

I shared the Maynards Fruit Mania with my fiancé, J. These were totally different from the Mini Fruit Gums and their claim of not being too sweet. Overall the Fruit Mania were too sweet and the strawberry was the worst culprit. It tasted like a big piece of jam and both J and I spent several seconds trying to chew its cloying bits out of our mouths. The cherry was also too sweet but J liked it, which he claimed to be weird since he hates cherries. But he obviously likes orange claiming them to be the fix he needed and that all of them could be orange. I liked them fine, they went down quickly. The lemon were interesting in that the first one tasted awesome. But a second one left us both with a little cough-syrup-like after-taste and all I was drinking was water. As always I saved the grape for last and lamented that there were only two! Which was a real shame since it turned out to be a deep and complicated flavor, sweet without being stupid sweet. I didn’t share the grape with J, opting instead to give him all the leftover flavors in the bag (lemon, strawberry and cherry). He then proceeded to shove all the remaining candy into his mouth at once and rapidly changed his facial expression to suit each flavor as his tongue found it. Through gumdrop covered teeth he exclaimed that it was a “cacophony of too (expletive deleted) sweet!”. Most amusing.

Every now and then a candy comes along that makes one wonder who the heck came up with this idea anyway. Maynards Milkies, soft foamy gummies shaped like milkshakes, are such a product. They were so weird that I offered them to all my Saturday visitors, as after trying one of each flavor, I was more than done. First out of the bag, the dreaded banana. If you’ve read my previous posts you know I don’t like artificial banana and even though this candy was still kinda gross, I can definitely say it was the best artificial banana tasting thing I’ve ever eaten. Michelle said that it tasted like a lighter version of marshmallow banana. Indeed the milk/gummi combo in all flavors reminded nearly everyone of marshmallow. My buddy Dave spit the banana one out almost immediately while his girlfriend Rebekah said it tasted like children’s refrigerated penicillin drink. All in the room made the ‘ew medicine’ face but she insisted that she quite liked that taste. It takes all kinds, I suppose. My best friend, Darci exclaimed, “Darci likee!” I have now christened her my artificial banana expert. At least I don’t have to taste it anymore. Nearly all the tasters had difficulty telling the difference between the wildberry and the strawberry, which were unanimously declared blah, mild and boring. Lastly was vanilla, by far the best in the bag. Darci really liked it and Michelle said she could have had a whole bag of vanilla. Jay said it tasted like coffee sweetener. Compared to the four of us, Dave and Rebekah thought the vanilla were basically flavorless. I said that was probably because vanilla is in so many things that they’d just become accustomed to overlooking (over tasting?) it. The most interesting thing, to me, was that I couldn’t shake the feeling that I’d actually drank a milkshake, there was such a strong, thick, dairy aftertaste.

I think it will be actual milkshakes and original Wine Gums for me from now on. Cheers!