Look What I Found in the Desert

It was a bright and sunny Friday morning, filled with promise, as I headed out to Vegas. (Which, incidentally, is how every trip to Vegas begins.) At a stop for gas, I happened across two new products. I had two friends with me, who also sampled the goods.


A&W / SUNKIST FLOATS
We weren’t sure if we should have felt excited or tentative about this discovery. A good root beer float is one of my favorite things in the world, but would a shelf-stable variety in a glass bottle measure up? I grabbed the A&W and Scotty grabbed the Sunkist. At over 200 calories a piece, they aren’t health food. But hey, we were on vacation so it doesn’t count.



The A&W Float wasn’t bad. It has a much thinner consistency than a real float would, but it did have a good root beer taste. It was sweet and went down easily. Almost too easily because it was gone after only a few sips.


The Sunkist didn’t fare as well. It was super sweet…almost too sweet to drink. You know how sweet orange soda is by itself? Well, multiply that by around 4 or 5 and you’ve got the idea. I could stand it more than Scotty, who struggled to finish it all the while cursing that he picked the wrong one.

An interesting concept, but I wouldn’t buy them again. I have a pretty high threshold for sweet, but these were off the charts. The root beer was easier to take than the Sunkist, but if you don’t like super sweet things, these bottles should be avoided. Plus, they really aren’t worth it considering how bad for you they are.


CHOCOLATE SKITTLES


Ah good ol’ Skittles. Second cousin to both M&M’s and Starburst. Despite me never actually see anyone buying or eating Skittles, they somehow manage to remain popular enough to offer up new varieties every once in a while. Derek, Scotty and I were at first intrigued by the small bag of Chocolate Mix Skittles, but sampling the goodies inside splintered our opinions and triggered a debate over what constitutes real chocolate.

How you will feel about Chocolate Skittles depends on how you feel about Tootsie Rolls. I love Tootsie Rolls. Could eat them all day. My friends, on the other hand, don’t like ‘em and don’t think they are in any way shape or form chocolate or chocolate flavored. Been friends for years and never knew they were chocolate purists. Needless to say, Derek and Scotty gave Chocolate Skittles a big thumbs down. Me? Overall I liked them. Some were better than others. Here’s the rundown of the five new flavors:

S’mores / Chocolate Caramel – These two are lumped together because they pretty much tasted the same. They each have a mild chocolate flavor with a hint of something behind it. I couldn’t tell the difference between the supposed graham cracker or caramel taste.

Chocolate Pudding – A very slight chocolate flavor. Nothing special but tasty.

Vanilla – Why these are included in a bag called “Chocolate Mix”, I will never know. They taste like a less waxy version of vanilla Tootsie Rolls, which is to say that they have that artificial vanilla thing happening, but I liked ‘em.

Brownie Batter – Okay, here we go. These guys were the best of the bag, having the strongest and best chocolate flavor. Like with Vanilla, they come very close to the flavor of a Tootsie Roll, but with a slightly chewier consistency. I loved these. If they sold bags of just brownie batter Skittles, I would become very fat.



It’s always nice to begin a debauchery-filled weekend with lots of sugar. But now I could just use some sleep.