Limited Edition Blueberry Cheesecake Hot Chocolate (Whittard) By @Cinabar

Well it is January, it is Blue Monday, but it is also my birthday. I am having a treat then and having a few luxuries today. One of the things I’m enjoying is this new Whittard Limited Edition Blueberry Cheesecake Hot Chocolate, this is the other new flavour from Whittard and NLi10 wrote about the Raspberry Ripple yesterday. The front of the tub on this one states as blue as a berry, so I was expecting something quite fun in colour!
I added some teaspoons of powder to my mug, and some hot milk and microwaved. Although it isn’t how they advised on the pack I find adding an inch of milk and microwaving for a few seconds works really well. I mix that up with the powder, top up the mug with cold milk and re-microwave until hot. The drink is very lilac, perhaps not blue as promised but still a very interesting looking drink.
The taste is spot on, the blueberry shines through and is sweet. The base flavour is creamy but there is a nice vanilla hint of cheesecake too. This is the drink you should have to cheer up in cold January, sweet, fruity, creamy and soothing. It is a proper yummy drink, forget Blue Monday I’d rather have Blueberry Cheesecake Hot Chocolate.

Whittard Raspberry Ripple Hot Chocolate (@NLi10)

I got lots of exciting things for Christmas, including this Whittard Raspberry Ripple white chocolate hot chocolate.  I've been drinking it over the colder days, and occasionally adding a bit of fluff 

Here I'm using almond milk, it doesn't taste quite as rich as the dairy, but it works well enough.

And here we are adding the fluff to the mixture.  Without it the flavours are surprisingly deep and sophisticated, and just the right amount of fruity.

With the fluff it becomes a lot sweeter, and the artificial flavours from the raspberry marshmallow overpower the hot chocolate a little, but it does add a fun extra dimension.

These limited edition Wittard Hot Chocolates are a great idea, especially for people like me who like a bit of variety.  I wonder what other flavours they have in store! 

Twisted Tree Hopped Cider (Aldi) By @SpectreUK

This Hopped Cider rings a bell. I thought I'd written about this cider before. Cinabar informed me that was a different hopped cider. I know I write a lot of beer blogs, and a few cider blogs, but hopped cider seems quite rare to me. Hops added to cider is more of a taste thing, perhaps, rather than a necessary preservative. However, saying that if hops were just a preservative for beer and not a taste thing, I guess there would only be one type of hops used in beer… Anyway, cider lasts quite a long time without hops, so I guess it's a taste thing here.

I'd like to say I know a lot about this Hopped Cider, produced by Twisted Tree, but the writing on the back of the can was a kind of massed together white typeface on a light blue background. So I couldn't read it very well. Although Cinabar could read it, so maybe my old eyes are going? Anyway better to taste the cider instead, I guess…

At 4% volume this Hopped Cider smells like the innards of a sweet apple pie. It really does, I'm not pulling your leg. It seemed a shame to start drinking it, this Hopped Cider smelt so good. It made me think of a good hot pudding after a Sunday Roast. Strange though because on taste the sweetness is quickly replaced by the herbal hops, which spring to the fore and then in turn bring out the slightly sour cider apple flavours into the aftertaste. From first smell I thought I'd be recommending this Hopped Cider as a sweet pudding cider, but it'll probably go well with any white meat or spicy meal, or enjoyed clinking glasses together after a good day out with friends.

Cadbury Darkmilk - Roasted Almond (WH Smiths) By @Cinabar

Cadbury Darkmilk chocolate has been out for a few weeks but seems to have alluded me, and I have tried many shops looking for it in the West Midlands. Please note although similar in name to Dairly Milk, Darkmilk is a whole new product. I was popping into WH Smiths after a lovely day off work and a shopping trip to have a final browse at books when I spotted this new bar, Cadbury Darkmilk - Roasted Almond, on the counter. Obviously Darkmilk is doing well if they have already released a new flavour variant in the range.
So the idea of Darkmilk is a new chocolate from Cadbury that is a half way into being a dark chocolate (like Bournville) and half way to being a milk chocolate (like Dairy Milk). As a big fan of nuts and chocolate I felt this bar of Cadbury Darkmilk Roasted Almond was an ideal place to try out this new bar chocolate.
The bar itself does look quite dark, and the almonds are quite hidden on the front but are visible on the back. I gave it a taste and have to say I was impressed with the flavour. The bar is richer than Cadbury Dairy Milk, there is plenty of cocoa flavour and that enhancement I did really enjoy. The bar is silky too, and lovely and smooth. The nuts have a good strong roasted flavour and are crunchy and add lovely layers of texture. It is still sweet though, there was no bitterness from the chocolate. I thoroughly enjoyed this bar, it isn’t as soothing a Dairy Milk but the extra cocoa and richness is a lovely treat. I guess it is not better or worse than Dairy Milk, just different and perfect when you are in the mood for something a bit stronger.

Flipz Unicornz Pretz Pinkz Sparklz Nomz (@NLi10)

When we were little we'd pick up sweets and treats in the supermarket - rush them to our mother and she'd say no because they were silly indulgences.  Dejectedly we'd dump them on the row end by the tills.  And there they would presumably be put back by the assistants, or so I thought.  As an adult who has no reason to go down those bits, I spotted this dumped with the batteries at the end of an aisle and snapped it up.  A new flavour of Flipz based around unicornz? Sweet! 

Look at these colourz, can you imagine the joy on the childz face when they spot this and take it to their bill payer. 

The bag even tells you that they are MAGICAL which is great.  I mean the kidz will probably be disappointed with the salty goodness of the Flipz but for me these are amazing.

As usual the helicopter view looks a little disappointing because of packing space, but the smell is amazing even if the colourz are not quite as vivid as the art.

But here it is in all it's glory, a bit battered from going backwards and forwards to work in the bag, but still recognisable and whole!

How do they taste?

Like white covered pretzels and magic and a little hint of fudge on top!  I could have eaten the whole bag but I needed to share these at games tonight so I resisted.  They totally should make sharing size bagz of these for partiez.

And now they need to do Blue(berry) ones based around Narwalz. plz.

Golden Wonder Sausage & Tomato Crisps (Poundland) By @SpectreUK

These Golden Wonder fully flavoured Sausage & Tomato crips remind me of a favourite sandwich of mine. Who doesn't like Tomato Ketchup on a sausage sandwich? Okay, so it's not for everyone… Looking back when I first started work in a factory after college, I treated myself to a sausage sandwich every Friday morning from the greasy van that was parked up nearby on the trading estate. Not so healthy though, as I put on a few stone and had to work it all off at the gym!

Okay, so these Golden Wonder Sausage & Tomato may not be new crisps, but we haven't seen them in years. They must have been hiding somewhere. Strangely though I do find many Golden Wonder crisps aren't readily available, which is a shame as they're generally really tasty. On opening the packet there is a good smell of tomato mixed with the less dominant smell of sausage meat.

On taste these crisps really do explode with flavour. It's hard to say which comes first, as the sausage flavouring merges perfectly with the tomato like someone has gone mad with the Ketchup on their sausage sandwich (which I always do, of course)! Unless I'm mad, these crisps really do taste of sausage and tomato. I checked the back of the packet for a double take on the vegetarian friendly aspect of the crisps. Not that it applies to me, but I didn't want to type "Suitable for vegetarians" if it wasn't true!

The reason why I'm more than a little surprised that these crisps taste of sausage is that so many 'sausage' flavoured crisps out there seem to substitute 'sage' for the vegetarian tastebuds, rather than try to emulate the flavour of sausage. I can't be bonkers though, as it says Sausage & Tomato on the packet!

Information on the packet;
The 25g bag contains 132 calories, with 7.9g of fat, 0.9g of sugar, and 0.35g of salt. Suitable for vegetarians. Please see photograph for ingredients.