11 September 2010

Sweet Cred Red Hot Toxic Extreme Sour Candy [By Spectre] (Selfridges)



I like the packaging of these sour sweets. The recyclable plastic toxic waste can has a certain irony. “Red Hot Toxic” in a fire red font on the side of the can, with warnings such as “If you dare” and “Extreme Sour Candy” certainly seemed a challenge. The can also states if you can take one sweet for a minute then you’re an “Extreme Sourhead”, anything below that and apparently you’re a bit of a wimp. So I decided to take up the challenge. I’ve had pretty sour face twisting sweets in the past. These claim to be the “sourest candy on the planet”. Popping open the plastic can I noticed there were four flavours wrapped in various colours. Green for apple flavour, yellow for lemon flavour, red for watermelon flavour (huzzah! No cherry flavour! Regular readers will know I hate cherry flavoured sweets), and blue for blueberry flavour. There was four of each flavour meaning someone somewhere counted them out. I prefer that then having one of one flavour and many of another or missing out on one flavour all together. The colours made sense in my head, which is so often not the case with different flavours of sweets (such as Maynard’s Duos).

Apple flavour
On ripping open the little green packet I noticed that it had another warning on the back “Caution taste buds Extreme Sour Candy”. I laugh in the face of danger. Hah! I popped the sticky green tablet into my mouth and instantly regretted it. Pow! I sat squirming at my desk trying not to swear. There really is an extreme sour hit right from the start with this sweet. It’s like Rita Queen of Speed at Alton Towers; a super fast start turning into a pleasant rollercoaster ride. When the sourness goes the sweet turns into a nice apple experience, but when your teeth break through to the centre of the sweet the sourness returns, not as bad as the first punch in the face, but maybe a couple of loop the loops.

Lemon flavour
Geez! Okay this one really is sour! Gah! Having trouble typing… Unlike the pleasant apple in the background this sweet makes full use of the lemon flavour straight away. I swear I almost fell off my chair. As soon as the Rita sensation hits you it’s gone and you can rest easy for a while to a nice lemon flavour. Then you bite through the crusty outer layer of the sweet and have a decent punch again from the sour centre.

Watermelon flavour
Okay, so I thought the lemon flavour was the sourest, but the watermelon clearly beats it. There is a definite watermelon taste, which I was pleased about. It actually tasted of watermelon, not some dodgy flavouring that some geek in a lab thought might taste like watermelon. On this sweet though, I noticed my tongue was getting sore and the roof of my mouth a little tender. I hastily bit through the outer layer and felt the full force of the watermelon sour. Definitely more sour on the outside and inside than the other two flavours. Roll(er coaster) on the last sweet!

Blueberry flavour
Blueberry is another of those sweet flavours that sweet manufacturers seem to always get wrong. Sweet Cred had done such a good job on the watermelon flavour that I was strangely looking forward to tasting this sweet. However my mouth was sadly not looking forward to it. My tongue was feeling sore in several places and the roof of my mouth raw. I winced a little opening the little blue packet. I couldn’t help thinking this would have made good TV or a You Tube clip for people to giggle at. I stared at the sticky sky blue sweet for a while and finally succumbed to temptation and quashed the fear. Yaaaah! There is a definite blueberry taste, although a little exaggerated. The sourness is definitely extreme, but not as bad (good) as the watermelon flavour. I started to feel the sourness on my lips with this flavour which were slowly going numb. My tongue and inner mouth had given up at this point, and hiding under my desk like a twisty faced moron from my colleagues seemed not to be working anymore either. I bit into the outer coating of the sweet for the final loop the loop and was glad my super sour tasting session was over.
By Spectre

Anyone for a sweet? I have three sweets left of each Red Hot Toxic flavour. Follow us on Twitter for a competition to win them – coming very soon.

7 comments:

NLi10 said...

I'll stick to the pies thanks :)

theundergroundrestaurant said...

I lurve lurve lurve sour sweets!

cinabar said...

NLi10 - we can't seem to resist buying sour sweets - even though they sometimes hurt :-D

theundergroundrestaurant - us too... and these are really zingy!

Anne said...

Oh I love sour sweets as well and these sound very sour! ;-) Wonder if they are available anywhere besides Selfridges...

Unknown said...

Be Strong People Be Strong!! Do not fear the Sweet Cred Sour Candy....

Spectre said...

Anne - Sadly I haven't seen them anywhere else, if anyone else has please let us know.

Louise - well these will blow your socks off! :-)

Chos - it took a couple of days for my mouth to recover! ;-)

cinabar said...

Glad you like the blog - you should have a look at our Warheads review too! Super sour! http://foodstufffinds.blogspot.com/2009/10/toxic-waste-hazardously-sour-candy.html