McCoy’s Limited Edition Chicken Jalfrezi + Lamb Vindaloo flavours [By Spectre] (WH Smiths)

I’ve always been a big fan of McCoy’s chunky ridged crisps. Their offerings are always flavoursome and never fail to impress. My favourite flavour is Flame Grilled Steak, with Mexican Chilli as a close second. When Cinabar passed me these two limited edition curry flavours I couldn’t wait to get stuck in.

Chicken Jalfrezi
These crisps have a spicy Jalfrezi taste to them that drowns out any flavour of chicken, but a spicy curry usually masks any flavour of chicken anyway. The flavour seems so authentic that you can imagine sitting in a dimly lit Indian restaurant tucking into a Chicken Jalfrezi curry and crunching away happily at poppadoms. The fact that this was lunch time at work without the luxury of Cinabar’s company or a cool beer to wash it down with kind of ruined the moment. Having said that, these are probably the tastiest and most authentic flavoured curry crisps I have tasted since the good old days of poppadom crisps. The spice slowly crept up on me part the way through the bag and I felt a few beads of sweat trouble my nose. I really don’t think these should be a limited edition. A bowl of these crisps and a few beers with a good war film sounds like a proper night in to me!

Lamb Vindaloo
There’s a nice reddish colour to these crisps and spicy heat that hits you as you take the first bite. Not enough heat to make you run screaming, but a good tongue tingling temperature that wakes you up after a dull morning in the office. Unlike the chicken flavour, there is a good meat taste somewhere in the background behind all that Vindaloo spice. An image boiled into my head whilst I was chomping away at these ridged crisps of an idyllic summer’s day, a lamb prancing in a green field with a tranquil blue sky above, suddenly the lamb’s gobbled up by the devil holding a flaming pitchfork! The more you eat of these crisps the more you notice the burn. These aren’t the hottest crisps I’ve eaten, and I have a pack of Cofresh hot flavoured crisps in the Foodstuff stock room I’m avoiding at the moment, but they do have a very pleasing spicy heat that makes you look forward to the yoghurt at the end of your lunch.

I’d definitely buy both these flavours again and they should become regulars to the McCoy’s range, not limited edition crisps people will look back on and say; “I remember those McCoy’s curry crisps, they were mmmmmmm goooooooood…..”

By Spectre

Slightly Naughty Jam (hotstuffchillicompany.co.uk)

The packaging and product name rather amused Spectre, he liked the jar and the idea of a chilli product that doesn’t take itself too seriously. Despite this I decided to do the write up of this item, as it isn’t one of the ‘liquid fire’ chilli sauces, and instead is more of a manageable heat.
The jar suggests using the jam with cheese and cold meats, but I decided to try it first as a garnish with fish cakes. Its bright red colour looked attractive on the plate, and its thick jelly nature made it look appetising.
The flavour was wonderfully sweet with a sour edge, which perfectly balanced the heat from the chilli. The spice was decent, adding a good tang and a tingle, but I felt it enhanced rather than overpowered my tuna fishcake. This is an ideal heat for me, I like the fact the chilli shines through, but there is depth to the flavour and it complements other tastes.
I was pleased to discover a strong product behind the quirky jar. We also have a bottle of Hot Scotch Sauce from the same company, which I looking forward to trying, but I might leave Spectre to the right up for that one – he has braver taste buds! In the meantime I am rather looking forward to trying this chilli jam with a rustic platter of bread, cheese, meats and olives.

SWBH Pathology Honey [@NLi10 helped make it, assisted by bees!]

Before I start I should say that this isn’t a product you can buy, (as it is sold out), but it is something I was very keen to feature on the site. The story is a little complex, but it highlights a couple of really good causes.
There are few words that you see that don’t sound very appetising in a product title, but one of them has to be Pathology... you think Pathology, and you think hospital samples, not at all enticing.
Nli10 works in a Pathology department, and helped make this honey. Thankfully it wasn’t made in some strange science lab way, his manager rescued some bees. This is the first good cause I would like to highlight. There are a lot of organisations at the moment trying to save the bees, and I have even donated to a few charities, but this Pathology Department went one step further and has their own hive! Yep, NLi10, along with several of his work colleagues, is a part-time bee keeper. I was lucky enough to get the chance to sample some of this fine honey, and found it to be absolutely divine. It had a lovely light silky texture, and was lovely and runny. The taste was sweet, and gentle but with a surprisingly nice floral tang for a busy city centre honey!
Just when you are probably thinking that the Pathology department where NLi10 works can’t get any better, let me tell you about the second charitable aspect of this post. After they harvested all this fantastic honey from their hard working bees, they then accepted charitable donations from anyone who wanted a pot. They raised £350 for the Pakistan Flood Appeal too!
I just wanted to say a big congratulations to everyone involved in the project, it’s an amazing achievement, and you should all be really proud of yourselves!

Vitamin Water (Cannock Chase Visitor Centre) {by @NLi10}

As the weather gets cooler and the summer attractions draw to a close there is nothing nicer than a walk in the woods. Cannock Chase is near to where I grew up and has plenty of places to wander around, get lost in and have to call search and rescue out.
As it was a nice day a couple of weekends ago we decided to go out for a walk and to sustain me on this arduous trek I chose a bottle of Vitamin Water from the visitor centre/gift shop. I'd not tried this range before and thought that I'd seen it around quite a lot and should give it a try. The flavour involved pomegranates and claimed various semi-medicinal properties.
Thing is though it tasted pretty much like water, maybe the water you used to wash out a bottle of squash that you just finished. I guess that a bottle of water with a hint of flavour and a few vitamins sprayed in may be what your average walker wants, but it's priced higher than your typical bottle of Ribena and just below the mood enhancing drink I tried in London called Neuro Bliss but isn't as nice or as effective as either of these.
While we happily drank it as we walked around the signposted course I couldn't help thinking that I'd rather have had either a big bottle of plain water or something with a defined flavour and that this was too much about the image and less about the product. It's made by Coca Cola and while it's probably better for you than your typical Cola I'd wager that the health benefits of a fruit juice would be far higher.

by @NLi10

Badger: Poacher’s Choice [By Spectre] (Waitrose)

I’ve always been a fan of Liquorice Allsorts, but avoided the plain liquorice tubes in the packet. The sweetness of the filling always seemed to go well with the bitter taste of the liquorice, but the bitter liquorice on its own was never a pleasant experience. I was intrigued when I noticed on the back of this bottle of ruby ale that it had a touch of liquorice and damsons. I remember we had a damson tree in the back garden when I was a child (many moons ago) and loved the damson jam my mom made every summer. I thought the mix of damson and liquorice (sweetness and bitterness) could be a heavenly combination and sat down one night to enjoy the treat. I poured the flavoured ale into my pottery tankard and took a big sniff before drinking. I could definitely smell the fruitiness on the ale. There was a taste of fruit to start with that was immediately snatched away by liquorice before I could tell whether it was damson or not. The liquorice became more overpowering the more I drank. At 5.7% you can taste the potency of the beer, but I found the shear strength of the liquorice off putting and didn’t enjoy the experience as much as I’d hoped. This might make a good pudding beer or late night swig for those who like liquorice, but I think I’ll stick to the weirder sounding Scottish Thistle or Meantime chocolate beers to savour in the later part of the evening.

By Spectre