Cain’s Fine Raisin Beer [By Spectre] (Morrisons)

When someone mentions raisins to me I always cast my mind back to the 80s and the California Raisin adverts with the singing raisin characters. I’ve never associated raisins with beer. There’s a good reason for that, as raisin beer just doesn’t sound like a good idea to me. After all, raisins are dried grapes and I don’t fancy trying beer wine. Having said that, if Cinabar found some beer wine I’m sure she’d enjoy torturing me with it. She certainly has found the next worst thing. This beer, brewed by Cains, is made from Californian Raisins. On the label it recommends trying it with “cheeses, red meat or game – or on its own.” On opening the bottle I noticed the strong smell of raisins. The beverage tastes of a fine raisin wine mixed with a light beer. You get a strong taste of raisins to start with, then the light beer taste and back to raisins for an aftertaste. The more I drank of this raisin beer the stronger the raisin taste became until towards the end of the beer it was almost overpowering. The beer flavour disappears and is replaced by raisins, then raisins and more raisins. I’m sure they liquidised a whole raisin singing group to fill each bottle. In retrospect I think this beer would have tasted great with a strong cheese and some crackers, or a medium steak or roast beef, or a nice pheasant, but I made the mistake of trying the later suggestion on the label and drank it on its own. This is a beer to be savoured and enjoyed with a good meaty meal or a cheese platter for pudding rather than on its own, and I can’t see youths drinking it from the bottle at parties raisin’ hell (sorry… had to get that one in)!

By Spectre

Frijj Cookies & Cream Milkshake [Limited Edition] (Sainsburys)

A new Frijj milkshake flavour always makes me smile. When I saw the Oreo style cookies drawn on the bottle of this one, I was all excited for a rich dark biscuit and cream flavour. But this is not a dark flavour at all, but a sweet creamy taste, in fact the main flavour is that of wonderful rich cream. I have no idea how the bottle gets labelled with only being 2% fat, it tastes so wonderfully rich, I just naturally assumed it would have a higher fat content than that. It is however a pleasant surprise that it doesn’t.
Well I have told you about the cream section of the Cookie & Cream flavour, but I don’t have much to report on the biscuit part. There is indeed another flavour mixed in, but it is more like a mild shortbread flavour with a hint of a caramel taste too. There is no strong cookie flavour present.
That aside, I really enjoyed the drink, but I drank the bottle over the course of the day, trying to have it in small amounts to not become overwhelmed by the wonderful rich creamy flavour.

Ultimate Chocolate Cheese: Wensleydale with Belgian Chocolate [Deli] (Asda)

I have been quoted in the past as saying “if it can have chocolate, it really should have chocolate”. I use this expression when choosing items to purchase, for example ‘what type of breakfast cereal to buy’, it works for a lot of things!
Still there were items that even I felt didn’t need chocolate adding to them, up to now this included Wensleydale cheese. Up in Yorkshire it is quite common to eat Christmas cake with a slice of Wensleydale cheese, but I’ve never been convinced of the concept, and always felt that cheese was a savoury item.
Admittedly the delicatessen counter regularly has Wensleydale with fruit, such as apricot or cranberry, but chocolate is a new one - even on me! I tentatively opened the packet, and found the cheese had a very delicate mild smell, which was just vaguely sweet.
I chopped a small piece off to try. Thankfully the cheese wasn’t overly sweet and the creamy crisp flavour of the Wensleydale mixed delicately with the rich cocoa taste. It would be difficult to categorise this cheese as being specifically savoury or sweet, as the answer lies somewhere in the middle. The chocolate doesn’t add a huge sugary taste, but this is well and truly a good thing. What you are left with is a cheese that is undeniably chocolately but still very palatable. The more I ate the more I enjoyed this cheese, and its complex flavour, even if at first it does seem to have an identity crisis.
I would love to know other people’s views if they have tried this cheese? It is such an interesting taste, more cocoa than chocolate and not at all what I expected. It is so much more than just a novelty; it’s a very clever cheese!

Doner Kebab Pot Noodle [By Spectre] (Sainsburys)

First launched in 1977, Pot Noodles have been a benchmark of student life ever since. I initially braved them in the 1980s and didn’t think much to the flavours. The last one I ate I think was Curry flavour and that was about twenty years ago. Geez… that makes me feel old! Doner Kebabs first came out in the UK in 1971, so it was only natural that this flavour would find itself in a Pot Noodle at some point. Okay, not really. Been as though I’ve never professed a liking for Pot Noodles to Cinabar, in fact, quite the opposite, it too was only natural that I’d be lumbered with trying this new flavour. To be honest I can think of other things I’d prefer to try that begin with “Pot” before revisiting this brand, such as “Pot Holing”, where the phrase “Every hole’s a goal” simply doesn’t apply. To be honest, after some recent and disastrous horror films involving deep holes in the ground, monsters and people being eaten alive, I may never go into a cave again! Potatoes are nice. There’s pot roast too. Hell I’d even prefer to eat Potpourri, rather than a Pot Noodle. But as I could see the fear in Cinabar’s eyes, I agreed to do the review.

After a number of weeks of staring at the Pot Noodle I came across a point where I had no choice but to eat it. Cinabar was away on holiday with her mom and I’d been swimming after a long day at work. Apart from some eggs, a little cheese and some bread, the Pot Noodle was the only thing left to eat in the whole house (there wasn't even any Potpourri). I boiled some eggs and made a cheese sandwich with lashings of beer mustard. I followed the instructions on the plastic pot to a tee. Add boiling water, leave for two minutes, stir, add sachet, leave for two minutes and (for God’s sake) don’t reheat. I scratched around and managed to find a bag of Welsh Rarebit crisps and a Hot flavoured Pepperami. I sat down to “Battle of the River Plate”. I have to admit my unusual concoction of food all went rather well together, whilst I watched battleships pounding each other with shells. The hot spice in the pot noodle took me back a little, especially on noticing the finely chopped chillis mixed in with the curly noodles. The instructions on the pot recommend you eat it with a fork, which makes for a loud and particularly messy meal. I ate a few noodles, my mouth began to burn after a while, but I had to imagine the taste of lamb, because it seemed to be missing from the pot. I used the boiled eggs to cool my mouth, dipped my sandwich in the pot, the Hot flavoured Pepperami also complemented the pot noodle well. All in all I had a strange, yet very tasty meal indeed. If I’m devilishly hungry and desperate for a very quick meal in the future, I may look to the other flavours of Pot Noodle and give them a try to see which one I like the best, but the Doner Kebab flavour has a thumbs up from me!

By Spectre

New Weetabix Chocolate (Sainsburys)

When I have Weetabix I have to confess to sprinkling a little sugar on the top, or sometimes also chopping up a banana to add some extra sweetness. So I was rather delighted to find a pre-sweetened chocolate Weetabix for sale on the shelves of the supermarket.
I say pre-sweetened, but I should point out that the box claims that it still has “half the sugar of the average chocolate flavoured breakfast cereal”. This to me is a good thing, I don’t want an overly sweet breakfast cereal, just something that doesn’t taste plain.
The picture on the box shows a brown coloured Weetabix, speckled with numerous chocolate drops, sadly my own Weetabix seemed to have less. The flavour was unmistakably cocoa based though, despite it being a more mature dark taste, and not that sweet overall. Having said that, I did not feel the need to add any extra sugar/fruit at all.
I liked the cocoa overtones, and the extra sweetness that appears when you find a chocolate drop. The flavours were well balanced and the cereal is thoroughly enjoyable. It is a long way off being as sweet as other chocolate cereals, so I wonder what the regular purchasers of Cocoa Pops etc will make of it.