Warburton’s Fruit Loaf With Orange (Asda) By @Cinabar

One of my favourite simple things for lunch is toast. This might make me sound like an eternal student with my eating habits, but working from home it is quick and easy and tasty. Add in a chocolate spread and it is a winner. Today I thought I would try a different twist on it, and I picked up this Warburton’s Fruit Loaf With Orange, which I hadn’t seen before.

Now I think this bread is made for the toaster. The slices are small so you get a full toasting without any bits sticking out. Why do regular toasters insist on being smaller than some slices of bread? Who makes them like that? I hate having a raw edge. Anyway, no such problem here. The whole piece was submerged.

I added a decent layer of butter to the toast and gave it a try. I loved the sticky fruit in the toast, it was sweet and pleasing and it meant I wasn’t reaching for the jam. The bread toasted well, crispy on the edges, soft inside. The flavour was gently fruity from the raisins, but the taste from the orange was very mild, just a light citrus hint in the background. I would still buy this Warburton’s Fruit Loaf With Orange again, just the fuel I needed before the afternoon of work from home meetings kicked in.

Soda Folk - Blueberry Muffin Soda (Holland and Barrett) By @Cinabar

I loved everything about this drink, unfortunately, except the taste. I wanted to like this Soda Folk Blueberry Muffin Soda, I really did. I love the ethos of Soda Folk with the natural ingredients. The bright purple design on the can made me smile. The flavour sounds quirky and interesting. There aren’t many drinks flavoured with cake. I was truly excited to give this drink a try and see what they had done with the flavour.

It is a dark red/purple shade of drink, and fizzed pleasingly when poured. The aroma was nice and fruity. I took a sip and that is where I was disappointed. The drink has a milder flavour than I was expecting, there is certainly a blueberry flavour there and it tastes natural, but it is reminiscent of something else, like a milder version of cough sweets and I just couldn’t find myself enjoying the drink. I couldn’t pick up on the baked muffin taste at all. The flavour lacked depth, but this might just be because I am so used to all the strong flavours of artificial drinks. Maybe that is on me.

Wagon Wheels Orange - Very Citrus, Much Wow @NLi10

 I spotted these in the Nissa by work and decided that this was a really clever idea and wondered why we hadn't seen them before.

Turns out that Cinabar talked about these in July 21, but now they have escaped from Iceland and made it in to the real world.

Burton's have done a few variants over the years, but a good strong Orange is something that I've always fancied.

And here it is - hooray!

They look larger in the pictures than in person - I do wish they did a grown-up size of these too.

But - it is full of the jam - and the taste is almost too strong and acidic - mainly as the jam seems to have pooled in one area. And these were nice enough to want more of, but not so nice that I didn't give the whole rest of the pack away to colleagues to try.

I think these would work better with some really dark chocolate, and maybe some bits of Orange in the jam, but that would make it a very different biscuit indeed.  A nice variety indeed.

Crabbie’s Rhubarb Alcoholic Ginger Beer (Tesco) By @SpectreUK

I love rhubarb. Not with custard. Even though there was a particularly crazy cartoon called Rhubarb and Custard when I was a child. I love rhubarb for pudding all sugared up in its own juice. I love rhubarb juice too. Although I probably have it way too sugary when made from rhubarb grown in the garden.

I love ginger beer. Not particularly ginger ale, as it's not fermented, and is generally made from ginger flavoured carbonated water having a tendency to not be very fiery. Although I have tried a few ginger ales that have been fiery. I tend towards the ginger beer, and always have a glass to help settle my stomach every night after dinner.

So what could go wrong with this Crabbie's Rhubarb Alcoholic Ginger Beer? I have confidence that nothing can go wrong with it. I've had Crabbie's drinks before and generally liked them. In fact I've tried a Rhubarb Cider by Crabbie's in the past and I'm sure I enjoyed that.

This 4% in volume Crabbie's Rhubarb Alcoholic Ginger Beer has a sweet rhubarb aroma with a fiery ginger beer smell right behind it. As you can see from the photograph this rhubarb ginger beer was bright pink in colour.

Served cool from my beer fridge this screaming pink drink welcomed in the spring for me. There was the sweet rhubarb to start off with, and then a warming spice from the ginger beer into the aftertaste. As soon as I started drinking it, I could not stop. It turns out that I love Crabbie's Rhubarb Alcoholic Ginger Beer too.

Hershey’s Cookies and Mint (Candy Mail) By @Cinabar

It is green! This new chocolate from Hershey’s is inspired by the ice cream Chocolate Mint Chip, and it looks very much like the ice cream. Each jaunty piece has an ice cream design on the front too. The colour of the bar is bright green, on the back of the bar you can see loads of dark cookie pieces. The aromas was minty and gorgeous. I couldn’t wait to get stuck in.

I broke a piece off the Hershey’s Cookies and Mint bar and the flavour is spot on. The first flavour to hit is a lovely sweetness, that then became a strong sweet refreshing peppermint. It was surprisingly strong but I love mint so I was more than happy to have the hit of sweet cooling tones on my taste buds. The cookie bits add a lovely texture that feels satisfying to eat. They are not too hard and crunched nicely while I was eating. They also added a nice dark chocolate cookie flavour that worked well in the bar to helping with the mint cool-down.

Basically it tastes like a bowl of mint chocolate chip ice cream in a bar, and I want more. Apparently Hershey’s also released a Birthday Cake edition that I need to hunt down too, but honestly what I really want is another of these.