Tuesday 24 November 2015

Today's Review: Jelly Belly Bean Boozled


This is a box of jelly beans I've had my eye on for a good long while. I've seen it in several import shops at quite a high price, one that I certainly wasn't willing to pay based on the premise. Fortunately, Tesco now have these in stock for the relatively low price of £2, so it was time I took the plunge and participated in this challenge. If you haven't seen these beans before, let me fill you in. 

This box contains eight classic Jelly Belly flavours, from popcorn and chocolate pudding to lime and tutti-fruitti. Unfortunately, they also contain eight new flavours that are based on completely and utterly disgusting things. We have stinky socks, rotten egg, lawn clippings, toothpaste, canned dog food baby wipes, boogers and vomit. But no biggie, eh? Those of us who aren't insane can just skip over the disgusting ones, right? Well, therein lies the challenge, as each disgusting flavour looks exactly like the nice flavour it's paired with, so you don't know what you've got until you've sunk your teeth in. I was drawn to these from the start. After all, the flavours may be bad, but they can't be that bad, can they?

I started out with the pure white jelly beans. As toss up between coconut and baby wipes. I'm not a great fan of coconut, and there are worst things to put in your mouth than baby wipes, so I figured I'd be pretty nonchalant either way. Turns out the baby wipes ones really do taste like baby wipes, a light, fragranced taste that is a lot more authentic than I'd imagines. Based on that, I'm sure you can tell how the rest of the tasting went.

I thought it would be fine. I was a fool, a damned fool. The toothpaste is another egregious gateway into the horrors that lie ahead. You may think it's just minty, surely that's nice? Well, it's so outrageously minty that I felt like I'd swallowed a mouthful of actual toothpaste. The lawn clippings tastes like green, the canned dog food tastes exactly the way it smells like it would taste. The stinky socks somehow have a nuanced flavour of dirty fabric. Even the bodily function based ones are pretty authentic. Well, the booger may be a little off, I can't remember the last time I ate a booger, but either way this was certainly a dirty tasting bean. The vomit, however, I do have memories of, and this flavour was spot on, acidic and foul. Still, I managed to chew my way through and swallow it down. I can't say the same for the rotten egg. It's so authentically eggy, so disgustingly rotten tasting, that it's the first thing I've eaten in a hell of a long time that actually made me almost vomit. I've devoured a whole bar of Dairy Milk just to get the taste out of my mouth, and it's still lingering.

Jelly Belly, I salute you. You thought of an absolutely fantastically disgusting idea, and pulled it off with such sickening aplomb, all I can do is applaud. Clap ferociously as I try and get your disgusting, scientifically accurately crafted flavours off my tongue. These jelly beans absolutely disgust me, but they're perfect at pulling off what they set out to do. Go grab a box, and gag horribly with all your friends.

My rating: 5/5

No comments:

Post a Comment