REVIEW: Sparkling Ice Starburst Flavors

Brandon 7 Comments

Who among us hasn’t been sitting around eating a fistful of Starburst when the thought suddenly occurred — “This candy is great and all, but what I’d really like to be doing is drinking it”? Well, friends, the good people at Sparkling Ice have read your mind (don’t ask why they were there to begin with; you don’t want to know) and are here with a solution: new Starburst-flavored Sparkling Ice.

If you don’t know Sparkling Ice, it is the primary product offering from Washington State’s Talking Rain beverage company, which started in 1987 and had roughly $500 million in retail sales in 2019. (I couldn’t find more recent sales figures; its website DOES have an extensive FAQ section, however, with real think pieces like, “Why did strawberry kiwi turn pink?” “Is the color safe?” “Is Sparkling Ice vegan?” and “Is it normal to have sediment floating in my Sparkling Ice?”)

And if you don’t know Starburst… that’s just weird.

So, does the low-calorie drink accurately capture its chewy sugar cube inspiration? As an avid fan of regular Sparkling Ice products, I was eager to find out.

Orange

This was the first one I had, and it was the worst. The taste was somewhere between “citrus aspirin” and an orange-Flintstone vitamin that’d been dusted with a heaping of artificial sweetener. The very first part of the drink made me go, “Hey, this tastes like an orange Starburst,” but everything after made me want to rinse my mouth out with paint thinner. Here’s the deal with artificial sweetener — I have no issue with it. Regular Sparkling Ice has it, and I’m a staunchly Zero/Diet guy when it comes to soda. But this was SO bad that it reminded me of being young and first trying Diet Coke, back when it just tasted like poison to a palate honed on only the finest real sugar cane (or, you know, high fructose corn syrup). In any case, I had no desire to drink more than two sips of this.

Lemon

Though my first thought when I poured this one into the glass was, “Welp, this looks a little like urine,” I had it immediately after Orange, so, you know, there was nowhere to go but up. It managed to taste like its namesake flavor all the way through and had a fraction of the Sucralose taste, which earned it a second-place finish overall.

Cherry

It tasted like a cherry Starburst, but it also managed to fall somewhere in the middle of the prior two in terms of the artificial sweetener taste. I also caught subtle cough syrup notes, which didn’t help my enjoyment. (Come to think of it, the actual cherry Starbursts sort of have that medicinal taste, too. So they really nailed the flavor on this one.)

Strawberry

Everyone knows that the pink Starburst is the best Starburst, case closed. (Out of the original flavors, that is. Tropical and Baja varieties really muck up the overall rankings with their deliciousness.) This, too, was the best Starburst Sparkling Ice. It captured the candy’s essence well but was once again marred by the sweetener. While it didn’t reach Orange levels of intolerability, it was still more noticeable than the Lemon kind.

In the end, I was surprised by how much I disliked these. The heavy application of Sucralose kept them from being anything I’d feel the need to purchase again. I’ll stick with regular Sparkling Ices and pilfer the Starburst two-packs from my daughter’s Halloween candy.

Purchased Price: $1.19 (each)
Size: 17 oz bottles
Purchased at: Target
Rating: 1 out of 10 (Orange), 3 out of 10 (Lemon), 4 out of 10 (Cherry), 5 out of 10 (Strawberry)
Nutrition Facts: (1 bottle) 5 calories, 0 grams of fat, 0 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 0 milligrams of cholesterol, 0 milligrams of sodium, 0grams of carbohydrates, 0 grams of fiber, 0 grams of total sugars, and 0 grams of protein.

SPOTTED: 3/21/2024

Marvo 1 Comment

Here are some interesting new products found on store shelves by your fellow readers. If you’ve tried any of them, share your thoughts in the comments.

Prego Creamy Basil Pesto
Prego Creamy Parmesan Pesto
Prego Creamy Roasted Garlic Pesto
Prego Garlic & Caramelized Onion Alfredo Sauce

(Spotted by Phil at Walmart.)

Nissin Cup Noodles Shrimp Microwavable Cup
Nissin Cup Noodles Chicken Microwavable Cup

(Spotted by Robbie at Dollar General.)

I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter Garlic Spray

(Spotted by Erin K at Hy-Vee.)

Private Selection Tuxedo Snack Mix
Private Selection Caramel Cashew Snack Mix
Private Selection Raspberry Chocolate Snack Mix

(Spotted by Amanda Y at Kroger.)

If you’re out shopping and see new products, snap a picture of them, and send them in via an email (theimpulsivebuy@gmail.com) with where you found them and “Spotted” in the subject line. Also, if you want to send in photos and are wondering if we’ve already covered something or if they’re new, don’t worry about it. Let us worry about it.

SPOTTED: Blue Bell Gooey Butter Cake Ice Cream

Marvo 5 Comments

Blue Bell Gooey Butter Cake Ice Cream.

The flavor features cake batter ice cream with a cream cheese swirl and gooey butter cake pieces. (Spotted by Robbie at H-E-B.)

If you’re out shopping and see new products, snap a picture of them, and send them in via an email (theimpulsivebuy@gmail.com) with where you found them and “Spotted” in the subject line. Also, if you want to send in photos and are wondering if we’ve already covered something or if they’re new, don’t worry about it. Let us worry about it.

SPOTTED: Oreo Thins Tiramisu Cookies

Marvo Leave a comment

Oreo Thins Tiramisu Cookies.

I reviewed Oreo Thins Tiramisu from Korea several years ago. I hope the ones above aren’t the same because I didn’t love the ones from Korea. (Spotted by Sage G at Food Lion.)

If you’re out shopping and see new products, snap a picture of them, and send them in via an email (theimpulsivebuy@gmail.com) with where you found them and “Spotted” in the subject line. Also, if you want to send in photos and are wondering if we’ve already covered something or if they’re new, don’t worry about it. Let us worry about it.

REVIEW: Wendy’s Cinnabon Pull-Apart

Jenna 11 Comments

Okay, let’s play a word association game. Ready? When you say Wendy’s, I say… Cinnabon! What, you don’t understand why Cinnabon would be associated with Wendy’s? I don’t really get it either, but nonetheless, these two fast food giants are collaborating on a new treat that can only be found on Wendy’s breakfast menu, the Cinnabon Pull-Apart.

As the “Pull-Apart” in the name suggests, this isn’t one big treat like the rolls Cinnabon is best known for; instead, it’s a monkey bread-esque cluster of smaller dough nuggets clumped together, which you eat by simply breaking off each bite-size component.

Or that’s how it’s supposed to work anyway, but I didn’t find the experience quite so seamless. My piping hot Pull-Apart was actually pretty hard, so liberating the chunks required way more effort than was probably intended. I guess that’s why it’s not called the Cinnabon Gently-Fall-Apart (and I guess that’s also why a fork comes with it), but I do think it’s fair that I expected my fast food breakfast to be a little more convenient to consume.

The huge glob of congealed cream cheese frosting on top didn’t help with that either; the archetypical Cinnabon frosting is way more liquidy, so it doesn’t impede your mouthful, but this solid glob was so ginormous that the only way to even get to the Cinnabon bits seemed to be either eating the whole frosting blob in a couple big bites (no thank you) or expending yet more effort to attempt to distribute it more evenly, a graceless task as its thick consistency wasn’t exactly spreadable.

By this point in the review, my frustration with this dish is surely apparent, but you might still be hoping that it ended up tasting amazing enough to be worth all the hassle. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but I’ll have to go ahead and dash that hope.

Apparently, my Pull-Apart’s reluctance to do its first job, pulling apart, was a signal that it would also fail at its second job, tasting good. The first sentiment that came to my mind after managing my first mouthful was “dry” (actually, it was more like “dry, dry, dry, dry, dry”; I didn’t love or even really like the cream cheese frosting and its too-tangy sickly sweetness, but I was at least grateful it made me feel a little less like I was eating sand). The second sentiment that came to my mind was “yeasty.” The very distant third — like, this afterthought didn’t occur to me until maybe a full minute after my first bite — was, “I guess there was a whisper of cinnamon in there too.” There’s, of course, a handy visual cue for which bites of this ‘bon will be more flavorful — the dark cinnamon swirls are slightly softer and sweeter than the rest of the stiff, bland dough — but even they’re lackluster.

Granted, if you’re a diehard Cinna-fan you might find more to enjoy than I did, but if you’re on the fence about whether to try this, trust me that it’s not worth waffling over. In fact, I think a waffle would be a much better way to get your sweet breakfast fix.

Purchased Price: $3.69
Rating: 4 out of 10
Nutrition Facts: 550 calories, 26 grams of fat, 11 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 35 milligrams of cholesterol, 440 milligrams of sodium, 70 grams of carbohydrates, 3 grams of fiber, 30 grams of sugar, and 8 grams of protein.