Tag: Gum

Do you need something dark colored to put in the Christmas stocking of someone who’s been naughty? You could use coal, but the coal could get onto your hands, which could cause you to leave a fingerprint somewhere, which could lead to the naughty one figuring out it was you who left the coal in his or her stocking.

If you want something less incriminating, might I suggest using a piece of Wrigley’s Hubba Bubba Hot Cocoa Bubble Gum. Actually, you should use several because you’re not gonna want to chew on them.

The 12 pieces are individually wrapped and come in a small coin bank. The gum is also available in 5-piece packs.

The small coin bank is the best part of purchasing this gum (second best is the gum’s soft chew, but those two are it). I can store my loose change in it and when it gets full I can take it to my nearest Coinstar machine and get an Amazon or iTunes gift certificate. This paragraph was not brought to you by Coinstar.

The pieces seem smaller than Hubba Bubba that come in the standard 5-pack. Or maybe I’ve gotten much bigger since the last time I’ve had Hubba Bubba gum. But size doesn’t matter when it comes to ruining someone’s holiday by putting an unpleasant gift into one’s stocking.

Since the gum is made with real cocoa, I expected it to taste somewhat like hot cocoa. But to say the gum tastes like hot cocoa would be a lie. To say the gum taste like despair, would be more accurate, hence the reason why it makes a great coal replacement. Its flavor is part Tootsie Roll and part plastic. I hoped after a minute of chewing it would get better, but it didn’t and the flavor became mostly plastic.

At this point, it’s best to spit it out. Or if you really want to punish those who have been naughty, you could dump the chewed piece of gum into their stocking. That’ll teach ‘em a B+ is not an adequate grade.

If I want to chew something for a long time that has chocolate flavor, I’d chew on a Tootsie Roll. If I want a gum that allows me to blow decent bubbles, I would buy regular Hubba Bubba gum because these smaller pieces just don’t cut it. Yes, I could chew two pieces at one time, but having to tolerate their flavor in order to blow bubbles the size of my head isn’t worth it.

I don’t know why companies continue to make chocolate-flavored gum. Over the years, they’ve come out with several, but none have stuck around. Have you heard of Hershey’s Chocolate Bubble Yum Gum. No? I rest my case.

Having chewed a few pieces of Wrigley’s Hubba Bubba Hot Cocoa Gum for this review, I now think my holidays are a bit less brighter and I feel as if I’ve been naughty this year. Thanks, Wrigley!

(Nutrition Facts – 1 piece – 15 calories, 0 grams of fat, 0 milligrams of sodium, 3 grams of carbohydrates, 3 grams of sugar, and 0 grams of protein.)

Item: Wrigley’s Hubba Bubba Hot Cocoa Bubble Gum
Purchased Price: $3.99*
Size: 12 pieces
Purchased at: eBay
Rating: 3 out of 10
Pros: Soft chew. Coin bank the gum comes in. Constar. This pro was not brought to you by Coinstar.
Cons: At first it taste like Tootsie Rolls and plastic. After a minute or two it tastes mostly like plastic. Pieces are smaller than regular Hubba Bubba. Hard to make large bubbles with it.

*Had to buy it on eBay because I couldn’t find it locally. So it’ll most definitely be cheaper if you find it in stores.

Over the past ten days, I’ve been trying to make Wrigley’s Juicy Fruit Cherry Starburst Gum smell like vomit. I imagine two thoughts are popping up in your head right now. Why? And why don’t you just vomit on them to make them smell like vomit?

Why am I doing this? I’m doing it because a number of folks have left comments with our original post about the gum saying the Cherry flavor smells like vomit. I should note there’s also a strawberry flavor, but there haven’t been complaints about it smelling like puke.

So over the past ten days I’ve had this pack of gum either in my pocket or desk drawer, trying to bring out its worst. I even slept with it, hoping my body heat trapped under a blanket would activate something. But I have yet to be successful and the gum continues to smell like Cherry Starburst.

So far I’ve gone through nine of the 15 red sticks in the pack. And after chewing those sticks made of sorbitol, gum base, hydrogenated starch hydrolysate, natural and artificial flavors, soy lecithin, malic acid, citric acid, mannitol, sucralose, acesulfame K, fumaric acid, red 40, red 40 lake, aspartame, and BHT, I think Wrigley’s Juicy Fruit Cherry Starburst Gum is great…for a few fleeting moments.

The first couple of chews don’t remind me of Cherry Starburst, but by the third, it has that familiar candy flavor. I’m amazed this gum’s flavor is spot on. It’s like I’m chewing on a softer Cherry Starburst, and I want to swallow it.

But I don’t because all that wonderful flavor is gone within two minutes, and my desire to swallow it is replaced by the urge to spit it out. It goes from flavorful to flavorless in an amount of time I’ve only experienced with Fruit Stripe gum. The gum loses it’s flavor so quickly that I think it takes me longer to eat an actual Cherry Starburst candy.

While this gum tastes like Cherry Starburst, its short lasting flavor and the possibility of it smelling like barf will stop me from buying another pack.

(Nutrition Facts – 1 stick – 5 calories, 0 grams of fat, 0 milligrams of sodium, 2 grams of carbohydrates, 0 grams of sugar, 2 grams of sugar alcohol, and 0 grams of protein.)

Item: Wrigley’s Juicy Fruit Cherry Starburst Gum
Purchased Price: $1.12
Size: 15 sticks/pack
Purchased at: Target
Rating: 4 out of 10
Pros: Even though it’s sugar-free, it tastes like Cherry Starburst. Soft chew.
Cons: Flavor doesn’t last very long. Might smell like vomit. Sleeping with gum.

In the land of guar gum and sucralose, where the pumpkins and gourds lie…

Two brands.
Many layers.
One flavor to rule them all.

Yes, it’s Pumpkin Spice Season, and, in the legion of opportunities to build up your pumpkin spice endurance, Extra and Trident are throwing themselves in the sumo circle to see which can make the product with just enough squash, just enough cinnamon, just enough grit, to transform a dessert of caramelized orange vegetables into a new and potentially terrifying medium.

With enough tire tread marks to wrap around a Ford F-150, the Extra pieces serve up a classic, slim look. The Layers, on the other hand, are the prodigy of pudgy, 3-dimensional nubbins, the Tetris blocks of a former life, if you will.

And, much like Tetris blocks, there is no pumpkin in either gum. No pumpkin at all. But a chewer still gets many of the sensations that a pumpkin-spiced treat might bring (sweetness, warmth, cinnamon spice). The Extra smooshes the sugar-and-spice sweetness in one bite, with an emphasis on the sweet coming together to taste something like a strongly cinnamon-spiced sugar cookie (or, more accurately, a cinnamon-spiced Juicy Fruit).

There aren’t any squash notes, but there is a strong emphasis on caramelized sugar, vanilla, cinnamon, and fruity clove. It’s hyper-sweet and the spice fills me with Christmas optimism, and, as we all know, it’s so easy to accomplish stuff when filled with Christmas optimism. I even cleaned my house thanks to Extra gum.

On the other end of the spectrum is the Trident, which has all the looks and smells of a Yankee Candle store in October, combining the familiar spices of cinnamon and nutmeg with a hint of sweetness. I have my hopes up, but as I start to chew…

Remember that scene in Return of the Jedi? Where Jabba’s henchmen are sucked into the maw of a gaping sandpit, wherein they are chewed and ddigested? That is how I felt while chewing the Trident: it starts off super sweet, but then eeks out into an amalgamation of popcorn, plastic, Halls cough drops, and those name-brand white jelly beans.

The spice is equivalent to gnawing on a basket of potpourri and, in a mere 47 seconds (47 SECONDS!), the gum got tough as the girders of Scottish gentlemen. Unless you have recently lost your sense of taste or have a particular nostalgia for gnawing on Goodyear Tires baked in a vat nutmeg, I’d recommend putting your pumpkin pie money elsewhere.

The Extra on the other hand? It had a solid 3-5 minute run before losing flavor, and even then, it had a soft chew and spice that stayed. Is it the sorbital? The soy lechithin? The Acesulfame-K? I dunno, but I do know that Acesulfame-K is almost as fun to say as “Stoichiometric ratio” or, “nuclear binary fission.” Thankfully, Acesulfame is not as intense or damaging to your internal organs as nuclear binary fission. Yay for not chewing nuclear radiation!

When I was 8 years old, I decided I’d be a Detroit Lions quarterback. As a 4.5-foot, 65-pound human who couldn’t get past the third rung on the climbing rope, I knew this was unlikely, but certainly not impossible, so I tried anyway.

Similarly, the concept of creating a gum that mimics pumpkin pie is far-reaching, but not ludicrous, and Extra did a respectable job here. While neither match the pie experience to the “–nth” degree, Extra takes a notable lead over Trident with its longer chew time and greater sense of roundedness in flavor, but just know that, like a 4.5-foot, 65-pound 8-year-old pretending to be an NFL quarterback, it still can’t quite replace the real thing.

(Nutrition Facts – Extra – less than 5 calorie, 0 calories from fat, 0 grams of fat, 0 milligrams of sodium, 2 grams of carbohydrates, 0 grams of sugar, 2 grams of sugar alcohol, and 0 grams of protein. Trident – 5 calories, 0 calories from fat, 0 grams of fat, 0 milligrams of sodium, 2 grams of carbohydrates, 0 grams of sugar, 2 grams of sugar alcohol, and 0 grams of protein.)

Item: Wrigley’s Extra Seasonal Edition Pumpkin Spice Gum
Purchased Price: $1.39
Size: 1 pack/15 pieces
Purchased at: Walgreens
Rating: 7 out of 10
Pros: Fruity clove. Nice vanilla balance. Lasts for about 3-5 minutes. Christmas optimism. Detroit Lions.
Cons: No pumpkin in ingredients. Not as aesthetically pleasing as the Trident. After 3-5 minutes, gets rubbery. Nuclear radiation.

Item: Trident Layers Limited Edition Pumpkin Spice Gum
Purchased Price: $2.80
Size: 3 packs (14 pieces each)
Purchased at: Target
Rating: 3 out of 10
Pros: Pretty to look at. Tetris. Girders of Scottish gentlemen. Reason to talk about Return of the Jedi.
Cons: No pumpkin in ingredients. Like chewing a mix of cinnamon-spiced plastic, popcorn, and stale jellybeans. Gets tough after 47-seconds. Being chewed by a sandpit.

Remember that time you went to the mall and passed the Cinnabon sample tray? The one with the Dixie Cups? And the warm, goopy Minibons? And you took a sample? Then you took another? Then you took 10 more? Then you got dismissed for exceeding your sample limit? (“There’s a sample limit???”) Then you stomped away? And came back 15 minutes later with a fake mustache? And presumed a new identity while shoveling more Minibons down as you made a convincing argument to the fifteen-year-old employee that your voice was undergoing great strain after reconstructive surgery?

Like that time Charlie Buckets drank the Fizzy Lifting Drinks and nearly got shredded by a giant fan, it seemed like a good idea at the time. And, perhaps, for that one moment, when you got a bite of the half-baked middle, the cinnamon butter goo, the crunchity glaze, it was worth it because let us remember: this is not just any hunk of bread. This is a cinnamon roll: a warm, messy blob of cinnamon-sugar gloopity gloop and enough confectioner’s sugar to make The League of Evil Dentists cheer for all the money they’ll make filling your cavities. And yet, for each roll you have, there’s only so much chewing before it’s gone, having been chomped by your molars into the dark oblivion that is digestion. So what’s a cinnamon bun addict to do with such conundrums and deep-cut cravings?

One gum. To cure them all.

As I learned from Yosemite Sam, power comes in many sizes, be it in an 19-inch-tall cowboy with a booshily beard and anger management issues or a 2-inch strip of taupe gum, and, indeed, this particular piece of Cinnamon Roll gum reinforces this lesson. The chew here starts out a little tough, then softens out for a good 17-20 minutes before gamboling into rubber tire territory.

But it’s a very tasty tire.

If this flavor were a superhero, it would be a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle in a tutu. It starts off with a cooling, hyper sweetness (the tutu), then swipes at you from the shadows (like a Ninja Turtle) with a backdrop of… is that toasted caramel?? Yes, yes it is! Why, I dare say there’s even a little nuttiness as if there were a hint of toasted pecans in there.

The cinnamon doesn’t hit it out too heavily, coming in as a warm afterthought rather than a spicy kick, but that’s the genius. It allows the warm, zingy, slightly fruity/vanilla-y hints of the caramel and cinnamon to remind you of the doughy sensation you sought in the Cinnabon originals while the cooling effects of aspartame mimic that cooling sensation brought on by a caramel-sugar glaze. Nice attention to detail, Extra.

While lacking the fresh-baked, poofy texture of the true baked good, the end result here does come out tasting modestly like a cinnamon roll (but more like a caramel sticky bun) with a gentle warmth, slight sweetness, and joyous aroma all in a portable resealable cardboard square.

In a world in which Cinnabon prices are going up, all my baking pans are dirtied, and I am too lazy to pull out the Dawn Dish Soap (even if it does have aloe vera for silky smooth skin…), it’s nice to know that I can fill my cinnamon roll addiction without fear of having to take on new identities at the Cinnabon sample tray (I’m running out of disguises…). Is it deception that makes it tastes more like a caramel roll than a cinnamon roll? Perhaps, but it sure is a tasty, tasty deception.

(Nutrition Facts – 1 piece – 5 calories, 0 calories from fat, 0 grams of fat, 0 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 0 milligrams of cholesterol, 0 milligrams of sodium, 2 grams of carbohydrates, 0 grams of dietary fiber, 0 grams of sugar, 2 grams of sugar alcohol, and 0 grams of protein.)

Item: Wrigley’s Extra Dessert Delights Cinnamon Roll Gum
Purchased Price: $1.19
Size: 1 pack/15 pieces
Purchased at: Target
Rating: 7 out of 10
Pros: Soft chew. Sweet toasted caramel flavor. Hint of pecan flavor. Hyper sweetness from aspartame mimics glaze. Portable. Tasty deception. Ninja Turtles in tutus. Justifies procrastination of washing dishes.
Cons: Not a warm, poofy pastry. Could use more cinnamon. Some may feel betrayed that it tastes more like a caramel sticky bun than cinnamon roll. Desperate attempts to procure free Cinnabons. Cowboys with anger management issues. Being shredded by a giant fan. The League of Evil Dentists.