Friday, January 04, 2008

Ice Breakers Fruit Sours

During my Christmas shopping, I spotted Ice Breakers Fruit Sours. I've seen the Ice Breakers tv commercials several times but never tried them.

What attracted my attention first was the bright green package. It was covered with pictures of the various flavors: green apples, tangerines, watermelons and pink lemons [pink lemonade]. The shape was similar to the old Bubble Tape containers I loved as a child. Also, the dispenser opened via "to share" and "not to share" tabs.

The candies are round, white discs with various colored speckles. The colors indicate flavor; however, those are very difficult to discern without dumping out the candy and sorting them into like colored piles.

The artificial scent of watermelon Ice Breakers overpowered the other flavors. In fact, my bedroom started to smell like watermelon candy after a few days [and I had the package closed after my taste testing !] As you may have guessed, I do not care for watermelon candy ! However, I tasted one anyway just to be fair. Bleh.

As for the rest:
- The green apple Ice Breaker was mediocre.
- The pink lemonade Ice Breaker had a distinct lemonade taste. I enjoyed it!
- The tangerine Ice Breaker was by far my favorite. My tongue was left with the sensation of eating a juicy tangerine. Thumbs up !

There's a downside to Ice Breakers Fruit Sours: the aspartame. After my first taste test, I had a horrible headache. I chalked it up to being tired. I had a second taste test the next day. The headache came back. That's when I realized there must be aspartame in the candy. A check of the ingredients list confirmed that. In the interest of fairness, I also tasted Ice Breakers Pomegranate Lemon-Aid Mints that day; both products contain aspartame.

My conclusion ? I won't buy Ice Breakers Fruit Sours again. The watermelon scent and the aspartame ruined this product for me.