Haribo S’Witches’ Brew

There’s always a mixed bag when it comes to seasonal flavours. Sometimes they strike gold and find something amazing but you only end up getting it once a year, or you end up with something so novel, so niche that you kind of hope they don’t bring it back. My faith in Haribo’s ability to make tasty gummies is unshaken, so I have no doubt that even if they go with something gimmicky I’ll find something redeeming about it.

This Halloween seasonal flavour, beyond being a play on words in the name, is an interesting gimmick – there’s a total of six flavours but three appearances. Each colour has a corresponding sweet and sour flavoured gummy. On the sweet side we orange representing mango, and orange on the sour. For yellow it’s lemon on the sour side, with apricot on the sweet. For purple, blackcurrant is the sour against the raspberry for the sweet. The only weird one to me is purple because I’m used to blackcurrant being sweet and tart at best, but let’s see how this goes. It plays into the trick or treat theme here, assuming you find sour to be a “trick”. The idea is you go for a flavour but you don’t know whether it’s the sweet flavour or the sour one. It definitely keeps things exciting as you figure out which one you get. It also doesn’t hurt that all the flavours are good regardless, if Haribo’s track record is anything to go by.

I can’t be 100% certain, but it feels as though the sour flavours are a bit softer in their chew and texture. Not soft enough you would think it’s a non-Haribo brand mind you. These have the signature Haribo firmness through and through. Be ready for a jaw-xercise as with most of their products.

While the concept is gimmicky, I found this quite enjoyable and having both sour and sweet flavours mixes things up. The mango is one of the weaker flavours and is a bit on the less distinct side, but it still tastes good. The orange is nice and tart, and while sour isn’t enough to make me pucker or sweat. The lemon is an easy flavour to nail down and this is no different – a good balance of zesty, tangy and sour. The apricot reminds me of a peach juice or peach tea, if that makes any sense at all. The blackcurrant was distinct in it’s berry tartness, and a little jarring at first with the sour notes but again, nothing too strong or terrible. The raspberry was nice and flavourful, and while I enjoyed the sweetness, I feel like I personally would have enjoyed it even more if the roles of the two were reversed.