Haribo – The Smurfs

I remember watching the Smurfs cartoon as a kid, but beyond the hazy memory of seeing them on the good old fashioned CRT boob tube, I don’t recall much about the show. I feel like they tried to preach classic values like family and friendship, but honestly what children’s media back in the 90’s didn’t? It was much to my surprise that they are still popular, at least enough to warrant a Haribo flavour. I don’t think this is a seasonal flavour either because I’ve seen this one around for years, but never managed to find it anywhere in stores in my neck of the woods. That changes today.

These come in various character shapes – I say shapes but it’s honestly a little hard to tell most of them apart. The most distinct difference between them is the colour of either red or white. I’m sure someone who actually knows the characters and remembers all their individual characteristics will be better suited to say, but to me they all look only slightly different.

As far as I can tell there is no difference in the flavour of a single piece – the raspberry flavour is consistent for both coloured parts of each piece. Speaking of which, white is strawberry while red is raspberry. At least that’s what my taste buds lead me to believe. it’s kind of hard to tell with how distracting the blue is. And there is a lot of blue. I guess you could say they really blue themselves here. The flavour is the same as Haribo’s gold bear strawberry and raspberry. Both flavours are very pleasant, and enjoyable to snack on, but not quite as powerful of a kick as gold bears. For whatever reason the flavour on these is a bit more subtle and muted.

The texture is a firm and chewy gummy, but by Haribo standards still soft. The first few bites you get the sense that the smurfs are resisting their fate and trying to fight against it, but like most gummies they soften up fairly quickly. They don’t put up quite as much resistance as a classic Haribo gold bear, so people who worry that these will be a jaw workout, don’t worry they aren’t. Not really.

Overall I think these are a cute addition to the Haribo product line. Would I go out of my way again to get these? Unlikely. Would I get them again if I saw them available? Highly likely. Blue is an incredibly unnatural colour out in the wild, but you have to admit it does make for interesting looking gummies. If nothing else these are fun to play with.