Haribo – Twin Snakes

I figured I should start reviewing some more “local” stuff that is easier for my fellow Canucks to relate to. Given that Haribo is kind of an international-ish brand these days, I’m hoping this is something the international readers can appreciate as well.

Anyone who has spent enough time with me to get past that stoic, quiet, brave, silent facade I put on will realize that I am fiercely loyal to certain brands. Haribo is one of those brands. They do what a lot of other gummy producers don’t – they make some firm and tough chewing gummies. I would almost liken them to stale gummies from the softer brands. Fun fact – before I discovered Haribo, I would intentionally let my gummies sit in open air in the attempt to make them harden up or stiffen. I even went so far as to stick them into the freezer sometimes. Those were the hard days…settling for sub-standard gummies. That was, until I met Haribo. It was love at first bite, albeit a tough, chewy one.

Today’s product is probably not new, but it’s new to me and not something I’ve seen until very recently. The product is marketed as having two snakes attached to each other, one representing the sour flavour and the other representing the sweet flavour. It’s fun because they are joined at the head and tail, but not so much so that you can’t just tear them apart and eat them separately.

According to the bag, there are six flavours, and three different snake pairings. There’s cherry (sweet) with orange (sour), apple (sweet) with lemon (sour), and bilberry (sweet) and blackcurrant (sour). I’m most excited to try the bilberry/blackcurrant flavour. Blackcurrant doesn’t seem to be a common flavour in the Americas. I’m guessing that’s due to availability of the fruit. Bilberry is just a different regional variety of what we in the North know as blueberries.

Much like any other Haribo product, the bag smells a lot like play-doh when you open it up. It might throw off first timers, but I’ve grown accustomed to the smell. Heck, I’ve almost come to associate it with Haribo products. Anyways, these things are fairly decently sized, and look like the signature golden bears that Haribo is known for, only longer, and stringier.

As you can see from the picture, each pairing is only slightly attached at the tail and head, and it’s quite easy to separate them out if you want to try each flavour individually. Your mileage may vary, but in the interest of completeness, I will try them both attached and unattached. Starting with the cherry and orange, combined it tastes like a weird fruit beverage after eating a super sweet or rich cake. The cherry doesn’t seem sweet enough to offset the orange, so it’s still a bit on the sour side. Eating them apart, the cherry is your typical artificial cherry flavour – nothing to write home about really. The orange is nice, and is surprisingly sour and tart. It’s not bad. Not bad at all. It’s got that nice orange rind flavour to it. Next up is the apple and lemon flavour. This one is not bad when eaten together, as Haribo seems to really capture the apple flavour well, but also not being too overpowered by the tart lemon flavour. On their own, the apple is nice and sweet, and is most likely the same as the apple flavour in their golden bears line up. The lemon is very tart, and has a strong lemon juice flavour to it. It’s kind of not so great on it’s own unless you really like unsweetened lemonade. That being said it’s a really good take on lemon. If aliens were to take over our planet and wanted to know what lemons tasted like, and for some reason all the lemon plants went extinct, I’d give them one of these to try. It would capture the essence of that sour little citrus fruit pretty well.

The real disappointing part is I couldn’t seem to find the last variety – aka the one I was really looking forward to. I guess I got a bum bag, or something slipped past quality control. Either way I’m super disappointed by this. I feel like I can’t give an objective(ish) review unless I try all the flavours. If I had to judge based on these two flavours alone, I’d say it’s gimmicky at best and if your itching for some Haribo gummies, maybe skip this and go back to the old staples like the golden bears.