Haribo Z!NG Sour Kicks

If you like shoes or are a sneaker head, I imagine this may draw you in. For me it was the concept of having sour gummies. And not the lazy, sour dusted gummies (though truthfully I love those). These aren’t sour on just the outside, these bad boys are sour the whole way through. No escape, no respite, just full throttle on the sour. My benchmark for sour is usually when I can feel it on my scalp, where it starts to get a little sweaty.

Ok, let’s be real they won’t be that sour, but it will be nice to try something different for a change. While not a shoe guy, I do have to admit the design on these is pretty fun, and surprisingly intricate. These shoes are perfectly symmetrical to the point where I’m not sure if it’s supposed to be on the right foot or left. Then again, does it really matter, given where these are going?

The flavours we have are orange, lemon, strawberry, grape and raspberry. I am once again slightly confounded by the choice to put grape on white instead of purple and swap raspberry, but so be it, I won’t complain. All the flavour are for the most part very vibrant and true to form, with the obvious except that it’s quite sour. They aren’t anything near warhead level, but they are sour and tart enough to make me pucker. In particular the orange I find on the more sour side, but also quite tasty. My favourite in this mix is surprisingly the strawberry – it was sour and tart, but it paired very well with the floral flavour of it.

The texture is not as firm or hard as the gold bears I remember. These are on the softer side, but still firm enough you know Haribo is in your mouth wrecking havoc. Perhaps it has to do with the elongated shape of these size 23 shoes, but they are softer and easier to bite through. They don’t put up as much resistance, but are also easier on the jaw. It could also be due to the fact that they are fresh, and haven’t yet properly been “aged”. I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt and assume it’s due to being relatively fresh.

Yet again, Haribo finds a way to uphold it’s seat as my favourite gummy producer. They definitely live up to the name of being sour and having the requisite amount of zing. I’m not a sour person, but if I was I would definitely be getting these again. The shape is fun, but being that I’m not a shoe or feet guy, it doesn’t factor in. Either way, give these a try if you see them.