Hi-Chew Doubles – Shine Muscat & Kyoho Grape

Are you guys getting tired of reading all these grape flavoured Hi-Chew reviews? Cause I certainly haven’t gotten tired of reviewing them. But I guess when you really, truly, given your heart and soul to something, you never grow tired of it, and it never grows old. Maybe that’s what true love feels like? I wouldn’t know. What I do know is that I know myself well enough that I have a tendency to get really into things, and after a period of strong intensity, it dies off and I lose almost any and all interest in said things. I guess the best quote to describe my approach is, “the flame that burns twice as bright burns half as long.” I’ve never been a marathon kind of guy, more of a 1000m dash.

If you never had grape Hi-Chews before, the fact that I’m still doing reviews on them after all this time should speak volumes to how great they are. I guess it kind of goes both ways. The core grape flavour itself remains relatively similar even between all the grape varieties they have, with the biggest variance being between red and green grapes. For the most part though, the different regional variations between the colours are different enough to be worth trying, but not different enough that they can’t be substituted for one another. I guess that magical balance is how they keep me coming back for more. Imagine my surprise when they decided to combine the two major families of grape flavours into a single piece.

Obviously I can’t be objective about this, because at this point I’ve way too many grape flavoured Hi-Chews. What I can say, with my extensive grape-flavoured knowledge, is that this thing smells like I took a muscat Hi-Chew and the Kyoho flavour, and mashed them together, and fidgeted with it like it was a ball of putty. It’s the perfect marriage of the two smells. As I’ve mentioned before, to me the main difference between the green and muscat flavours, and the red flavours is that the green is more of a rounded sweetness, while the reds have a little bit of tart to give it a variety in it’s flavour.

An interesting thing I’m not sure I mentioned before, but part of the magic of eating these grapes in the flesh is they have that right amount of water content so that they are juicy, but not so much that you have to worry about getting liquids all over the place. That’s part of the experience that is extremely difficult to replicate in a chewy candy. Hi-Chew somehow manages to do it, and I believe it has to do with some sort of acid or ingredient they add to cause the mouth to salivate, and simulate the mouthwatering flavour of the actual grapes. I’m sure lot’s of candies have tried the whole liquid-filled chew product, but I’ve yet to have one that didn’t end up being just a sloppy mess. Maybe someday our snack technology will get there. Until then, this is the next best thing.

As with all the other Hi-Chews, the texture is on point, and it still remains to be unseated as the best chew in the business. It manages to have the right amount of bounce with each chew, while maintaining its shape and not turning into a sticky mess pile that gets stuck all in your teeth. There isn’t much unique about this piece in terms of flavour, if you’ve had both the muscat and the kyoho flavours. The muscat is kind of like drinking a really sweet ice wine, it’s got a very well rounded sweetness to it that is simple, yet effective. The grape flavour remains strong throughout, but not so strong that the kyoho doesn’t come through. The kyoho is more of a complex flavour; it’s still got a nice sweet flavour to it but it also has a bit of tartness to it that switches things up so it’s not just sweetness throughout. This piece is like drinking really sweet muscat wine with a nice quality concord grape juice. I know that sounds sacrilegious to some of you, but I’m just telling it as it is. That would be a super delicious cocktail. Just sayin’. The hangovers from it would be well worth it.

I don’t know that these are limited edition or anything, but given how many limited editions Hi-Chew is cranking out, I would wager that this will be hard to find once they start to make something else. If you like grape flavoured anything, you gotta grab one of these if you see it. Another absolute win. That being said, if it’s too costly or difficult to obtain, feel free to buy a stick of muscat, and a stick of kyoho flavour and just make your own at home. It would probably be quite similar.