Late July Clasico Tortilla Chips – Bacon Habanero

I’ll come clean – I’m a bit of a pansy when it comes to spicy food. I’ll eat it sure, but I typically don’t seek it out, and if possible will probably try to avoid it. I get that it triggers a rush in some people, but any feeling of pleasure I could possibly get from spicy foods just ends up causing tears, sweat and a stomach full of milk for me. It’s why I am very picky when it comes to foods that can be very spicy, like curries. I almost always go for the mild option if it’s there. I like to taste my food, not feel it burning me.

It seems in snacks, the trend in the past few years has been towards the adventurous experience of burning. Ghost pepper chips, Carolina Reaper gummies, it’s burning everywhere. Not usually my cup of tea. As a side effect though, spicy flavours seem to be using the weaker cousins like habanero more these days. I feel like habanero peppers are the upper limit of spicy peppers you can use in snacks without losing your tongue to the burning, or having to chug milk and ice cream. I figure this makes today’s flavour a pretty safe choice in terms of snacking, and I won’t have to grasp for oxygen after just one or two chips.

These chips smell delightful, it has a distinct bacon aroma to it, and reminds me of waking up after someone’s cooked bacon. If habanero peppers have a smell to it, I can’t really get any of it. For some reason, these chips remind me of mango habanero sausages. Weird.

These standard sized triangles have a pretty standard texture. They have a decent crunch to them, but nothing to the point of calling it out. Imagine your typical tortilla chip, and maybe ever so slightly, like 10% crunchier. I don’t have much to say about it. I notice a few bubbles in the chips from when they were fried. It has this weird psychological effect of convincing me these aren’t mass produced, even though that’s highly unlikely.

While the texture is kind of typical and nothing to write home about, the flavour is where these bad boys shine. It has a nice smoky bacon taste to it that also has a slight sweetness to it. Maybe I prefer milder flavours, but I feel like this is hits just the right spot for me. Some bacon snacks are a little too over the top, and taste super artificial. These ones hit the right notes and give a nice, almost sweet barbecue flavour to them. I’m not much of an expert on pepper flavours, because I usually don’t get past the imminent burning and suffering, so I can’t say whether the habanero flavour is there. I’ve had mango habanero sausage before, and the flavour profile of these chips is quite similar, so I assume it’s there?

On the topic of burning, as I expected from casual snack foods, i.e. snacks that aren’t specifically designed to burn you mouth and later your toilet, these aren’t actually that spicy. I’m not much of a spice fiend, so being able to enjoy the flavour of the chips and not having to deal with the fire is nice. That being said, these do build up in heat quickly, but the heat doesn’t last too long so most people could probably plow through the bag without having to stop. For better or worse.

These were quite tasty, and being the spice pansy that I am, I would still recommend these. They aren’t actually that spicy, but the heat does build so if you can’t handle ANY heat at all, stay away. Otherwise, if you see these give it a try.