Red Band – Magic Party Mix

When normal people think party, they probably think of drinks, good company and social interactions. When I think of party, I picture a snack or candy mix that’s a mish mash of product that helps companies move slow moving product. I’m looking at you pretzels.

There’s quite a few items in this assortment, so let’s take a closer look. Right off the bat, I am noticing how big these gummies are. Everything except for the mushroom looking gummy is almost double the size of what I’m usually expecting when I get similar shaped gummies. There looks to be two straw like gummies, two sour keys, a giant strawberry and a mushroom. How curious.

Starting with the straws, the first one is an orange and green one. These actually remind me more of wine gums, and have a similarly firm texture. The orange side is orange flavoured, while the green side is apple. There’s a slight coating of what I imagine is citric acid to give it a little tartness but it’s not overdone which I appreciate. The orange flavour is pretty typical, so not much to talk about. The apple is pleasant and not overpowering as most green apple flavours can be, so I appreciate that.

The second one is yellow and red, red being some sort of berry, most likely raspberry and yellow being lemon. This straw is far more tart and sour than the first one, which is kind of surprising. The lemon is quite sour, though not enough to make me pucker. The raspberry was also quite tart, which is surprising, but I guess it’s supposed to be the sour straw of the bunch.

The other straw is yellow and purple, yellow being lemon, and purple being blackcurrant. The lemon flavour is much more like a lemon drop, or lemon cough drop than a natural lemon flavour. I actually enjoy the lemon drop flavour, so I like this too. Unlike the other one there’s not much tartness, and just sweetness here. The blackcurrant is pretty standard as far as gummy flavours go. I’d have to say I enjoy this straw better than the other based on the flavours alone.

next up is this weirdly small mushroom. The mushroom has pink and white but I can’t really tell if the two colour represent two flavours or it’s just a colour thing. The candy taste a lot like a cross between a foamy gummy candy and a marshmallow. It’s very soft, very light and almost melts in the mouth. I like this but I get why they’re so small; they can be very sweet and I could probably start feeling sick after a small handful of them. Kind of like real wild mushrooms.

Next are the sour keys. The first one is this light yellow and pinkish-purple colour. Similar to the mushroom, I can’t really tell if its supposed to represent two flavours, or it’s just a colour thing. The texture is very similar to peach rings – they aren’t quite firm enough to be a wine gum, but not soft enough to be a marshmallow or foamy gummy. It’s somewhere in between. The purple and yellow piece is supposed to be some berry flavour, while the green and tan one is more of an apple flavour. The flavours are a bit muted and mild, and similar to peach rings what you mostly get is the sugar. In fact, there’s so much on the outer coating that you can kind of feel the grit of it as you chew. The textures not bad, but you definitely feel like your teeth are hating you when you eat these, so I can’t do too many of these in one sitting either.

Last up is the giant strawberry. This one really caught me by surprise. I was expecting something like a gummy, but this ends up being more like a fruit gel, or a similar texture to a Fuzzy Peach. The candy is soft, sticky and honestly pretty flavourful. While not the strawberry flavour I find much more common these days, this one is much more like a strawberry jam. I think the best way to describe it is that it’s identical to what I lovingly refer to as the grandma candies. The were these iconic strawberry hard candies that had a little jam or jelly in the centre, and were wrapped in this shiny foil that mimicked an actual strawberry. This gets points just for that nostalgia. If you’ve ever had one of those, you know exactly what this tastes like.

The most surprising thing about this mix is how each of the candies in this mix cover such a wide spectrum when it comes to texture. You have everything from the super soft, melty texture of the mushroom, all the way up to the firm, jaw workout that is the straws. I love the variety in the mix, though I would also caution those are looking for a lot of flavour. About half the mix is basically just texture, and there isn’t much flavour to be found other than sweet. That being said, the clear winner in this mix for me would be the strawberries. I could get a whole bag of those.