Red Band – Sour Bottles

I’ve had some positive experiences with Red Band so far, so I figured why not branch out and try some of their other products. If I’m being completely honest, a lot of their offerings appear to just be different shapes of an existing base, adjusting the flavours and shapes while keep the rest relatively the same. Typing that out makes me realize that’s what most companies do, but I hope at least part of my point makes sense.

There are five flavours here and appear to be a standard assortment. From what I can tell, it’s lemon, apple, orange, raspberry and blackcurrant. It seems a good variety of flavours, and everyone knows I’m a huge sucker for blackcurrant. I’m sad that a ruling back in the old days is the reason blackcurrant is largely absent in North America as a flavour, replaced by grape. Don’t get me wrong grapes are a thing of beauty, but they just don’t hit the same. That’s why I find myself drawn to a lot of European candies, where blackcurrant has a spot at the table.

The flavours are fairly generic and nothing super special or interesting. They remind me a lot of fruit pastilles or wine gums, where the flavour are fairly sweet but pleasant. The obvious winners here for me are the raspberry and blackcurrant, but the lemon, orange and apple flavours are good too. I say apple but unlike a lot of the western version of apple tend to be, these aren’t super vibrant or strong in flavour, and more like some cross between pear and apple. I appreciate that, especially since apple tends to overpower everything else in the bag in most North American iterations. All that leads to this mix of flavours working well as you eat them in quick succession, as I have.

The texture of these is fairly firm, and is reminiscent of a sour coated wine gum. It’s not exactly chewy, and is firm all the way through, but also sticky at the same time once it does soften up. At this point I am pretty confident it’s just a sour wine gum but with a cuter shape. Not that it’s a bad thing, but it does feel like these are a bit firmer than what I was expecting. Thankfully we all know how I love firm things, amirite?

Overall, I don’t find these all that different from their wine gums, which is not a bad thing here. The shape actually makes these easier to bite into two, if that’s what you’re into, but if the price is right I would be indifferent to getting these over wine gums. Honestly they’re all winners, so you can bet your top dollar I would get these again if given the chance.