Tirol Chocolate – Italian Gelato Mix

It has dawned on me that the summer that passed a few months ago, I consumed a record low amount of ice cream and gelato. I’m not really sure why that is, but it’s something I am looking to address going forward to ensure it doesn’t happen again. I guess the next best thing to compensate for that is have ice cream and gelato flavoured snacks, which brings us to what we have today.

A nice departure from the standard 7 pack pouch, this has 9 with 3 of each flavour – chocolate, pistachio and strawberry. While I do love me some reverse shrinkflation, I do have to wonder why they did 9 instead of 6. The cynical jaded old man in me says they cut costs elsewhere, but I’m going to let my naive, childish spirit just be happy about the extra pieces.

The chocolate piece tastes like the standard milk chocolate with a little bit more cocoa flavour and a little less sweet, but still chocolate. This one is the most straight forward in terms of texture – it’s got bits of waffle cone chopped up and thrown into the mix of the chocolate.

The overall experience is like biting into that bottom half of the ice cream cone where it’s mostly crunchy, sweet waffle. The chocolate does a pretty good job emulating it, and sets a pretty good baseline for my expectations for the next few pieces.

Pistachio is quite similar to the chocolate piece in that it’s the same format, except in addition to the waffle bits there appear to be small bits of chopped pistachio thrown into the mix. The added pistachios adds some nice nuttiness to the flavour, but mostly adds to the texture. I’m a sucker for chocolates and nuts, so this is an easy win.

The flavour itself is a bit subdued as pistachio generally is, but in the context of the concept, this does it quite well. The one thing I noticed is the pistachio piece also was generally softer, which doesn’t take away from anything, but just an observation.

Finally we have strawberry. My foray into strawberry chocolates is so deep that I can taste this before even smelling it. This one was surprisingly floral, and had a brighter, less artificial strawberry taste than I was expecting. I was also taken aback slightly by the dried strawberry bits.

The aren’t nearly as soft and crunchy as the waffle bits, and were more gummy so it kind of clashed with the rest of the piece. Overall the flavour was really nice, and the added fruit bits reminded me of a nice strawberry parfait so I quite enjoyed this piece.

Overall I’d have to say that this mix is a home run, and all the pieces pull their weight and deliver what you expect them to. I’m hoping this a staple seasonal flavour and comes back every year, because I would absolutely get this again.