Tirol Chocolate – Raisin Butter Sand
Sometimes I buy products based on the package alone, and I am a victim of marketing as much as any other. For me though, I often make the mistake of buying a product based on the packaging thinking it’s one thing, when really it’s another. Today’s product being a prime example – for some strange reason I was under the impression that this would be some sort of rum raisin flavoured treat. Based on some of the flavours I’ve tried before it didn’t seem that far of a stretch. Only after the shopping frenzy passed did I realize this is actually raisin butter sand cookies, which contain no rum at all, much to my disappointment. Alas, the chocolate still looks very appetizing so my disappointment is mostly abated.
Raisin butter sand sandwich cookies are pretty simple in concept – they combine two butter cookies with a butter cream centre with some sweet raisins. The raisins are usually rum raisins to give them extra sweetness and flavour. The whole thing comes together to create a light tasting, but filling cookie that is usually a great accompaniment with tea. The snack is a very popular souvenir gift from Hokkaido.
As always, I gotta love the detail they put into their packaging. From the cute art of the tea cup on the bottom of the wrapper, to the cream and raisins on the side to represent the rum raisins that act as the filling for the cookie. Also, maybe it’s just me, but butter sand seems like such a terrible mental image. As a kid who ate sand accidentally as a kid, I can tell you it is not pleasant and to this day leaves a scarred mental image seared into my mind. Suppressed childhood memories aside, I’m pretty hyped to try this and see what the fuss is all about.
The texture is akin to the biscuit flavours I’ve had before. The center is the same biscuit they have in the standard mix, but there are bits of biscuit strewn throughout the piece as well, representing the “sand”. There are also some raisins dotting the piece as well, which are somewhat firm, and not too squishy or sticky. Taking it all together in a bite it really does remind me of a butter cookie that has raisins in it. It works a lot better than I expected, as I’ve had a few snacks and chocolates where the dried fruit kind of ruins the rest of the experience. This is more like a mustard and ketchup situation – the sum is greater than the parts.
The flavour is very light, and the biscuit pieces are fairly neutral, allowing the raisins to do most of the work. They are sweet raisin pieces, but I only got a very faint flavour of rum. It could also have been vanilla….I’m not too sure to be quite honest. What I can say is that there is a distinct black milk tea flavour which took me by surprise. I guess that explains why there’s a picture of a teacup on the bottom of the wrapper. The black tea actually helps give it a more complex, almost floral flavour. It actually works pretty well, and I can see why people like to enjoy the actual cookies with tea.
This is a very unique flavour, and probably one of my more favoured flavours. It’s no wonder that Tirol releases this flavour every once in a while, with slightly different packaging. I can see why this is so popular, and I will definitely keep an eye out for when it is released down the road.
