Venco – Tikkels Drop & Fruit
As the old cliche goes, life does come full circle sometimes. I remember as a kid trying Good & Plenty as a kid, being drawn in by a box full of colourful little cylinders, not really knowing what was inside. I tore open the box thinking, I would eat the whole thing anyways, who cares what happens to the box? Not ten seconds later, sheer, absolute horror and disgust came over me as I bit past the candy coating into the black licorice center that sent many a foolish soul into a coughing fit. I didn’t cough, but I did gag. And boy did I gag. I also spit and tried my best to get that taste out of my mouth.
And that is how I deemed black licorice one of the worst flavours to be made. That was until I got into actual licorice with the help of Panda. It wasn’t an easy road, but it’s taken me to places and back to arrive here, today. Where I am trying out a product which more or less is the same concept as Good & Plenty. The major difference here is the candy shell is also licorice flavoured, and they are accompanied by other candies of similar shape and consistency that are fruit flavoured. I imagine this will help ease into the black licorice bits a little easier.
These remind me of some sort of cross between a jellybean and Mentos. They are essentially a mix of fruit candy coating surrounding a jelly, except the candy coating is thicker, crisper and harder, much like a Mentos. The inside however, is just as sticky as a jelly bean. The black pieces however, or drop as they are known as, are pieces of licorice on the inside. While not as sticky, they are still somewhat sticky and how a distinct licorice texture to them.
There appear to be four fruit flavours. Yellow tastes like some non-descript attempt at lemon, but it’s hard to say given how sweet is is and somewhat one note. Orange is a very sweet orange, with little tart or citrus flavour, mostly just sweet. The pink is a typically strawberry, while the green is some sort of green apple. To be honest, most of these fruit flavours are mostly sweet, and don’t have much complexity to them. I imagine they might fare differently when contrasted against the salty, bitter medicinal quality of the licorice pieces. The salty level of these drops is not overbearing, and I’d say it’s slightly above entry level. It hits you with enough that you’ll feel it in your nasal cavity. I’ve never been huge on salty licorice, but these are small enough and self contained enough that I can do a few of these without issue. After about five or six, it gets to me so I have to pump the brakes a little.
the texture of the fruit flavours are hard and crunchy at first, but get sticky very fast. The licorice is similarly coated in a hard crunchy shell that has a nice crisp snap to it, but the inside is a little more firm. After a bit of chewing it ends up just as sticky though, and you’ll probably want to make sure to brush your teeth after a handful of these.
I can see how this is a good way to dip your toes into other varieties of black licorice and ease into it with some fruity, fun flavours. For me though, the fruit pieces are a bit overly sweet and the licorice is still a bit strong for me. I might try their other flavours like the mint ones, but the fruit ones aren’t for me. I would still recommend others to give it a try though, especially if you are on the fence about licorice, as I once was.
