Some of you might remember that I covered weird flavoured sticks of rock ages ago. My Auntie sent me more which have been kicking about for a while, so I thought I ought to finally get around to abusing my taste buds and giving ’em a go. And there was quite a selection to try!

Some of them actually sounded pretty good and some of them sounded like the worst thing ever. Chicken Tikka?! What sort of messed-up person would think that Chicken Tikka would be a flavour suited for sticks of rock? But as ever, I tried to keep an open mind and decided to start with the worst sounding first.

Chicken Tikka!

It certainly looked very Chicken Tikka-y, being an orange colour. I cannot describe how utterly apprehensive I was about putting this it in my mouth, which is probably a good thing, as if you expect something to taste like absolute crap, it might not taste as bad as you expect.

It didn’t really have much of a scent, perhaps a little peppery or like stock cubes. But compared to the garlic bread rock from last year, it wasn’t too bad smelling. But what about the taste? Well, the initial taste was that of sweetness and then a very mild hint of spice a few seconds later which fades quickly leaving just sweetness again. It certainly wasn’t as offensive as I was expecting. If it was anything more like chicken tikka, it would be disgusting. As it was, it was bearable.

Marmite

I suspected I was going to either love or hate this one. I dunno if people outside of the UK have Marmite, so for those of you who are unsure what it actually is, it’s like Vegemite, a thick salty brown spread that you usually stick on a piece of toast. Marmite has a popular marketing tagline- “you either love it or hate it”, but to be honest I couldn’t be more indifferent about it. It’s not awful, it’s just salty gloop, but it makes toast taste of something more than just toast.

Giving it a sniff, and it does smell exactly like Marmite which is a bit weird for a stick of rock, but I ate Marmite chocolate truffles last year which were much better than I had expected. I thought I had wrote about them on here but I must have been lazy as I can’t seem to find any mention of them. They were good anyway.

Taste-wise, the Marmite isn’t very obvious at first but after chewing for a while you do eventually get the distinct flavour of Marmite. The weird thing is that this starts to taste a little more like beer, but a really sweet tasting beer. It’s probably down to the fact Marmite is made from yeast, though I’ve never really thought whether real Marmite tastes anything like beer before, so next time I eat Marmite I’m gonna have to see.

Mojito

I tried a mojito cocktail only once before many, many years ago. It was revolting though it wasn’t an actual cocktail, it was a canned alcoholic drink from a supermarket. Me and my friend decided to buy a whole bunch of canned cocktails as they were cheap, it was summer and we wanted to get drunk. Neither of us had tried mojito before, and I think we vowed we never would again as we were both less than impressed. I can deal with alcohol tasting like lime, but I can’t forgive it tasting like mint. So fast forward to a decade later, and I’m about to experience the flavour of mojito for the second time in my life.

The smell of mint was very prominent before I even opened the packet. The taste was not as bad as I remembered mojito tasting, but it still wasn’t great as lime and mint don’t mix at all, though the taste of lime was far greater than the taste of mint. My girlfriend actually said she preferred the taste of the chicken tikka one, and I was inclined to agree with her.

Prosecco

This one is meant to taste like another alcoholic drink I’m not keen on, but it tastes more like soap than Prosecco. It’s initially sweet but then somewhat bitter. I actually think it’s better than what real Prosecco tastes like though, so that’s something.

Scrumpy Cider

The scent of apples was pretty potent with this one, which wasn’t bad at all. The taste of it is like what real apples taste like, which is weird for candy. Usually apple flavoured candy has an overly sweet artificial taste but this tastes the closest thing to an actual apple without being an actual apple. It’s probably my favourite of the bunch, and I wasn’t expecting that much from it.

Cream Egg

This is the one I was most excited to try. Cadbury Creme Eggs are amazing. I’m not sure if they exist outside of the UK, so to clarify what they are, they’re foil wrapped, hollow chocolate eggs filled with gooiest, sweetest white fondant, released around Easter every year. They are one of the sickliest chocolates on the shelves in UK shops, so I couldn’t wait to see what this one tasted like.

It was a total disappointment. It tasted sweet but not in a creme egg way, just a sweet candy rock tasting way. I think I anticipated too much from this one really, but there you go. I guess if I wanted the taste of an actual creme egg, I would be better just buying an actual creme egg.

Gin and Tonic

The final one, and I wish I could end on a high. Yet another alcoholic drink I can’t abide but this doesn’t really taste of Gin and Tonic, it just tastes and smells of liquorice, which is not something I really want when I’m eating a stick of rock. But to be fair, I don’t usually look for the taste of Marmite and chicken tikka either.

Overall, the whole experience wasn’t as revolting as the garlic bread stick of rock from last year and although I only really enjoyed the scrumpy cider stick, it was still fun to try them.