Kotas Reviews Kettle Maple Bacon Chips

Lovers of food around the United States know that bacon has held a special place in our bloated, cholesterol-caked hearts for a number of years. Once merely a staple of the "hearty farm boy breakfast", bacon has wormed its way into our collective food culture as both the cause of, and solution to, many of life's culinary problems. Of course, food fads such as these are often taken "too far". With that, I present to you today's subject: Kettle brand Maple Bacon Chips.

By naturally, they mean "naturally developed in a laboratory."

I've been a fan of Kettle brand chips for a long time, particularly their "waffle" style, because they deliver a most satisfying crunch. Their various flavored varieties are also heavy on the flavor while keeping a really solid potato base, which is something I appreciate in my flavored chips. Of course, it is always possible to go too far in pursuit of the latest taste sensation. Let's rip this bag open and see what we can see.

This is definitely a bowl of chips. 

The chips themselves are standard kettle style potato chips, twisted into interesting shapes by the kettle frying method. They are coated with a reddish brown powder which I suppose is adequate for indicating that these are, in fact, flavored with maple syrup and bacon. The smell that hits you is intense, a cross between the scent of liquid smoke, overdone pork, and the barest hint of vague sweetness. I admit, gentle readers, that I entered into this with some trepidation. Luckily, I had a hard cider to fortify my efforts.

If I had to describe the flavor in one word, it would be "inconsistent". The flavor is...essentially a more different version of that vague flavor called "Barbeque" which in chips always seems to taste almost but not quite completely unlike any barbeque I've ever had in my life. I say inconsistent because in most flavored chips, while any particular bite will have more or less flavor (depending on the density of 'flavor dust' dispersion), these have the added dimension of being either sweeter or savory-er with each bite. Even eating multiple chips at once seems to suffer from this, rather than balancing it out as I had hoped. The maple notes aren't even there, being relegated to "background sweetness" that doesn't really convey the stated theme. The so called "bacon" portion of the flavoring is also nondescript. You could have labeled these "sweet barbeque" and I wouldn't have been able to say they were NOT that flavor. Unlike the actual labeling.

On the FACE Rating System, these chips get 1 frowny face. They aren't bad exactly, but they are neither maple nor bacon in any capacity, so for those of you craving breakfast in chip form will have to look elsewhere. I certainly won't be buying them again. If you really, REALLY like barbeque flavored chips though, you might give it a whirl. One person's crushing disappointment might be another person's new taste extravaganza! But probably not.