Kotas Reviews Hint Sparkling Water

Boy oh boy, flavored sparkling water is certainly becoming a thing, isn't it? It's been around for a long time, with brands such as Perrier and Le Croix starting decades ago, but it wasn't until recently that I started seeing other brands in stores, and an explosion of flavors to boot. Probably because sugary sodas and other drinks perceived as "unhealthy" have been experiencing a long decline in popularity. Gotta get that fizz fix somewhere! Even so, sometimes we get something weird as hell. Ladies and Gentlemen, let's take a look at Hint!

Courtesy of my local grocery clearance rack.

I can honestly say that I had never seen a mint flavored sparkling water until the day I saw these, so of course I had to try them. When I go for a sparkling water, I tend to go for fruit flavors or something like tonic water, which has a surprising amount of sugar in it, because quinine. The packaging is fairly generic. The "logo" if you can call it that is just a bolded font in red. The rest of the package is just...boring as hell. Then again, I paid $0.70 for this. How bad could it be?

Well, it certainly smells like peppermint, so it's got that going for it. It also tastes a bit like peppermint, though...well, it tastes like you would expect on the aftertaste of some other drink to taste. It's like they took the mint portion of the aftertaste of peppermint schnapps and bottled it. Not very sweet, fairly minty, but it doesn't linger at all. It's not bad, but it isn't great either.

On the FACE Rating System, this gets 0 Faces. It's fine, I guess, but unless you really, truly want mint in every aspect of your life, you can give this one a pass. The novelty is certainly there, so if you can pick it up for cheap while buying other, better things, it can't hurt to give it a whirl. 

Kotas Reviews Crunchy Mint M&Ms

Once in a long while I will find a treasure in my pantry. I'm looking for a jar of pasta sauce or some rice or whatever, and I'll find a package of something I stashed away for a rainy day. Side note, does anyone else do that with snack food? Just shove it in the pantry for "later" and later is six months later or even a year later? Anyway, my fading memory is your gain. Ladies and gentlemen, today we take a gander at Crunchy Mint M&Ms. 

This was relevant oh, 3 months ago maybe?

These were released as a part of the new "vote for flavors" thing that Mars, Inc. did for M&Ms this year. I guess I'm a little late to the party. Do we know who won the vote? Does anyone care? Whatever, let's get on with this. The packaging is about as lazy as M&Ms gets. It's green, they threw a couple of mint leaves (at least, I hope those are mint leaves...doobie doobie doooooo), and called it a day. This is like...fan art, but with a professional polish. Anyway, it's fine. Green, more different green, and dark brown. What a color combo. Let's open the package.

It's everything I expected it to be: Kind of lame.

I get that they are staying with a theme here, but these color schemes do not endear me to these candies. I guess they mimic the standard "mint" colors, but couldn't you just do the regular rainbow of colors? No? That would be the laziest option! You put more work into making these different, just to make it look boring! Whatever. It smells of mint. Let's get this over with. At least they smell pretty minty.

Well, they taste pretty minty too. Basically, they are Mint M&Ms with the same chocolate crunchy bit in the center as all the other ones of this promotion. It's a good combination of textures and flavors, and I can't ask for much more then that. I gotta hand it to Mars though. They know how to incrementally try things. Unlike some companies I know *cough* Nabisco *cough*.

On the FACE Rating System, these get 2 smiley faces. If you like mint, this is probably up your alley, unless you also don't like chocolate. Otherwise, definitely give it a try...assuming you can find any packages left. Yeah, I am a lot late with this one folks. My bad!