Kotas Reviews Hershey's Pumpkin Spice Kisses and the Russell Stover Dark Chocolate Red Velvet Pumpkin

Hello everyone! I've been taking a bit of a break recently due to a variety of reasons, but now we're back with...more Halloween stuff. Yeah, I know, Halloween was weeks ago, but the plethora of leftover candy has kept me in a bit of a candy coma for a while. Still, I'm back now, and boy do we have some treats for you. First up, Hershey's Pumpkin Spice Kisses.

Ain't she a beaut?

Hershey's Kisses are one of the best ways to enjoy their rather uniquely American take on chocolate, being big enough to be satisfying, yet small enough not to feel like you are gorging yourself. This combines to let you look wistfully into the empty bag and wonder what exactly just happened. Still, I am generally dubious of anything that goes outside the usual parameter of "chocolate, and nothing else". Let's have a look see!

Very underwhelming, really.

These look less like a traditional Hershey Kiss, and more like the inferior white chocolate cousin, the Hershey Hug. Hugs are, at best, something to eat when you want some candy, but have nothing better. I do not particularly care for white chocolate, and Hugs get no love from me. Then again, maybe this one will be the flavored candy that alters my opinion.

A box without hinges, key or lid, yet inside whitish goo is hid!

Well, they certainly smell pumpkin spicey. Much more spice than pumpkin, yet there is a hint of it. Instead of being a solid candy all the way through, this one is a very soft center coated in a durable waxy shell. The Kiss doesn't lend itself well to this sort of thing usually but in this case, it seems to be fairly well done. The flavor is like eating a bit of heavily spiced gingerbread wax filled with some sort of creamy...something. It is incredibly artificial tasting, but it's not bad if you like nutmeg and gingerbread. There might be the barest hint of pumpkin flavor, but I couldn't find it.

On the FACE Rating System, these get 1 frowny face. They really aren't terrible or anything, but I would describe them as a good presentation of a terrible recipe. The flavor is not pumpkin, but it is spice...gingerbread spice. The mouth feel is waxy and unappealing. I did enjoy the foil though, and the little paper flag is of the highest quality. Not really recommended except for that rare breed of Hershey Kiss Completionist.

Next up from the bargain bin we have the Russell Stover Red Velvet Dark Chocolate Pumpkin. Just rolls off the tongue, doesn't it? There are a large, LARGE number of different flavored candy pumpkins that Russell Stover produces each year, and this one comes from the veritable wall that my local drug store had for sale.

Look at that face! It just screams "legitimate pumpkin candy".

Russell Stover is what I call a "low tier" chocolate maker. They put out a huge variety of average quality chocolates, along with a cornucopia of themed sweets. They are at their best when you want a lot of different kinds of chocolate confections in one box, for cheap, but their theme items are only fair to middlin' in flavor. Great on price though! Let's see what mysteries await us!

That's not very pumpkin-y. It could just as easily be an ornament shape.

Now it is even less pumpkin than before!

Well, I can't say I'm excited to see this. I am not sure what I was expecting, but this is really just a candy disk with a nub at one end. It could be almost anything, so I suppose pumpkin is as likely as any other vaguely round object with a distinctive appendage. It smells of dark chocolate and...maybe devil's food cake. This is actually an encouragement, since Red Velvet cake is just Devil's Food cake with some food coloring and a good marketing department.

The flavor is, in a phrase "fucking terrible". The chocolate makes a bold attempt at being something worth eating, but it has too much of that cheap, artificial flavor to pull it off. The filling tastes like sand mixed with sugar, paste and suffering. The thing actually crunches as I chew it, as if I were consuming aquarium gravel or possibly ground glass. I managed to choke down half of the thing, and gave the other half to my long suffering wife. She boldly consumed as much as I did, and for that, I owe her. I did not gag though, so I suppose that's a plus.

On the FACE Rating System, this travesty gets 3 frowny faces. Stay the hell away from it, unless you hate yourself. Wash it down with  Bud Light Chelada for that authentic taste of misery and despair. Leftover candy is not all it is cracked up to be, that is for sure!

Kotas Reviews Crabbie's Original Alcoholic Ginger Beer

Now that I have recovered from Halloween shenanigans, it's time to get back to work! Then, after work, in my free time, write up reviews of things I sampled Halloween Weekend. Today's experiment comes courtesy of the lovely people who brought it to the Halloween party I attended (in costume). I do not know who brought it, but they have certainly given me something to write about! Ladies, Gentlemen, my Tens of Fans, I present to you, Crabbie's Original Alcoholic Ginger Beer.

It's Original because it says so!

This look pretty much like, well, a bottle of beer. The label looks like what you would expect from a domestic beer trying to disguise itself as an import, but I like it well enough. I mean, come on it has thistles on it! At least I think those are thistles. Let's crack it open!

Pinkie extended for proper form.

The smell is pleasantly ginger-ish, but not that overwhelming hit of GINGER that some non-alcoholic ginger beers like to bowl you over with. It smells nice and refreshing, actually. Most of the time when I sniff non-alcoholic ginger beer I get walloped in the nose with this wave of hyper gingerness, but not in this case! Now, for the sampling!

Why yes, I WILL take the Physical Challenge

This is a tasty beverage. It's nice and ginger-y, definitely a step above your mass market ginger ales, but it's not completely punch-you-in-the-mouth gingery. This will not clear our your sinuses from drinking it, but on the plus side, you can actually drink and enjoy it without too much trouble. Very refreshing, and you can hardly taste the booze. Which may be a good thing or a bad thing, depending on how you feel about boozing it up with sweeter things.

On the FACE Rating System, I give this 2 smiley faces. Definitely not what I expected, but I was nicely surprised at how tasty and drinkable this beverage is. If you don't like ginger, avoid this, but for everyone else? Give it a try!