Kotas Reviews the KFC Firelog

 There is nothing more picturesque on Christmas Morning than stockings hung over a roaring fire in the fireplace. But what if the Yule Log also smelled of fried chicken? Is it the gift you didn't even know you wanted? Or is it a Krampus Miracle? Ladies and Gentlemen, on this very snowy Christmas Morning, let's take a look at the KFC Fire Log.

It Does Exist!

In case you haven't heard, the Marketing Team over at KFC has been huffing some serious paint, because they have had a number of super strange promotions. A computer that warms chicken for you while you play. Edible nail polish. Scented shoes. A full on Lifetime Mini-Movie. A freakin' DATING SIM which also has a DOG as a TEACHER. They have gone full on coo-coo bananas with this thing. Honestly? A scented fire log is probably not as crazy as some of this stuff. I mean, there are pine scented ones at the grocery store. But, lucky for you, my dozens of fans, I had my fireplace cleaned out and made ready for use this year, just in time for the holidays! It's gonna be a delicious kind of Christmas, right? 

Behold the Magnificence!

A very good friend of mine got me this as an early Christmas Gift and I can honestly say it was probably the best surprise of the season. Mostly because there is no way in hell I would have EVER guessed that THIS is what I was getting for Christmas. How does one even start here? Well, let's get through the basics. The KFC Firelog is just an Enviro-Log brand fire log heavily laced with the scent of KFC fried chicken. The box and paper covering are both covered in warnings to Please Do Not Eat, and while it is mostly a hilarious joke warning, the thing REALLY DOES smell exactly like KFC Fried Chicken. Down to the little bits of pepperiness you always smell with their chicken. If you leave it for a while, it does sort of permeate the room, but not overwhelmingly so. 

Burns pretty well, really.

It's an Enviro-Log, so it lights pretty readily, and burns nice and evenly. For a one log fire, it produced a lot of heat. The packaging says that the fried chicken smell will burn off fairly quick and thus not be present during the burning of the log. As the memes say, that was a fucking lie. It's not super strong, but all through the burning of the log I got a steady, pleasant aroma of KFC fried chicken. Honestly, it made me pretty hungry. Whatever chemical engineers they got to extract the KFC essence? They do amazing work. 

I'm not even sure what this resembles.

For all that 2020 has sucked the big fat one, this was a little dose of ridiculousness that I could put in my fireplace and enjoy. Not everything is extra crispy though. For one, the thing looks really weird as it burns. If you care about the aesthetics of the fire in your fireplace, you will be disappointed. Second it only burned for about 2.5 hours, whereas most commercial fire logs burn about 4. Still, stepping outside to take a picture of the snowfall and getting a nice whiff of that sweet chicken-y goodness? That's classic y'all.

All Good Things...

Much like the fire log, this review must come to an end. On the FACE Rating System, this gets a solid 2 Smiley Faces. I rather enjoyed the experience, and the log itself was pretty nice in my fireplace, even if it didn't last as long as I would have liked. My fireplace still smells faintly of fried chicken, though I suspect that will end once I burn another log in there. If you have a fireplace, or firepit, or some other place to burn things, get yourself one of these and have a chicken-y old time. From all of us here at Kotas Reviews Everything, we wish you a Merry Christmas, a Happy Hanukkah, a Happy Kwanzaa, a Merry Yule, a Debauched Saturnalia, and a very solemn Life Day. 

Kotas Reviews Gingerbread Oreos....Again

 It's Christmas Eve everyone! What could be more Christmas-y on this night than Milk and Cookies! And what better cookies to leave out for a fat guy in a red suit than Oreos! Like, seriously roughly half their marketing budget goes to convincing children that, rather than hand made cookies filled with love, what Santa really wants is mass market sandwich cookies! And you know what? It's not necessarily wrong, given what a shill Santa is for Coca-Cola. So, let's talk Christmas Flavored Cookies, eh? Ladies and Gentlemen, let's dig into Gingerbread Oreos...Again

These are very different from the "Four Years Ago" edition.

You know, usually when Nabisco reissues an Oreo flavor, it's just the same thing again. Sometimes these reissues turn into regular flavors, such as with the Lemon and Mint Oreos. This is a much rarer re-release, because these gingerbread Oreos are completely unlike the ones from 4 years ago. Those were vanilla Oreos with gingerbread creme. These are gingerbread Oreos with "regular creme with bits". Literally the only thing they share is the name. The package here is much more interesting. The traditional Oreo blue and white, but with a lovely gingerbread house and a picture of the cookie itself. Looks good! But how does it look on the inside? Let's find out.

I always have a soft spot for little pictures on my cookies.

You know what? I like these cookies. They look great with the little "winter" designs on them. The "subtle" messaging continues since they have "Oreos for Santa" on at least one of them, and they smell like a pretty decent commercial gingerbread. Kudos on the look and odor. Still, how do they taste? Well, a lot like a frosted gingerbread cookie. I don't particularly like the "sugar bits" in the creme, because I hate gritty food, but it's not bad. Tastes a lot like commercial gingerbread cookies with icing. Which is pretty decent. A lot better than the last outing Nabsico.

One the FACE Rating System, this gets 2 Smiley Faces. Pretty good, but not something I would want outside of the Christmas Season. Miles beyond their last effort in this space though. If you like gingerbread cookies, go get these and enjoy them! I sure did.

Kotas Reviews Lay's Salted Caramel Chips

 Well, well, well, we're coming down to the end of the longest year in the history of time. There was an election, there's hopefully a vaccine on the way for the pandemic, and I've watched literally every Star Wars movie available. This past year has felt like a decade, and that's roughly how long its been since I wrote in this blog. Consider this my apology, but it's been real hard to be funny in these trying times. Still, the weird shit keeps getting made, and despite a very long lapse, here we are. Ladies and Gentlemen, today we take a look at Lay's Salted Caramel Potato Chips.

The pandemic has clearly driven the flavor makers mad.

You aren't seeing things, we've got an honest to Grinch dessert style potato chip. Now, the Salted Caramel craze has sort of passed us all by sometime..a couple of years ago, but hey, I can state that it is good to see attempts at innovation in the potato chip space beyond "sprinkle a slightly different salt on it". Not since the Cappuccino chips have we had anything close to this. I'm actually excited! Are you excited? Let's rip into 'em!

Well, they could be fancier.

Well, they ain't much to look at honestly. Just Lay's chips with some sort of extra dust on them, but not a lot of it. The smell though is a weird chemical caramel-ish scent that is honestly kind of off putting. Like, Willy Wonka was trying to solve his caramel shortage by making some faux caramel, and THIS is the result. Well, maybe it'll work as a flavor. 

Nope, it does not. This is the flavor of things that purport to have caramel in them, and do have some attempt at caramel, but honestly, it ain't caramel folks. It's tryin', but it's failin'. That said, it's not bad exactly, it's just amazingly not good. Off putting and weird is basically the only emotions eating these pulls from the wizened husk that is my heart. My 7 year old distained them, and my spouse passed on them after a few bites. I did finish the bag, but I would not ever buy these again. 

On the FACE Rating System, these get 2 Frownie Faces. They aren't good, by a country mile, but I can appreciate the attempt. A for Effort, D for Result. If you see this and you MUST try them, don't say I didn't warn ya.