What is it?
Tic Tacs, the diminutive mints, took its first sip of the soda world with a 2020 Coca-Cola flavor. It must have worked because here I am now in 2023 talking about the new Sprite Tac Tacs. Two of the great small pleasures in my life are Tics Tacs and Sprite, but I would never have thought to combine them, so I was glad that someone did. Initially, anyway.
How is it?
The buttery yellow color of these Tic Tacs didn’t get them off to the best start for me. I don’t think I’m alone in immediately associating Sprite with its iconic dark green bottle. While I’m sure this lighter, brighter shade was meant to allude to the citrus flavor (and it probably also didn’t hurt to distinguish these from one of Tic Tac’s most famous varieties, Wintergreen), I found the hue too banana-y to bode well.
The taste did start pretty decent, sweet and lemon-lime-y. Sure, there was a bit of an acidic aftertaste, but the main notes were crisp enough that I was able to mostly ignore it. But since a Tic Tac’s sweetness comes from its smooth outer coating, you’re ultimately going to be sucking on it long enough to dissolve that (about a minute, in my experience) or just biting through it directly. Either method reveals the coarser, more powdery inside, which here is quite sour, and chemical-tasting enough that I’d call it actively unpleasant.
Anything else you need to know?
I get that sourness is theoretically appropriate for a citrus-based flavor, but these just don’t remind me at all of Sprite, a soda I define more by its fizziness and mild sweetness than by any resemblance to the harshness of an actual lemon or lime.
Conclusion:
When I’m going for a Tic Tac, I typically want either to feel refreshed or to get a little burst of tastiness. This flavor doesn’t provide either of those things, so I can confidently say that I won’t be purchasing it again, and I’d even go as far as to state that I hope these lemony Tic Tacs are out of the limelight entirely soon.
Purchased Price: $1.59
Size: 1 oz
Purchased at: Wawa
Rating: 4 out of 10
Nutrition Facts: (1 mint) 0 calories, 0 grams of total fat, 0 milligrams of sodium, 0 grams of total carbohydrates, and 0 grams of protein.