In the Lay’s potato chip flavor universe, Cheddar & Sour Cream has lived in the shadow of sour cream & onion. If sour cream & onion is the more popular Ben Affleck, then Cheddar & Sour Cream is Casey Affleck. Or if you’re looking for an Affleck-less reference, sour cream & onion is Luke or Owen Wilson, while Andrew Wilson is Cheddar & Sour Cream.
Yes. There’s a third Wilson brother who’s also an actor.
Lay’s Cheddar & Sour Cream isn’t a new flavor, but it’s not available in my area like sour cream & onion, which is EVERYWHERE. But there’s a chance that Lay’s Cheddar & Sour Cream might end up being nowhere, thanks to Lay’s new Flavor Swap promotion. The contest involves voting between two flavors and the winner stays while the other one gets sent out into deep space or something.
Cheddar & Sour Cream is up against a new flavor — Smoked Gouda and Chive.
The flavor sounds like a hoity-toity offspring of Cheddar & Sour Cream and sour cream & onion, getting the cheese DNA from one and the herb DNA from the other. While I’ve had gouda, I’ve never really gotten to know gouda, so I read up on it.
Gouda is one of the oldest cheeses in the world that’s still being made today. It’s named after the Dutch city of Gouda. Young gouda has a mild fudgy flavor with nuts and older gouda has a sweet, slightly fruity flavor. And now you are ready to pretend to be a cheese expert, if that cheese is gouda and you run away if you’re asked about any other cheese.
These chips look exactly like sour cream & onion potato chips, but they smell sweet and cheesy. They don’t have a fudgy or fruity flavor. Instead, they taste like smoky bacon, which makes sense because it’s SMOKED gouda and because of this Reddit thread I came upon. The first chip is smoky and cheesy, but subsequent ones are definitely more on the smoky bacon side. As for the chive flavor, I couldn’t taste any. But, overall, I really enjoyed the flavor of the chip.
So between Smoked Gouda & Chive and Cheddar & Sour Cream which one would I send into deep space and which one would I save? Well, to be honest, it’s a very hard decision, because both are equally fine tasting empty calories. It would like choosing which is more entertaining — a video of a kitten playing peekaboo with his or her owner or a video of a puppy licking peanut butter off a window.
The Cheddar & Sour Cream definitely has a stronger cheese flavor than its competitor, but if the Lay’s one goes away, there’s still the Ruffles Cheddar & Sour Cream (which is the better one). If Lay’s Cheddar & Sour Cream went away, I wouldn’t miss it. As for the Smoked Gouda & Chive, it doesn’t really taste too cheesy and it’s not necessarily better, but it does taste like bacon, and bacon is yummy, so I’d probably miss it.
So I guess I’m #TeamSaveSmokedGoudaandChive.
(Nutrition Facts – 1 oz. – 160 calories, 90 calories from fat, 10 grams of fat, 1.5 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 0 milligrams of cholesterol, 135 milligrams of sodium, 330 milligrams of potassium, 16 grams of carbohydrates, 1 gram of fiber, 1 gram of sugar, and 2 grams of protein.)
Item: Lay’s Smoked Gouda & Chive Potato Chips (Flavor Swap)
Purchased Price: $1.89
Size: 2 3/4 oz.
Purchased at: Tesoro Gas Station
Rating: 7 out of 10
Pros: Tastes like bacon. Smoked gouda tastes like bacon. Ruffles Cheddar & Sour Cream. Gouda’s longevity.
Cons: Not too cheesy. Not too chivey. Getting sent out into deep space. Ending a review with a hashtag.
