Frankford KFC Colonel’s Favorite Jelly Beans Review

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Frankford KFC Colonel’s Favorite Jelly Beans packaging

Jelly bean season is upon us, and the folks at Frankford Candy have given us the unholiest collaboration of Eastertide: Colonel’s Favorite Jelly Beans.

The colonel is Colonel Sanders—the KFC guy.

If you think that sounds terrible, you are correct. These jelly beans are not AI, but I wish they were.

The flavors are fried chicken, sweet corn (maybe we should call him Kernel Sanders?), and gravy. I didn’t expect these to be good, and yet even my low expectations remain unmet.

Frankford KFC Colonel’s Favorite Jelly Beans fried chicken

When I open the bag, I get a strong, off-putting savory smell. I often enjoy mixing savory and sweet (pineapple on pizza, Pumpkin Spice Cup Noodles), but this is not one of those times.

Frankford KFC Colonel’s Favorite Jelly Beans gravy

Even the beige color palette is unappetizing. The corn flavor is yellow, the gravy flavor is orange-yellow, and the fried chicken flavor is Caucasian skin with freckles. At least the texture is pretty typical for a jelly bean.

Frankford KFC Colonel’s Favorite Jelly Beans corn

The flavors aren’t all that different from each other; they are all strong umami, savory flavors with a fruity sweetness. If I concentrate, the fried chicken flavor does make me imagine juicy meat inside a crispy batter, but that’s not something I want in a jelly bean. The corn bean has a very faint corn flavor; it’s the best (i.e., least disgusting) of the three. And I detect an onion note in the gravy bean.

Even after I have eaten them, a weird, unpleasant aftertaste lingers in my mouth. I think these are worse than the notorious turkey dinner candy corn.

Taste the KFC Rainbow

It is difficult to find anything to enjoy about these. So why am I rating them a 2 out of 10 instead of a 1 out of 10? Well, they’re not so repulsive that I need to spit them out. They’re close, but they’re not quite there. And also, I’m pretty sure they’re meant to be amusing and ridiculous, and they’re probably meant to be a little gross. In that way, they’re a roaring success.

Don’t put these in a plastic egg for the annual egg hunt unless you want to ruin a kid’s Easter.

Purchased Price: $3.00
Size: 4 oz bag
Purchased at: Five Below
Rating: 2 out of 10
Nutrition Facts: (22 pieces) 110 calories, 0 grams of fat, 0 milligrams of sodium, 28 grams of carbohydrates, 27 grams of sugar (includes 27 grams of added sugar), and 0 grams of protein.

Reese’s Crunchy Peanut Ice Cream Bar Review

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Reese's Crunchy Peanut Ice Cream Bar orange box

Over the last year or so, there has been a growing line of Reese’s frozen novelties — almost more than you could shake an ice cream bar stick at. You’ve probably seen them with their striking orange boxes. The latest addition is the Reese’s Crunchy Peanut Ice Cream Bar, featuring Reese’s peanut butter-flavored sauce, ice cream, peanut pieces, and a milk chocolate-flavored coating. Yes, it’s made with 100% real ice cream, but it’s not keeping it 100 because that coating is decidedly not 100% real milk chocolate.

Reese's Crunchy Peanut Ice Cream Bar milk chocolate flavored coating

It’s shaped like a standard candy bar — a Snickers, a Milky Way. That got me thinking: wouldn’t it be infinitely cooler if these were shaped like Reese’s peanut butter cups, like those frozen novelties that were available several years ago? It would give the packaging some shelf appeal beyond the already shelf-appealing Reese’s orange boxes.

What about a stick, you ask? HA! Don’t make me laugh. A peanut butter cup-shaped ice cream bar doesn’t need a stick. The only stick to be concerned with is sticking it in your mouth.

Now, I know some of you might be put off by the milk chocolate-flavored coating because that makes it sound cheap. But I assure you it tastes, melts, and shatters fine — for what it is. However, if this not-quite-chocolate showed up on an actual Reese’s peanut butter cup, I would take back my pitchfork from Lucifer, make my way to Pennsylvania, and turn Hershey into Hellshey. I will not stand for that. But on an ice cream bar that’s already working with a Reese’s peanut butter flavor that doesn’t quite taste like the stuff in the actual candy, I can extend the same grace to the coating.

Reese's Crunchy Peanut Ice Cream Bar peanut pieces, ice cream, and peanut butter sauce.

The smooth peanut butter sauce and the crunch of the peanuts do a great job of making me not care about the chocolatey coating, and the combination of all the components makes this genuinely enjoyable. After eating a couple of bars — not in a row, I should clarify — I’m not entirely sure that the ice cream itself is peanut butter-flavored or something else, but the bar’s nutty flavor as a whole is quite strong regardless.

The combination of peanut butter and chocolate is one of the great flavor pairings, and even a product with a milk chocolate-flavored coating can still be pretty good. What this Reese’s product need more of, though, is the sweet-salty contrast that makes an actual Reese’s peanut butter cup so addictive — the thing that makes me want to eat the second cup in a regular pack and all four in a King Size. These are good, but not that kind of good. If you want the peanut butter and chocolate combo in ice cream bar form and you’re okay with the trade-offs, this will 100% do the job.

Purchased Price: $10.99
Size: 12 fl oz box/6 2 fl oz bars
Purchased at: Safeway
Rating: 6 out of 10
Nutrition Facts: (1 bar) 140 calories, 4 grams of fat, 1 gram of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 0 milligrams of cholesterol, 115 milligrams of sodium, 21 grams of carbohydrates, 0 grams of fiber, 11 grams of sugar (includes 8 grams of added sugar), and 3 grams of protein.

Starbucks Iced Ube Coconut Macchiato Review

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Starbucks Iced Ube Coconut Macchiato layers

If you’re looking to put some Spring in your step, your mouth, or your Instagram stories, look no further than the Iced Ube Coconut Macchiato from Starbucks. While the new toasted coconut syrup and toasted coconut cold foam are permanent additions to the menu, this ube incarnation is only here for a limited time. Combining milk, espresso, and toasted coconut syrup, this drink is served over ice and topped with a layer of ube coconut cold foam and a toasted coconut topping. For those counting, that’s triple the coconut, so let’s hope this flavor profile is a pleasant one because they’re going all in on it.

This macchiato is visibly striking thanks to its thick top layer of purple cold foam. The foam gets its color from ube powder, and it’s definitely a head-turner. I could sense the eyes of many intrigued kids staring at the cup as the barista set it down; apparently, my Starbucks turns into a fifth-grade cafeteria at 4 pm.

Avoiding the chaos, I took my drink to go and noticed that the foam held up quite well despite the walk and didn’t immediately dissipate into the liquid below. The fuchsia foam is sweet and airy, with a velvety mouthfeel and a nice blend of vanilla and coconut. Does it taste like ube? It’s hard to say; ube is described as tasting sweet and nutty, with notes of coconut and vanilla, so perhaps this does actually taste like ube, but it’s getting a boost from the vanilla and coconut syrups the foam contains. Either way, it’s delightful. The little bits of coconut topping sprinkled over it have a pleasant chew, somewhere between coconut flakes and coconut candy.

Starbucks Iced Ube Coconut Macchiato coconut flakes and ube cold foam

The first few sips are mostly just sweet, though never cloying, and then the espresso integrates itself, bringing some bitter notes to balance things out. Things get increasingly coconutty as you go further into the drink, and it feels like a true coconut flavor as opposed to artificial or sunscreen-adjacent.

I was impressed that, even though this looks like it could be a gimmicky drink, it doesn’t fall into the category of dessert masquerading as coffee. You could drink this and feel like you’re having a normal, albeit purple, coffee drink and not just a cup of sugar. It’s also worth noting that you will look normal (well, assuming you look normal to begin with) after drinking this and won’t be left with a purple mouth.

The last time I had an ube macchiato, it came from Dunkin’ and was underwhelming in both appearance and flavor. Where they failed, Starbucks delivers in spades. At over $7 for a grande, I’m not sure I can afford to treat myself to this as often as I’d like, but it’s such a playful and enjoyable drink that I can’t be mad at it. If a perfect blend of vanilla, toasted coconut, and coffee sounds appealing to you, ube-tter get to Starbucks before this macchiato leaves the menu.

Purchased Price: $7.16
Size: Grande
Purchased at: Starbucks
Rating: 9 out of 10
Nutrition Facts: 380 calories, 18 grams of total fat, 12 grams of saturated fat, 0.5 grams of trans fat, 60 milligrams of cholesterol, 180 milligrams of sodium, 43 grams of total carbs, 0 grams of dietary fiber, 41 grams of total sugar, 11 grams of protein, and 150 milligrams of caffeine.

Gatorade Lower Sugar Sports Drink Review

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Gatorade Lower Sugar Sports Drink Fruit Punch bottle

Is smashing a keyboard with my fingers a high-impact workout?

It sounds high-impact because when I hit my keys, it’s like I’m a Foley artist creating the footsteps of a centipede. Or I’m like Mozart doing Rondo alla Turca from Piano Sonata No. 11 in A major, K. 331 — but on a keyboard, typing silly wordplay, the word “delicious” way too much, and classical music references that might be incorrect.

Does a keyboard jockey like me need electrolytes to replace those lost from heavy typing? It’s questionable whether I lost any. But if I did, I can now get them from Gatorade in a lower sugar form — 75% less sugar than regular Gatorade, to be exact.

Gatorade Lower Sugar Sports Drink Fruit Punch has a lighter color than other Gatorade Fruit Punch varieties

Gatorade Lower Sugar currently comes in four flavors — Fruit Punch, Lemonade, Rain Berry, and Glacier Cherry, because of course, there’s always a Glacier flavor. I ended up with Fruit Punch. They have no artificial flavors, sweeteners, or colors. And don’t get them confused with Gatorade Zero, Gatorade G2, Gatorade Fit, or whatever other lower or zero sugar varieties the Gatorade scientists have dreamed up over the years. Gatorade Lower Sugar is a new product that uses the sweetener combination du jour — sugar and stevia — which you’ve also seen recently in the Pepsi Prebiotic Colas.

Also, what’s the deal with the super self-explanatory name? No Gatorade LS. No Gatorade 3. It’s like no one had a good idea, so they just went literal and called it a day.

For this review, I felt compelled to compare it with the original Gatorade and the zero-sugar version — partly for science, and partly because my fingers probably need hydration from writing this. So I did a blind taste test, and it turns out I preferred Gatorade Lower Sugar over Gatorade Zero and regular Gatorade.

Gatorade Lower Sugar Sports Drink Fruit Punch next to regular Gatorade Fruit Punch and Gatorade Zero Fruit Punch

The original Gatorade Fruit Punch has a slightly thicker texture than the others, but its fruit punch flavor didn’t punch as hard and was surprisingly less sweet than I expected. Gatorade Zero had a thinner texture, but its fruit punch flavor hit harder, with a nice sweetness from the sucralose and acesulfame potassium. There’s a hint of artificial sweetener aftertaste, but it’s one I don’t mind.

Gatorade Lower Sugar stood out as my favorite of the three. Across multiple blind taste tests, it consistently tasted the best, and it’s genuinely difficult to tell it was sweetened with sugar and stevia. Without the regular Gatorade on hand for comparison, I could easily be convinced this was the original. The only characteristic that fell short of the other two was its color, but that’s simply the absence of artificial dyes.

Speaking of sugar and stevia — that combination was the sweetener du jour several years ago, too. Remember Pepsi True and Coca-Cola Life? Decent tasting colas that didn’t last, possibly because the stevia was noticeable enough to give them a slight bitterness. It seems PepsiCo has since figured out how to balance the two sweeteners, because whatever they’re doing here works.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to work up a sweat typing out these nutrition facts.

Purchased Price: $2.39
Size: 28 fl oz bottle
Purchased at: Target
Rating: 8 out of 10
Nutrition Facts: (28 fl oz) 50 calories, 0 grams of fat, 380 milligrams of sodium, 11 grams of carbohydrates, 11 grams of sugar (including 11 grams of added sugar), and 0 grams of protein.

Chips Ahoy Brookie Baked Bites Review

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Chips Ahoy Brookie Baked Bites box

It feels as though we’re at a point evolutionarily where it’s odd when new foods are introduced. I’m not talking about when a pizza chain stuffs its crust with a new meat, or Taco Bell assembles four ingredients in a revolutionary way. I mean, when food scientists introduce a totally new, never-before-seen product.

Desserts have had a couple of notable ones over the last decade or so. You all probably remember the cronut craze that started in 2013 when NY pastry chef Dominique Ansel mated a donut with a croissant. And around that same time—either slightly before or slightly after (internet records are sketchy)—somebody somewhere bred a brownie with a cookie. You might know it as a brookie.

Why did it take thousands of years for this delightful abomination to happen? I have no idea. But once it did, the horses were out of the barn. Now, the gluttonously sugared bricks are available essentially wherever desserts are found. That said, not all brookies are created equal. For every Killer Brownie version, there are, well, whatever the hell Chips Ahoy is doing here.

While I didn’t have the highest of hopes—Chips Ahoy is a middling pre-packaged cookie, after all—I guess I was expecting something better than this.

There are 5-7 Chips Ahoy Brookie Baked Bites per pack

There are 5-7 irregularly sized squares in each package and several packages within the box. There is no discernible difference that I could taste between the brownie and the cookie. They have a pleasantly soft texture with a slight amount of chew, but that’s where the positive notes end. The taste itself is bland. It is vaguely chocolate-like in nature, but there’s no nuance. The best chocolate chip cookies have a hint of salt, but there’s none of that here. It barely tastes like there’s even any sugar. The first thing I thought when I took a bite was, “Are these diet?” And I don’t mean diet as though they’ve been infused with an artificial sweetener. I mean diet as in it tastes like half the sugar was cut out of it.

I couldn’t finish a package, and it probably goes without saying that I damn sure won’t finish the box. These are destined to languish deep within the recesses of my pantry, only to be uncovered upon my death, or my home sale—whichever occurs first.

NOTE: We also reviewed the Blondie version, which was just as bad.

Purchased Price: $4.28
Size: 7 oz box/5 1.4 oz packs
Purchased at: Hy-Vee
Rating: 2 out of 10
Nutrition Facts:(1 pack) 180 calories, 8 grams of fat, 4 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 10 milligrams of cholesterol, 75 milligrams of sodium, 25 grams of carbohydrates, less than 1 gram of fiber, 12 grams of sugar, and 2 grams of protein.

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