SPOTTED ON SHELVES – Peeps Minis (Sour Watermelon and Strawberry Creme)

Peeps Minis (Sour Watermelon and Strawberry Creme)

According to this USA Today article, these Peeps are 40 percent smaller than regular Peeps and will be available year-round. There’s also chocolate creme Peeps Minis. I don’t know about you, but doesn’t it feel like Peeps are already available year-round. (Spotted by Chibi at Walmart.)

If you’re out shopping and see an interesting new or limited edition product on the shelf, snap a picture of it, and send us an email ([email protected]) with where you found it and “Spotted” in the subject line. Or reply to us (@theimpulsivebuy) on Twitter with the photo and the hashtag #spotted. If you’ve tried the product, share your thoughts about it in the comments.

REVIEW: Whataburger Jalapeño Cheddar Biscuit

Whataburger Jalapeno Cheddar Biscuit Sausage Cheese Sandwich

I’m not that big on biscuits. I owned a Limp Bizkit CD in my late teens, but I’m not proud of that fact, and I think we can all look back and realize we made some stupid mistakes at that age.

I feel bad for the biscuits that come with my KFC meals, because they always wind up neglected in favor of stuffing my face with fried chicken. Priorities, you know? They then go stale after one day and wind up in the trash.

I wish I could just tell the cashier to hold the biscuits and throw in an extra leg or something, but I’m pretty sure there’s no button for that on the cash register, and I try to avoid confusing fast food workers as much as possible. Understanding the talky-box at the drive-thru is difficult enough as it is.

Even when I order a breakfast sandwich, I’ll generally opt for English muffin over biscuit. They just seem to work better as breakfast buns, a phrase I’d like to make a dirty joke out of but can’t quite develop. Biscuits just tend to be more crumbly, which isn’t the most convenient for breakfast on-the-go, especially if you don’t want to show up at work with crumbs all over your slacks.

Before you label me a biscuit-hater, however, I will say that I’m way into biscuits and gravy. It’s one of my favorite breakfast foods, as long as I can afford the luxury of utensils. Whataburger is one of the few fast food locations that offers biscuits and gravy, and their sausage gravy is impressively delicious.

That said, I decided to branch out while on my mission to try Whataburger’s new Jalapeño Cheddar Biscuit. I could have just gotten the biscuit, but that seemed a little sad. Whataburger’s website encouraged me to substitute it for any of the other biscuit options on their menu, which immediately led me down the road of biscuits and gravy (oh, if I should ever find such an actual road flowing with sausage gravy), but I figured the spicy/cheesy combo would work better in sandwich form. Short story long, I decided to get a Jalapeño Cheddar Sausage and Cheese Biscuit Sandwich.

Whataburger Jalapeno Cheddar Biscuit

Right away, I could see the pepper bits in the biscuit, which is always encouraging. It had a nice, spicy scent to it, which mixed with the savory odor of the sausage patty very well. Furthermore, the jalapeño pieces were plentiful and looked as though they were fresh (as opposed to pickled) when they were baked into the biscuit, which generally indicates a spicier pepper experience.

I tore off some bites before I ate the sandwich as a whole so that I could isolate the taste of the biscuit itself. It was somewhat dry on the edges – a common problem with fast food biscuits, I’ve noticed – but the inner parts were fluffy and moist.

There was a nice kick of heat and the delicious flavor of fresh jalapeños right away, mixed in with the more subtle but welcome taste of cheese. When eaten as a sandwich, the cheddar in the biscuit was overwhelmed by the more aggressive cheese slice, but the jalapeños remained, giving my breakfast sandwich a little heat to compliment the sausage patty’s spices.

Whataburger set out to make a Jalapeño Cheddar Biscuit, and they succeeded. The peppers give it a little kick, but not so much that you’re questioning why you decided to set your mouth on fire at 8 a.m. While the cheddar flavor disappears in sandwich form, it’s still notable in the biscuit itself.

However, if you’re more into something a little sweet for your morning commute, this biscuit probably isn’t for you. Maybe it’s just me, but it doesn’t seem like maple syrup and jalapeños would play together very well.

Whataburger Jalapeno Cheddar Biscuit Sausage Cheese Sandwich Inside

As for the contents of my sandwich, the sausage patty wasn’t really anything spectacular – average thickness; tender and juicy with the standard breakfast sausage seasonings. That said, it’d be fairly difficult to make a ground pork sausage patty that wasn’t tender. The cheese was just a regular slice of American. A teensy bit disappointing, since Whataburger tends to be a cut above your average fast food when it comes to their burger offerings.

So, if you’re already a fan of biscuit sandwiches, I’d definitely recommend you substitute your regular ol’ biscuit with a Whataburger Jalapeño Cheddar Biscuit. It’s a savory, slightly spicy change of pace, and it’s only available for a limited time served between 11 p.m. – 11 a.m., so why not give it a go. If this were a commercial, I’d end this review with a sentence like, “Spice up your morning routine!”

But this isn’t a commercial, so just, you know, try the damn biscuit.

(Nutrition Facts [Biscuit only] — 1 biscuit — 350 calories, 200 calories from fat, 22 grams of total fat, 12 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 10 milligrams of cholesterol, 730 milligrams of sodium, 31 grams of total carbohydrates, 2 grams of dietary fiber, and 8 grams of protein.)

Item: Whataburger Jalapeño Cheddar Biscuit
Purchased Price: $2.64
Size: N/A
Purchased at: Whataburger
Rating: 7 out of 10
Pros: Jalapeño peppers were plentiful and offered a nice kick. Dreaming of a sausage gravy road. Most of the biscuit was fluffy and moist. Finding a biscuit I wouldn’t throw in the trash. Cheddar in biscuit added a nice touch. Definite flavor upgrade from a regular biscuit.
Cons: Biscuit edges are dry. Owning a Limp Bizkit CD. Cheddar in biscuit disappears when paired with cheese slice. Sounding like a commercial. Breakfast not offered all day at Whataburger. Wow, that’s a lot of fat for one biscuit!

SPOTTED ON SHELVES – 5/5/2014

Here are some interesting new and limited edition products found on store shelves by us and your fellow readers. If you’ve tried any of the products, share your thoughts about them in the comments.

Fun Sweets S'mores Cotton Candy

This looks like it’ll make my hands sticky, just like s’mores. If it gets the flavor right, all I would need it to do is burn the roof of my mouth to get a true s’mores experience. (Spotted by Kristina at Walmart.)

Hershey's Spreads Snackers

Just stick Hershey’s Spreads into toothpaste tubes already. (Spotted by Kelly at Walmart.)

PIllsbury Limited Edition Mint Chocolate Chip

Cookie angry! Cookie SMASH! (Spotted by Josh at Wegmans.)

Thank you to all the photo contributors! If you’re out shopping and see an interesting new or limited edition product on the shelf, snap a picture of it, and send us an email ([email protected]) with where you found it and “Spotted” in the subject line. Or reply to us (@theimpulsivebuy) on Twitter with the photo and the hashtag #spotted. If you do so, you might see your picture in our next Spotted on Shelves post.

SPOTTED ON SHELVES – Wrigley’s Extra Dessert Delights Cinnamon Roll Gum

Extra Dessert Delights Cinnamon Roll Gum

Yes! I can now make my breath smell like a Cinnabon. That’s sexy, right? (Spotted by Ryan at Target.)

If you’re out shopping and see an interesting new or limited edition product on the shelf, snap a picture of it, and send us an email ([email protected]) with where you found it and “Spotted” in the subject line. Or reply to us (@theimpulsivebuy) on Twitter with the photo and the hashtag #spotted. If you’ve tried the product, share your thoughts about it in the comments.

REVIEW: Hubba Bubba Hawaiian Punch Bubble Gum

Wrigley's Hubba Bubba Hawaiian Punch Bubble Gum

Oh, Walgreens, can you forgive me?

Sometimes I forget about you. Despite your stale sushi, your overpriced aisles of Degree deodorant, you mitigate your pitfalls by offering a “Make your own Slushie” machine available 24 hours a day and providing me with batteries and Snuggies before hurricanes. Indeed, Walgreens, I am in debt to you.

And today, on the cusp of summer, my debt racks up as you have taken your greatness one step further by giving me a brand new gum.

Wrigley's Hubba Bubba Hawaiian Punch Bubble Gum Unwrapped

Ahh, artificial fruit punch flavoring. How do I love thee? Let me count the ways…no no, never mind. There are far too many ways. Having unwrapped my first cube of this Hawaiian Punch imitator, I’m greeted with a dashing little nub that smells of fruit punch, summer camp, and days by the pool, where I glugged enough Hawaiian Punch to make my belly burst (Why does chlorine make artificial fruit punch taste so good? A neurological connection? A molecular link between chlorine and sucrose? Me + Sugar=Duh?)

I go in for the chew and, BLAM-O, I’m smacked 1952-comic-book style with a concentrated Hawaiian Punch flavor. It starts out with a distinct sweet/tart cherry/berry flavor with a hint of bitterness from Red 40. That teensy bitterness gets mitigated with a pineapple tang and a hint of orange and apple that swings in at the end, all making for a rounded Hawaiian Punch experience without the need of a cup holder or threat of spillage on to those white fluffy towels you just pulled out of the dryer (Because everyone drinks Hawaiian Punch in the laundry room?).

It’s not natural fruit punch by any means, but when did Hawaiian Punch promise real fruit juice? That’d be like asking a Wooly Mammoth to construct a warehouse of IKEA furniture, and that’s just not fair: Wooly Mammoths don’t have opposable thumbs.

Wrigley's Hubba Bubba Hawaiian Punch Bubble Gum Sucrose+red dye=yum

There’s an episode of Dexter’s Lab where Dexter, boy genius, makes himself expandably stretchy by smooshing his molecules with those of chewing gum (season 2, episode 19 for those following along). I imagine he used this gum. Like most Hubba Bubba specimens chewed in the past, each cube starts out small and then expands in your mouth, becoming a sticky, stretchy, tacky tangle. It isn’t until 12 minutes later, when the flavor’s far gone and you’ve gnawed it into a soft, flavorless glob of gum base, that you realize just what an experience it was. This is the stuff of bubble World Records, the terrifying goo that sticks to the bottom of shoes and stretches for miles. This is Bubble Gum. (Notice capital letters. Serious stuff.)

In a world of hyper-vigilant dentists and grumpity orthodontists putting braces on every human with a mouth and a molar, sugar mavens are oft deprived of a tasty, sugar-filled gum to chew their days away, so it’s refreshing to find a gum that’s tasty, good for bubbles, and, by Georgey-Porgy, filled with real, refined sugar. Hubba Bubba is amending said conundrum. With a pleasant chew, sugary grit, and enough artificial red dye to repair the New Jersey freeway, Hubba Bubba’s taken the taste of summer and smooshed it into a little 1×1 inch cube. If that’s not a summer miracle, I don’t know what is.

(Nutrition Facts – 1 piece – 25 calories, 0 calories from fat, 0 grams of fat, 0 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 0 milligrams of cholesterol, 0 milligrams of sodium, 5 grams of carbohydrates, 0 grams of dietary fiber, 5 grams of sugar, and 0 grams of protein.)

Item: Hubba Bubba Hawaiian Punch Bubble Gum
Purchased Price: $1.39
Size: 1 pack/5 pieces
Purchased at: Walgreens
Rating: 8 out of 10
Pros: Concentrated artificial fruit punch flavor. Soft n’ stretchy. Mysteriously seems to expand in one’s mouth. Real sugar defying angry dentists. 24-hour Slushie machines. Reasons to watch re-runs of Dexter’s Lab.
Cons: Not for those with a distaste for artificial fruit punch flavor. Sugar in gum may cause cavities. Some may be sensitive to bitterness of red dye flavor. Grumpity orthodontists. Wooly Mammoths don’t have opposable thumbs. The repairs of the New Jersey freeway. Realizing said freeway will never be repaired. Never.

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