Although my friends are wary to taste anything I give them after suffering through Dracula Piller, they had all drank enough to be willing to try not just one, but three different Salmiac candies. The first one I opened up was Amanie's Extra Hot Pepper Drops.
"You denounced an entire country based on this stuff?" my friend Dan commented as he picked up a piece, "it doesn't smell that bad." He then popped the piece in his mouth, and I had one as well.
Although my Salmiac palate is much more refined than most of my peers, it doesn't take a connoisseur to recognize bad. After sucking on the pepper drop for about a minute, he couldn't take it anymore and spit it out. I held on a little bit longer and asked what he thought of it.
"The taste was good for a second—"
"Wait," I interrupted, "did you say good?"
"Err, I should say, good by comparison. It was somewhat normal, and then it started... uhh... leaking a bad flavor."
Clearly, Dan was unprepared for powdered yuck found in the center of most of these pepper drops. I enquired further, asking what the flavor was like.
"It's hard to say... salty battery acid?"
That sounded about right. The battery acid taste started getting to me as well, so I spit the pepper drop out and chased the flavor with some Diet Coke. For the record, that combination was even worse. But one thing that was noticeably missing from these extra hot pepper drops was the hot.
"They weren't hot at all," he confirmed, "I couldn't taste anything past the bad. Which, by the way, is still going -- this is like a Jäger shot that just won't end."
As for the others, the general consensus was "awful", "terrible", and "seriously, people eat this stuff?" But as far as pepper drops go, Amanie is no Pirkka, but they still are inedible.
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Look for the other two other reviews later this week. Also, I picked up a small batch of some fresh, salty licorice at a German grocery store nearby where I'm staying.
In northern Europe, even children love this stuff!
ReplyDeleteThose do look kinda bad, you need some more Tyrkish Peber I think
ReplyDeleteHm, the german stuff, at least Haribo and Katjes, are just licorice flavoured sweets. You could enjoy them instead of gummy bears.
ReplyDeleteThese salmiacs are one the best "real salmiacs" there is...in Northern Europe candies like Katjes, etc.. are not even considered as salmiakki :DD sorry about the possible miss-spellings.. just had some SALMIAKKIKOSSU ;DD
ReplyDeleteYou know. all this salty, acidic stuff + diet coke is going to wreak havoc with the enamel on your teeth and underlying bone structure.
ReplyDeleteWhich reminds me, here is the Monkey Island recipe for Grog which sounds very familiar.
http://arrrr.com/grog.shtml
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PWm57XPRqps
ReplyDeleteDo like Alex and surrender to 3 flame turkish peber in a blue bag.
Finnish candy is to candy industry what japanese porn is to porn industry
ReplyDeleteI love all the commentary about it being like "salty battery acid". Funny thing is, the saltiness is Ammonium Chloride. This breaks down to Ammonia and Hydrogen Chloride, better known as Hydrochloric acid... So in a way, it literally IS salty battery acid...
ReplyDeleteGotta love the stuff. Sadly there isn't a whole lot of it over here, mostly from European Delis, and even then the best we can get our hands on is the Dutch "double zout".
BS. It breaks down into those things, yes... if you heat it to 338°C, so no, unless you have one hell of a mouth.
DeleteAnd even if it DID break down under non-extraordinary circumstances, it's still BS - battery acid is sulphuric acid not hydrochloric acid.
Actually, Ammonium Chloride is used AS-IS in dry cells ("AA" type batteries). So yes, you are eating battery electrolyte.
DeleteAmanie Pepper Drops is probably my favorite type of candy in the entire world. Unfortunately, it's no longer sold in my city. WHERE DID YOU FIND IT???
ReplyDelete