Heat, Sweet and Cheap!
Those three words really sing for me. Kroger's Hot & Sweet Snackers make an excellent replacement for the excellent Premium Selection Spicy Bread & Butter variety. Premium Selection is another Kroger Co. brand, so apparently Kroger has a relationship with a great pickle maker (or at least somebody who makes really great sweet-hot pickles).
Heat. Yep. These have some kick, but nothing that's going to abuse your taste buds. The warm feeling they leave on your tongue that combines with the nicely Sweet and a balanced amount of vinegar/sour flavor. All-around balance of sweet, sour and heat. You can munch on these enough so that Kroger ought to put a warning label on the side, or sell them as 2-packs.
As you can see in the photo to the right, there's plenty of goodies in there...mustard seed, onion slices, and plenty of red chili peppers. All of the stuff that you'd expect from a premium jar of pickles.
On the label, they point out that there are no artificial flavors, dyes or use of high-fructose corn syrup, and once you opened the lid, it was clear they meant it. The light color of the cucumber was actually a little odd, as there's usually a more yellowy color that perhaps is from that dye?
The crinkle cut worked well, and set expectations that you quickly realized as a crunchy bite.
Lastly, these were the Kroger store-branded pickles, and had a price to match...I wanna say $2.59? For such a nice presentation, flavor and crunch, what a deal. The pickle department at the Kroger company has certainly done their job--I now have a number of their varieties that are not only as good as the national brands, but in most cases exceed the flavor, quality and value.
No comments:
Post a Comment