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Heyhey, it’s #TicTacTuesday!! The 128th variety added to the Tic Tac collection: Coca-Cola. While the press release regarding this giant collaboration came out a month ago, these were still difficult to track down in the US. I suspect pretty soon we will all be inundated with marketing for these and they’ll be available in every possible corner of the globe. I was able to procure my packs from my usual connection in Slovenia, although these were actually made in Germany.
The packs are wrapped in the iconic “Coca-Cola Red” and feature a cutout of the globally-recognizable glass bottle silhouette. Each candy is handsomely imprinted with the Coca-Cola logo (see below). I was wondering if the candies should be red with white printing, rather than the reverse. Perhaps there was an issue with using that much red, which is colored here using the controversial carmine, but that could be only in Europe. It’s possible the US release might use artificial coloring. Also, the previous cola-flavored MIXERS: Cherry->Cola was red and maybe they wanted to steer clear from that.
A quick scan (and translation from German) of the ingredients shows the usual suspects PLUS “Coca-Cola Syrup 2%.” The syrup is broken down into its own ingredients and still includes caffeine! I’ve been hoping for caffeinated Tic Tacs for a while, and the only thing I had been able to find was Mint Guarana from Brazil. Of course, if you did divide up the rather low caffeine content of a Coke into about 50 candies, you get a VERY small dose, but still. There is no high-fructose corn syrup in these, so maybe they’re Mexican Coke Tic Tacs 🙂
Sitting here, staring at my pack of Coke Tic Tacs, I had an interesting thought: how well would it combine with other flavors? I immediately grabbed a pack of Ice Pop Glacé, fished out a lime candy, and popped it into my mouth with a Coke one. I’m a big fan of Coke with some Lime (and if you live in Mexico, you apparently take this combination for stomach trouble) and this candy combo lived up to my expectation. Very tasty! I also tried Coke+Tangerine with less positive results. I rolled my own Cherry Coke mix and it was mostly good, although the Tic Tac cherry flavoring (acerola) tastes too artificial and overpowering for me. Coke+Blueberry was pretty good too.
When you first open a pack and give it a whiff, you smell a strong hit of cinnamon. While the recipe for Coke is still a highly-guarded secret, it is pretty well accepted that it includes cinnamon, vanilla, nutmeg, orange & lemon essential oils. I’m not getting too much of the other individual flavors though, just that cinnamon. There is a middle-flavor, a sort of bitterness to it, that strongly reminds me of Coke mouthfeel. Sort of hard to describe.
The flavor is spot-on: this is made with Coca-Cola. I don’t drink much soda anymore, but I still do love an icy Coke now and then. One of my favorite candies is Haribo Gummy Cola Bottles, which is made with a generic “cola” flavoring. The Tic Tac version is similar but somehow tastes unmistakably COKE to me. In Europe, there was a release a couple of years ago of the co-branded The Simpsons: Buzz Cola and that tasted more like the Haribo gummies to me than actual Coca-Cola. The taste lingers in your mouth for a while, and that’s where the citrus notes come out a bit more.
If you love Coca-Cola, these are the candies for you. I’m not sure when they’ll become available in the US or for how long, but I plan to buy up a case of them for sure when they do. It’s the perfect combination for Coke & Tic Tacs fans everywhere.
RATING: 5/5