Anger Burger

I have this thing, see, where the stranger the food product, the more I want to try it.  And while I don’t entirely mean the completely gross shit, as long as it is more curious than foul I’ll put it in my mouth.  You can quote me on that.

And here a perfect example!  What a suspicious segue.  Anyway, I bought this as an exploratory treat from Surfas and looked forward to trying it all day today, even after getting pulled over by a cop on the way home from work.¹

I poured it into two glasses and was hit face-on with a powerful whiff of grape.  Great!  I love grape.  As I brought it closer to my nose, it changed from grape to a menacing bubblegum odor.  Wait a minute… I don’t like bubblegum.  I hesitated.  And then took a sip.  While I describe the flavor, please enjoy this photomontage to illustrate my experience:

The first taste is a faint and sweet licorice tempered with the still-strong smell of grape and bubblegum.  But soon after is another hit of bubble-gum and then a cola-finish.  And then a anise-bubblegum-aftertaste.  Honestly, it’s not that any one flavor is unpleasant, but the brain and tongue are spread so thin trying to decide what, exactly, Fentimans Dandelion & Burdock tastes like that the first complete reaction is “Eehhh?” It also doesn’t taste entirely unlike Jägermeister, which might be what puts you off the flavor completely.

All told, I don’t think I’ll ever buy it again.  It’s too complicated.  When a beverage requires more concentration than reading a book, I think it loses the right to be considered “refreshing”.    On the other hand, Fentimans makes a few other drinks that sound perfectly normal and tasty, like Ginger Beer and the beguiling-sounding Mandarin and Seville Orange Jigger.

Well, that was exciting.

UPDATE (2 hours later): Well, I decided I kind of hated it.  Which is so strange!  I started out sort of liking it and each new sip went downhill.  By the time I was halfway through my glass my mouth was going numb (!?) and the smell of it was putting me off completely.  Now it just tastes like medicinal overpowering bubblegum and I need to wash my mouth out with garlic.

¹Why was I pulled over?  For having out-of-state license plates.  Seriously.  I asked, “Why did you pull me over?” and the cop says “We’re cracking down on people not registering their cars.”  I bit my tongue to keep from correcting him: “In this state.“  Because the car is registered.  And but of course the state is cracking down!   The state is out of money!  Why would they waste time pulling over all the 1,000 piece-of-shit drivers that almost kill me every day I decide to drive?  So I got a warning to register my car in California in 45 days OR ELSE.   Thanks, Johnny Law.

Well, I’m a failure.  In other non-news, I went out to a gourmet restaurant supply store and an Ethiopian restaurant today and brought my camera with me and totally did not take a single photograph.  I’m that professional.  Did I mention that I’ve been paid to photo-document things before?  I have.

Instead I’ll direct you to this outstanding photograph, brought to my attention by Eat Me Daily who in turn discovered it over at Passive Aggressive Notes:

Additionally, guess what I found online today?  That is correct – edible, non-googley googley eyes!

I mean, I know it’d be easy to make these at home, but for a mere $2.25 you can purchase a packet of 60 eyes and imagine what you’d be sticking them to!  I mean, I’m seeing them pressed into the top of otherwise totally normal chocolate chip cookies and now you have  Cookie Face!  Eeee!  I love it!  Or plop the jumbo size onto pancake and you have Pancake Monster!  Well, more like Startled Pancake, but still.  The website where those are available, Bake It Pretty, has an amazing array of plastic cake-toppers as well, mostly retro and well-priced.