Six Different Ways

I'm coming at you with a 3 card bill tonight: 

1. Dutch Crunch (kettle cooked [crafted in small batches]) Spicy Dill Pickle "Crunchy Potato Chips" "Natural Flavours + Colours"

2. Miss Vickies Spicy Dill Pickle kettle cooked potato chips. "No artificial flavours or colours"

3. Hardbite handcrafted-style chips. Spicy Dill, Pickle "Nothing Artificial"

 In various previous posts I've written about my longing for the discontinued co-op gold chip flavour Jalapeno Dill Pickle. I've found similar flavours from McClures, however it didn't quite satisfy my craving, my longing for a flavour cut down before it's time (I'm at the point where I'm starting to be unsure if I even remember what the gold jalap dill pickle chips even tasted like, maybe I've had rose coloured glasses on for the last 7(?) years). Well, there's a thing or 2 that's somewhat crap about 2021..but one good thing is it seems to be the year of spicy dill pickle. Contenders galore (or 3 contenders) looking to fill the void left by the cruel removal of Jalapeno Dill Pickle. Did any of them succeed, or am I left to wander for eternity hoping for the triumphant return of the OG (to me anyway) spicy dill pickle. Well, let me tell you...  

I've tried each of these chips previously, separately..and it's been about a month or so since I've had any of the three bags. Before my wife left for work this evening I had her help blind me for this review by placing each bag in a separate coloured bowl.

The pink bowl, smells like dill pickle. The silver bowl, also smells like dill pickle...with a hint more vinegar. The tan bowl smells like, I don't know some sort of oil with a bit of dill pickle. They all look relatively similar. Pink bowl has the most well done chips, they're mid range in size. Tan bowl has the smallest chips in size and are the second most well done. Silver bowl in appearance is the most sterile and largest.

I was introduced to The Cure (well, probably through The Wedding Singer in reference only) through Goldfinger. Back in 2002 (ish [I can't remember for sure, I want to say it was in the Limewire years {does it really matter}]) I was downloading a bunch of punk covers and stumbled across their rendition of Just Like Heaven, it should go without saying that that song slaps hard. Because of that song I ended up downloading some more Cure songs and eventually picked up their double greatest hits cd (the version that has the album or single version of the hits on one cd..and acoustic versions of the hits on the other disk). Through their greatest hits I fell for the single version of The Cure, but wasn't at a stage where my finances justified getting into the back catalogue.

The pink bowl has a nice crunch, not too oily. They don't look super well done, but of the three they're probably the most well done (still not a whole lot of browns, the odd flash of skin or imperfection present. They have a nice dill flavour followed up immediately with a mid range jalap heat. They're good, somewhat sweet dill pickle with a bit of kick. Tasty. I think these may be the Old Dutch ones.

The tan bowl shows the most skin. There's flecks of red in the seasoning. As I said, they're the least fragrant of the three with more of an oily smell. Their crunch is aggressive, while riding a bit of a soft wave, thickest cut of the 3 bags. They have a more earthy flavour and the seasoning by name is in the background. Visually, these are the chips that I'd pick. They're the least sterile looking and have those red flecks. Taste wise they lack the flavour to keep me that interested. Quite earthy, I didn't notice this previously, maybe it's because they were preceded by the pink bowl. There's a very faint kick, that resides at the back of your throat a few minutes after consuming..the burn keeps growing the farther I am from consumption of these chips, it's not rip your face off, but it's noticeable. The dill pickle is also very faint. Earthy. These are the Hard Bite version.

Back in 2004 I was pretty stoked that The Cure was releasing a new (self titled) album. I was relatively new to the band and didn't realizing that getting a new album this quickly was uncommon (compared to the 4 year cycle they had been on for the past decade and a half). I remember getting the album as soon as it came out and listening to it on my discman during a flight to Toronto to visit my cousin Adam. I dug it, though some took a while for me to get into. Being used to the greatest hits which were their poppier selections, I wasn't quite expecting the dark/moodiness (this was sort of before I really dove into researching the band [being somewhat surprised by The Cure being dark is quite funny in retrospect]). After getting into their self titled it was now my right of passage as a Cure fan to feel the full 4 years between albums before they released 4:13 Dream in 2008. In the 4 year gap I started delving into their back catalogue..through Recordland in YYC. I started with CD's, Disintegration, Show, Wish...and relatively close to the time that 4:13 Dream came out I started collecting records, one of my first purchases was a used copy of the double LP Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me. I enjoyed it all, but I'd be lying if I didn't say that sometimes I didn't have the attention span for some of their full albums.

The silver bowl looks like your typical dill pickle chip, standard green flecks of dill pickle seasoning. The crunch is mid weight. The vinegar scent carries over into taste. There's a vinegar bite mingled with some dill pickle then followed up with the most aggressive heat of the 3 bags. It's still flavourful and not a face melter, but it's more of a little red hot pepper heat than a jalap heat (sorry, my vocab when it comes to hot peppers is lacking). There's a faint sweetness lurking in the background. The seasoning is slightly thicker than the other 2 bags. Bangin'. I'm relatively certain these are Miss Vickies.

Since grabbing 4:13 Dream in 2008 (and a few of the singles that came out beforehand) I've been left catching up on the back catalogue. First Head on the Door, then Bloodflowers and Three Imaginary Boys. Lately I've been delving into their more gloomy era starting with Faith. (since I grew up in the era of downloading I have their discography..but I never seem to get into anything digital the way that I do with CD or record so the other albums have been heard but not really lived in). In the late 20teens Robert Smith started talking about putting out a new Cure album. I want to say that I was supposed to see the light of day in late 2019..then 2020. Now it's almost halfway through '21 and I'm left slowly collecting the back catalog. The beauty of music is that you can always revisit the past sounds, it's typically not just left up to memory. That however doesn't satisfy my craving for some new Cure music and curiosity of what they'll sound like. Have they been in a sonic cocoon for the last 13 years, ready to emerge with another sonic transformation? Is the new album going to live up to the hype built through anticipation? There's only one way to find out, PUT OUT THE ALBUM MR. SMITH AND CO.

So did any of the bags satisfy my craving? Was I able to pick out the bags blindly? Tune in next...

Haha, Miss Vickies is pretty close. Great bag of chips. When I consumed each bag on separate days previously I had thought that Miss Vickies was a walk off dinger, however when consumed side by side the Dutch Crunch bag actually put up quite a fight and just slightly got edged out by Miss Vickies. Hard Bite is a distant 3rd, they're just too light on seasoning for me. If they had 4x the seasoning with the same earthy flavour maybe they'd be a contender. After writing all of this I have no way of really comparing these to co-op gold's classic. But you can't go wrong with either Miss Vickies or Dutch Crunch Spicy Dill Pickle. Go get yours.

Yes I my guesses were correct.

Stay hydrated,

MARC

ps.

Phone notes from the first time I tried Dutch Crunch Spicy Dill Pickle on April 10th. "Smells very dilly. Initial taste was spicy, with a bit of dill. Further I got in the spicy and dill leveled out with a hint of sweetness. The heat starts at like a 5 then drops to a 4 or so. Crunch is mid to mid light. Not much for skin or imperfections. Crafted in small batches kettle cooked. .grease level is low. Good mid spice dill pickle chips. Heat is flavourful without being over powering. Slight sweetness adds a flavour complexity that I wasn't expecting. Flavour distribution was off a bit but overall pretty good."

pps.

I have this one from 2018 in my phone. "Deep River Snacks 'because we give a chip' New York Spicy Dill Pickle flavored kettle cooked potato chips. 'Cooked exclusively in sunflower oil, never a blend'. So, neat. '10% of profits to charity'. Pretty crunchy. Mild dill pickle flavour, with an almost black pepper heat (somewhere between BP [black pepper] and Jalap). The chips taste somewhat oily but it's slightly off (I guess that's the sunflower oil as opposed to potato stock? [I don't know what I meant by this, but it's verbatim from my phone]). Seasoning is fairly even throughout the bag though a little light for my taste. Not bad but still  nowhere near as good as co-op jalapeno dill chips were (RIP..fingers crossed for a triumphant return)."