When Haribo rolls out a new variety, we take notice. After all, they’re the main reason we started this site-our “Inspirato”, if you will. Just because we take notice though, doesn’t mean that we blindly like anything they give us.

Their last offering, Sour Cubes, was split here: I liked them, and Matty didn’t. When I told him I was going to review these….well let’s just say his response wasn’t inspiring. Spoiler: he had tried these before too.

We’ve all seen this type of candy before: the sour strip. Dorval’s been doing it for years with much success: how hard can it be? And would these just be a carbon copy of those, or would there be some added Haribo intrigue?

Color-wise…they sure do pop. And nothing artificial!

Just kidding.

First strike: the friggin standard flavors. apple, orange, blue raspberry and cherry. In this oh so standard mix, I actually only got excited by the orange. Orange, I say! The most baseline non interesting candy flavor out there actually is the only thing left for me to wonder about: will it be standard candy orange, or will there be more genuine zesty flavors? Tart? Sour? Neither?  This is where I was at, and it wasn’t a good place.  But…I was about to eat candy so how bad could it be?

Well….turns out Matty’s facial expression and my instincts held some merit. These….taste cheap. Cheap is the best way for me to describe the combination of mouthfeel and flavor.  They’re just about as indistinctive as a candy can get. People who follow my reviews know that cherry is my least favorite candy flavor. And in these, it’s my favorite flavor. I don’t know what that means, but I don’t think it’s good.

Blue Raspberry was completely confusing to me. It didn’t taste a thing like raspberries, OR blue candy. It was sweet and sour though. The apple, which Jonny Jr. claimed was solid, was…mild. I didn’t get the apple flavor coming through in any way: Jolly Ranchers, for example, do it right.  These are like a drawing of the flavor of Jolly Ranchers.

Orange actually was a winner for me. Nice and rounded, the sour flavor really helps it.  And like I said, the cherry was my favorite. It’s probably because I could taste different cherry notes, instead of the flavor being one dimensional. It surprised me.

Even though I enjoyed half the flavors, I can’t recommend these.  There’s a wheat-y odd muddiness happening here that’s getting in the way of the normal Haribo taste clarity. My guess is it’s because these aren’t using the normal Haribo flavors and ingredients. My money’s on them using more American friendly shitty cheap artificial ingredients, although I can’t prove it as I’m too lazy to go find the bag.  It’s in my house, downstairs, but I’m literally too lazy to walk down there. So we’ll never know.

What we do know though, is that these are mediocre by Haribo standards, and while you won’t spit them out (like Matty claims he did), you’re not gonna be impressed either. I think the Sour Cubes are a much bigger success than these, if you’re looking for new Haribo.