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After hearing about Bob’s Pickle Pops somewhere online I decided that I had to try them and ordered up a 14-pack, half regular and have with jalapeño. Being pouches of frozen pickle (gherkin, in the UK) slurry I would alternate between expecting them to be surprisingly good (ala deep fried pickles), or a terrible bastardization like Mamma Mia! Pizza Beer.
Less than a week after ordering, the tightly-packed Priority Mail box of Pickle Pops this weekend so in the freezer went two sample pieces. Today I felt that I was ready to give them a try; ready to deal with any potential sour stomach that may arise.
Due to the high salt content, these popsicles don’t freeze as solidly as other similarly packaged fruit / sugar products, so much that the first just-out-of-the-freezer bite has the same flaky, icy texture of an almost-melted Fla-Vor-Ice. Having grown up regularly eating these cheap, extra sweet frozen ice treats I was also expecting something a bit sweet, even though I should have known better. Being mostly salty, eating my way through them, I was repeatedly reminded of trying to eat a Vero Mango chili powder coated mango sucker / lollipop brought back to me from Mexico. Try as I might, I just couldn’t find myself enjoying it. The flavor was not bad, and it did not disgust me, but I simply could not enjoy it. It was exactly like eating a large pouch of frozen, lower quality pickle relish.
I want to say something else and perhaps better about the Jalapeño version, but it really wasn’t that much different. Sure, there was a bit of pickled chili flavor, and maybe a few more solids, but that’s really about it. It may have been a bit spicy, but not enough for me to tell. I did also try them with a glass of cheap fizzy yellow beer (Trader Joe’s Simple Times Lager, more on this later) because I figured the two may go well, and while it didn’t hurt, it really didn’t make the pickle pops any better.
All said, if you are the type of person who really, really likes pickles, or maybe the sort who enjoys salty Mexican-type candy, you may want to order some of these and give them a try. Or, if you are handed one by a friend, definitely try it for a new and interesting experience. However, if you are hoping that freezing will somehow transform standard pickles into a magical, surprising, and wonderful snack, you may want to pass these by.
(I must admit, I do feel a bit bad saying that I don’t like these after watching this clip from the Food Network show Unwrapped featuring Bob’s Pickle Pops, but I really don’t think I like these.
Also, it’s pretty obvious why the name was changed from Pickle Sickle. I can see the visual pairing of the -LE at the end of the logo that they were going for, but the name both sounds offputting and is not properly pronouncable in the subtitle of “POPSICKLES”. Pop-Sick-Les?)