Jolt Country

Here is my review of the Fazer Salmiakki pastilleja.

Pastilleja translates into pastille, or a small candy or lozenge. Salmiakki is a popular candy within the Netherlands and is available in dozens of varieties from just about as many manufacturers. It is black licorice with ammonium chloride salt.

Ammonium chloride salt is similar to the sodium chloride salt used in the United States except it is more pungent and has the added benefit of being an expectorant. Though it's also unfortunately linked to high blood pressure as well. It used to be sold as a cough medicine and still plays a limited role in certain cough drops.

One theory on why such an odd candy, subjectively speaking, came to popularity within the Netherlands is due to their historical dependency on heavily salting meats and fish for the purpose of food preservation. Their palates became acclimated and a less salty treat would appear bland and unappealing.

This particular variety of salmiakki drop is a small, diamond shaped, black gumdrop with a raised "F" in the center. It is not coated with sugar like gumdrops frequently are in the United States, but rather smooth in texture. The trademark ammonium chloride salt is therefore unobtrusively implemented into candy rather than coated in or sandwiched between like in other varieties. Its density is somewhere between a gummy bear and jujube so while chewing on it is an option it is not the recommended method, allowing it to dissolve on the tongue is much more preferable.

A quick disclaimer before I proceed with the rest of the review: I strongly dislike black licorice and commonly throw away french fries that I consider too salty, so my purchase here was mainly based on my desire to try something new and outside my comfort zone.

The first drop surprised me considerably despite having a pretty good idea as to what I was getting myself into beforehand. The black licorice was really good! It was outstanding, fresh and invigorating, like a brisk walk through a dew covered nature path. And then the salt hits you about three seconds later and even that was pleasant, the extreme contrasts in flavor. And then about three seconds after that the salt is all you taste. It is potently salty. The best way to describe it would be like comparing sugar to sweet n' low. The sweet n' low is much sweeter than sugar, uncomfortably so, but also has a very unpleasant chemical artificiality to it. Not that ammonium chloride is artificial compared to sodium chloride, just that the taste is foreign and that is how it's interpreted. And it is much saltier. The ammonium chloride also has that taste you get in your mouth from a novocaine shot at your dentist, a faint burnt rubbery taste. Not quite but that is the best way to describe ammonium chloride to someone who never had it: pungent saltiness, sweet n' low artificiality, and novocaine.

The black licorice eventually returns before it completely dissolves in your mouth and you're left with a delicate sweetness and the feeling of "huh, what the hell did I just eat?"

I can't really give an adequate answer to that question but I can tell you that I've thoroughly enjoyed several of the drops while writing this review. These things simply have me hypnotized.

In conclusion, I love the Fazer Salmiakki pastilleja and would highly recommend anyone reading this to purchase some. You may end up surprising yourself as well!

10/10

That was a magnificent review of a product I would never have known about. And now I want one.

can u buy me it

Here is an image of the box of candies from the review:




It's a pretty small box and it only holds a little less than an ounce and a half of candies, maybe 50 or so? They're very tiny. I purchased a number of different ones and will be doing reviews on those as well, though they'll likely be much smaller by comparison since I've already established what salmiakki is.

An amazon search will bring them up in your first several results as this is the most common variety. They're around 4 or 5 bucks a box give or take plus shipping. Maybe you could get it for less, I was impatient when ordering. Definitely worth it for the experience, plus they're very invigorating. I plan on buying other varieties down the road sometime.

Fazer Pantteri



These are similar in color, size, and texture to the Salmiakki drops from the previous review. They are also less salty, so much so that you almost have to tease out the salt flavor by nibbling on them. They are shaped like upside down miniature reese's cups and have a raised "P" on top.

The thing you will notice almost immediately is that they taste exactly like Nyquil. I guess you could describe the flavor as menthol but only if you've never had Nyquil before. While the flavor is unmistakable, what I'm not sure of is if I'm currently consuming medicine right now or candy. If you manufactured a medicine named Panther then it would be good marketing to have a picture of a panther on the packaging, but why would you even name your medicine "Panther" in the first place or why on the other hand would you flavor your candy to taste like medicine? It's all very confusing. Also, you get 2 fewer grams in this package than the prior which I'm not pleased about.

Some people may argue (Paul, only Paul would argue) that Pantteri came out 5 years prior to Nyquil so they couldn't have copied the flavor. I would just let him have that one.

This is the type of candy that one guy who everybody really likes and is either a family member or coworker offers you with a kindhearted grin and a "promise" of how good they are and you play along because everyone including yourself really likes that one guy so you decide to be a good sport about it and try one. Then you act surprised by how unexpected the flavor is and everyone has a good laugh. The problem here is that this is also the type of candy that one guy who nobody likes and is either a family member or coworker tries offering you with a slimy grin and you just roll your eyes and walk away.

I don't know, it's all very confusing. If you want the taste of Nyquil but you're not sick then this is the candy for you. It's also the candy for you if you are either one of those guys mentioned in the review.

7/10

Why do you buy and eat weird foreign candy? When I used to trick or treat on Halloween there was a an old lady that gave out Russian candy. Well, it could have been Polish or Lithuanian, but the wrappers certainly weren't printed in English. I think I ate one piece, made a face and thew the rest out. Murrican candy wont make you make faces, Billy. Trust Murrican candy!

AArdvark wrote: Sat Apr 18, 2020 3:02 amWhy do you buy and eat weird foreign candy?

I didn't just go out and purchase the weirdest candy I could find, these reviews are the culmination of several years of a bizarre curiosity I've had towards them. American candy is cloyingly sweet and makes me feel sluggish, it's also terribly unhealthy for you. With these you can pop one in your mouth, get a nice little zap of flavor and move on with you day.

Fazer Super Salmiakki

Again, 38 grams as opposed to the 40 in regular fazer salmiakki, I'm not liking this trend one bit.



As you can tell from the picture, these are small round disks with an argyle pattern on top.

I thought I knew what I was getting into with this one beforehand as my experience with this stuff has grown dramatically in the last week. Salmiakki is always referring to the Ammonium Chloride salt, that is the one and only necessary ingredient for Salmiakki candy. The fact that the overwhelming majority of it is in conjunction with black licorice is mainly due to a regional preference, but I have seen Salmiakki fruit disks for example. So when something is named super salmiakki I am expecting it to be extremely salty. What this is is a combination of original salmiakki and pantteri both with their characteristic features, salt and menthol respectively, dialed way down.

The menthol fluctuates throughout the experience from a minty toothpick (you can task the wood) to halls, but stays for most of the time within the range of Scope mouthwash. At the same time and in equal proportion is the taste of dumping out the last tiny scraps from a bag of beef jerky into your mouth, not the salt of beef jerky but literally the salt and the meat. It's weird.

At first I thought it was a bit of a strange combination, the flavor of just rinsing your mouth out with Scope and then you couldn't wait for whatever reason to polish off the last handful of crumbs at the bottom of a bag of beef jerky, but its grown on me. Maybe they could have done with less Scope flavor or maybe none at all and just have the beef jerky flavor but then again maybe that wouldn't have worked well either?

9/10

Fazer PAX



These are small round domes with a raised "F" and rays emanating from it. They are again black licorice and have the same size, density, and texture of the previous drops I've reviewed.

As the name and picture of the dove implies they were first created in 1947 to celebrate the Paris Peace Treaties. They are also kept at 40 grams so the consumer does not get fucked out of 2 grams of candy like they do on half of everything else Fazer makes so that is also a good thing.

The problem here is that they taste exactly like shampoo. You know like when you're washing your hair and some shampoo finds its way to your lips and you think you've rinsed it off but you find out you haven't later on and you grimace and spit out some shampoo before finishing up in the shower? The difficulty I'm having right now is trying to remember a shampoo that I've used that was this bad tasting...and I can't but I'm sure I've had some at one time or another? Maybe it tastes like Lysol smells would be a better description?

Maybe the candy developers at the time were all suffering from shell shock? I don't know. The one thing I do know is that as an experiment I cut off a small piece of the cardboard packaging as well as the plastic wrapper and ate those to see if that would taste better than the candy itself. The answer is no, but that doesn't mean you should eat the PAX candies either.

Nobody should ever eat these, but they are better than what the goddamn assholes over at Ferrero did to the Butterfinger.

2/10

Would you be willing to post a video about these candies?

AArdvark wrote: Sun Apr 19, 2020 5:49 am Would you be willing to post a video about these candies?

Yes!

Which one are you?

I'm not in the video.

So yes meaning no.

I get it. I get it

You asked me to post a video, I posted a video. I even went as far as previewing a number of videos to get one of the better ones.

So... where are you copying these reviews from like so much "no guys I really bought 15 bottles of scotch!" Because I can't be bothered to care.

The Happiness Engine wrote: Mon Apr 20, 2020 6:23 pmSo... where are you copying these reviews from like so much

Unlike your "moved to new york/started stacking bodies for whatever reason" story that is found verbatim all over the internet if you copy and paste it into a google search, here is the only place you will find these reviews as they are all mine...all ours, they are a gift to this forum so they belong to everyone now.

The Happiness Engine wrote: Mon Apr 20, 2020 6:23 pm"no guys I really bought 15 bottles of scotch!"

I actually own way more than 15 bottles of single malt scotch, the only problem is my tastes moved on to bourbon and now I don't know what to do with all of them!

Yes, any of this happened and you aren't the most tedious maggot here. At least Paul believes in his stupid bullshit.

I don't know why you have to keep attacking Paul, he's battling the same thing you claim 2 people you know died from. Though that part was also probably copied from another website somewhere as well.

Can there be a video of these bottles of scotch?

AArdvark wrote: Tue Apr 21, 2020 3:10 am Can there be a video of these bottles of scotch?

You didn't even appreciate the last video I posted for you.