Monday, April 2, 2012

Gimbal’s Sour Gourmet Jelly Beans

Gimbal's Sour Gourmet Jelly BeansGimbal’s Sour Gourmet Jelly Beans were introduced on the heels of Gimbal’s other gourmet panned offerings, their Lovers line of heart shaped jelly candies like Cherry Lovers, Honey Lovers and Sour Lovers.

The jelly bean mix has a gourmet price point, at $4.49 for me at the CVS, but the bag is big and it’s made in the USA.

The mix includes 12 flavors in bold colors.

Gimbal's Sour Gourmet Jelly Beans

The beans are absolutely lovely to look at. They’re small and well made, each was quite perfect. The Gimbal’s factory advertises that it’s free of most major allergens, including peanuts, tree nuts, dairy, eggs, gluten, gelatin and soy. As a jelly bean product they’re also fat free and contain no high fructose corn syrup (but I’ve never actually seen a jelly bean made with HFCS). The front of the package says they’re made with real fruit juice, and that’d be apple juice. It also says that it’s a good source of Vitamin C, but that’s only 10% of your RDA in a serving of 37 beans (about 1.4 ounces).

But as much as they tout the freedom from allergens, there are still plenty of other ingredients some folks may avoid, such as artificial flavors and colors.

Gimbal's Sour Gourmet Jelly Beans

Most of the beans were opaque, but in the case of beans of similar colors, one was translucent, the other opaque. The structure of the bean is the same as other jelly beans. A jelly center (modified food starch give it its smooth texture) covered in a grainy and flavored shell. In the case of these beans, they jelly center is the sour part, so the sourness goes through and through.

They’re tiny, sized like most other gourmet beans like Jelly Belly.

Sour Lemon was fully formed, a mix of juice and peel but with a more boiled marmalade note than a raw flavor.

Sour Grapefruit was fantastic. There was a lot of zest and that pine-type bitterness along with a biting tang of juice.

Sour Tangerine was sour and juicy but unlike the other two citruses, the zest notes didn’t come out until the very end.

Sour Mango was also orange, but opaque. The flavor was similar to peach, and if I wasn’t told it was mango, I probably would have guessed that. It was soft and tart but had that fuzzy fruit flavor that mangoes and peaches share.

Gimbal's Sour Gourmet Jelly Beans

Sour Watermelon was the darker green bean. It was pretty good, it reminded me a lot of Jolly Ranchers in the best way possible.

Sour Apple was kind of difficult for me to like. At first I though it was watermelon, it was just too vague. There was an authentic note of apple to it, but not much else.

Sour Lime was almost a key lime. There was soft vanilla note to it but it really finished sour.

Gimbal's Sour Gourmet Jelly Beans

Sour Blueberry was refreshing, it had a good berry note to it, almost a raspberry. I wouldn’t say it was really blueberry, but still quite fun.

Sour Grape is an unusual flavor for jelly beans. I see it a lot in hard candies but not so much in jelly beans or gummis. This grape is much like a Pixy Stix, tart and with that malic acid tangy bite and vague artificial grape flavor of soda.

Sour Strawberry had a great mix of flavors, it really had a nice floral start, like a fluffy wad of cotton candy. Then the flavor developed with strong tartness and finished with strawberry jam.

Sour Pomegranate had a lot of very dark floral berry notes to it. It never quite rang true as pomegranate, but it was still a very good bean, not as sour as the others.

Sour Cherry was well done. The flavor was bold and less medicinal than some I’ve had, with green notes and of course that sour finish that most of the beans had.

Overall, it was a good bunch of beans. Even those that I didn’t really like that much such as cherry or mango were still quite good enough that I just ate them instead of trying to pick them out. It’s hard to tell some beans apart unless you’re someplace well lit, so sort before going to movies if you really don’t want to get a flavor you dislike. I did like this flavor set better than the Jelly Belly sour variety which only has five flavors, but that’s purely personal preference.

The intensity satisfied me quite quickly, without giving me acidic burns on my tongue. The price is a bit high compared to generic beans but less than half of what you’d pay for Jelly Belly. They do pack quite a punch and I’m unlikely to finish this 13 ounce bag before Easter even with daily grazing.

Related Candies

  1. Sour Patch Kids Berries
  2. Gimbal’s Sour Lovers
  3. Dots Sour Slices - Pink Grapefruit
  4. Trader Joe’s Jelly Beans & Citrus Gum Drops
  5. Tootsie Sour Dots
  6. Judson-Atkinson Sours
  7. Gimbal’s Gourmet Jelly Beans


Name: Sour Gourmet Jelly Beans
    RATING:
  • SUPERB
  • YUMMY
  • TASTY
  • WORTH IT
  • TEMPTING
  • PLEASANT
  • BENIGN
  • UNAPPEALING
  • APPALLING
  • INEDIBLE
Brand: Gimbal’s Candy
Place Purchased: CVS (Silver Lake)
Price: $4.49
Size: 13 ounces
Calories per ounce: 99
Categories: Candy, Easter, Gimbal's Candy, Jelly Candy, Kosher, Sour, 8-Tasty, United States, Sav-On/CVS

POSTED BY Cybele AT 11:48 am Tracker Pixel for Entry     CandyReviewEasterGimbal's CandyJelly CandyKosherSour8-TastyUnited StatesSav-On/CVS

Comments
  1. really colorful

    Comment by Bryant on 4/02/12 at 10:50 pm #
  2. I have searched for these at every cvs and they all only have the regular variety. I decided to order them off of amazon. I hope they’re as delicious as the sour gummies!

    Comment by Jorge on 4/03/12 at 2:20 pm #
  3. I don’t even like jelly beans but this review made me order a few small packs from Gimbal’s website.

    Comment by Kate on 4/04/12 at 2:16 pm #
  4. I think technically if it’s 10% of a daily value in a serving, it’s called a “good source” and 25% is a “very good source”

    Comment by Jesse Radin on 4/05/12 at 5:09 pm #
  5. I happened to come across a random bag of these at a CVS about a month ago (haven’t seen another since).  I am just now finishing them up, and that’s with daily munching, so it is definitely a good sized bag.  These are really good jelly beans (better than Jelly Belly), and I like the assortment of flavors.  They could be a little more tart, but then I like really sour candies.

    Comment by LL on 4/06/12 at 1:57 pm #
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