Ruffles Ultimate Sweet & Smokin' BBQ

Dante, on his tour of liquor stores, found another bag of experimental chips. Ruffles seemed to have come up with a line of what they're calling "Hardcore Flavors." The back of the bag says: "You're hunger's about to get blown up by a spicy, sweet and smoky taste bomb. Boom."

I was trying to wait for Dante and I to get together one day to taste them, but I gave in to peer pressure (and Dante's insistence) to open a bag. Mr. Brown and I tasted them today:

Mr. Brown: The texture is phenomenal because usually when you get barbeque flavored chips they're flat chip but this time its Ruffles so its a nice change. I'd like the flavoring to be a little on the sweeter side especially since its the first word in the flavor title and they could be less spicy. The flavor is good because it tastes like its cooked into the chip and not just dusted on top. I give them a 3.75 out of 4. By the way, the caption on the front of the bag says: "Chip enlarged to show texture." Did they think we were going to really believe that they were really that big?

Me: Someone must've sued them for misrepresentation! I thought they were too spicy. I agree with you, the "Smokin" took over the"Sweet." I thought the Ruffles texture was distracting. With that much flavor, I'd much rather have a flat chip, but then again, I really like flat chips. These kind of reminded me of the Sweet Southern Heat Barbeque, but I liked those better. These get 2 out of 4 potatoes.

Boulder Canyon Red Wine Vinegar Kettle Cooked Potato Chips

I have to admit, this was my second bag of chips this week. I had to break down and rip open a bag when I was dealing with some frustration. Yes. Chips sometimes help me deal with life. C'mon! You can't have just figured that out! I have a blog dedicated to snacking...duh? So you've moved on and are wondering what was my first bag of chips? Well, friends, I stuck to my old, reliable and delicious stand-by: Lay's Barbeque. They never let me down.

So, back to potato chip tasting. This week, while at Big Lots with Dante I came across this here bag of Boulder Canyon Red Wine Vinegar Kettle Cooked Potato Chips. Red wine vinegar? Now that's different. I picked those up and headed straight for the register with an armful of other items.
After the two-chip taste I found the flavor to be nice. There was a detectable difference from other vinegar flavored chips: These were sweeter, less acidy and the flavor was weak in comparison. As far as texture, these did not crunch like your normal kettle style chips. In fact, I wouldn't even have thought these were kettle style if it wasn't for the bag telling me so. They appear, and crunch like a slightly thicker cut of a regular potato chip.

Dante found the flavor pleasant and thought the wine really came through, but described them as a Goldilocks bag: One chip has too little flavor, another has too much flavor and then some have just the right amount of flavor.

Mr. Brown says "If I didn't read the label I would have thought these were BBQ flavored chips." An interesting take, and after I tasted them again, I totally see where you can get BBQ from, and I 'm sure it has something to do with the flavor intensity level. These get 2 out of 4 potatoes.