Fruit Shoot Sweets

I'm having another one of my phases, this time it's sweets! I really wanted some Monty Bojangles Bon Bons and their website is the only place I can seem to find them, a delivery charge seemed silly for 1 small box of Bon Bons so I treated myself to these three bags of Fruit Shoot sweets as well as the J20 Bon Bons and Robinsons Squash gums. 

Funky Fruits 

These are an assorted mix of fruit jellies and as with the Robinsons packet are vegetarian and made with natural colours and flavours. The little blurb says "We are so fixated with Fruitiness that for our new Fruit Shoot Funky Fruit jellies we are using the most lusciously mouth-watering soft and fruity recipe to create these fantastically fruity flavours".

Well they smelt lusciously fruity but I disagree with the description of soft jellies, they had more of a wine gum consistency; a pretty hard chew and were some of the stickiest sweets I've had in a long time - I was picking bits out of my teeth for ages! 

Summer fruits flavour is "all the sweet and sharp flavour of succulent strawberries & raspberries" and had a nice actual summery taste to it. The strawberry is slightly stronger but overall had a good mix of the two. Apple has "the sharp flavour of yummy apples" but really I found it to be quite mild to begin with. It had more of a sweet apple taste while chewing but to be fair there was a sharper aftertaste. Tropical is "bursting with the sun-soakingly delicious flavour of a pineapple and orange punch" and for some reason there were 2 different shapes with this flavour in my bag. It ended up being the plainest tasting of all but it did have a mild cocktail like flavour to it. I couldn't clearly taste the pineapple and after trying the orange in the bag realised I couldn't taste that either. Moving on to the actual Orange - "the zingy, zesty flavour of the fullest, juiciest oranges". I'm not a great lover of oranges and so the strong, natural flavour of these didn't do much for me. They were very sharp, very citrusy and almost bitter or tart at some points. A very clear orange flavour and while I wasn't too keen it was a good, long lasting one. Blackcurrant and apple "capture all the flavour of bucketloads of beautifully jammy blackcurrant a & apples" but really tasted just of blackcurrant. I couldn't taste the apple at all but I wasn't moaning - the blackcurrant is good! It's not too strong but has a natural, juicy flavour. 

Despite being made by Robinsons with, I'm guessing, the same natural flavours and colours these were a lot better. The flavours were stronger and tasted real, I was just annoyed at how sticky these were - it's a good job I have all my own teeth! 

7/10 

Fruit Shoot Mega Sour Mix 

The flavours in this bag are exactly the same as the Funky Fruits - just sour, apparently. 

They smelt better than Funky Fruits though, the same blend of fruity scents but a lot more vibrant and despite again only using natural colours or flavours. Nothing artificial again but these aren't suitable for vegetarians. The sweets have much more of a jelly texture than before and are very soft and fizzy feeling, nice and chewy and are so juicy I felt like they would burst if I gave them a squeeze. 

Summer fruits had a much better mix of the two flavours this time round, neither were stronger and it was very tasty. For a 'Mega Sour' mix, it was distinctly lacking in the sour front though. Tropical was as dissapointing as before. The plainest of all, neither flavour used is strong at all and it's generally quite mild. This flavour tasted like the worlds most watered down cocktail. Dull. 

Blackcurrant & Apple was another that was different from the Funky Fruits bag, the blackcurrant was nowhere near as overpowering as before and it's more of an even mix of the two. Sadly this meant it tasted a lot milder as the apple, which I could actually taste this time, just seemed to tone it all down a bit. There is a strong blackcurrant aftertaste but I preferred it previously, as the stronger, dominant flavour. The Apple alone seems completely different, it's quite strong and a nice apple flavour, just like with the Summer Fruits flavour and the apple in the Funky Fruits bag, is quite sweet rather than sour. It's very nice though. I left Orange till last again, and one again it's a sharp orange flavour. I much preferred it here though, the taste suits the fizzy, sugary texture much more and it ends with a slightly sour aftertaste. A lot better in this bag. 

I preferred this bag a lot and I think the texture and type of sweet is the reason why, it suits these flavour a lot more. All of them (except tropical) have a really nice flavour but none are mega sour as I was expecting. Tasty though. 

7/10 

Juicy Jellies 

Again the third and final Fruit Shoot bag, Juicy Jellies is (meant to have) the same five flavours in the bag however, while this bag is still made with natural flavours and ingredients, it doesn't say that no artificial flavours are used so I was interested to see how these would shape up against the purely natural ones. 

I noticed a difference before I'd even tried one, they had an overwhelming, very strong tropical scent to them - nothing like the previous bags and a bit ironic considering the tropical had no flavour in those! Although the name is Juicy Jellies, these are a mixture of completely harder gummy like sweets and half gummy half foam sweets. 

I ran into a problem with these sweets that I hadn't before, the other two had a good mix of all the flavours but with these I had 12 (yes I counted) Summer Fruits flavour, 2 and 4 Apple & Blackcurrent and Apple, 1 Tropical and no Orange! I know there's no guarantee of what sweets are inside each bag but at least one of each would be nice! The half foam sweets are quite soft like all sweets of this texture are with a nice chew and the others have a firmer, more solid chew. Again more like a slightly softer Wine Gum than a jelly. 

The half foam Summer Fruit tasted like a diluted version of the same flavour in the last two bags, all I could really taste was the foam bottom of the sweet - not that I can put into words the flavour but just plain. The same flavour in gummy form wasn't much better, there was a mixed berry aftertaste but to be truthful I only knew what flavour it was supposed to be because it was red and shaped like a strawberry. The half foam Apple was the complete opposite, the apple was very strong and was the nicest apple out of the three. It was very sweet and juicy - a very nice apple sweet. I ate the gummy version immediately after a foam and gave up trying to work these bags out. I'm assuming the same ingredients are used for the half foam but these tasted so plain, there was a slight lingering apple taste but nothing while I was actually chewing. The strength of the foam apple might not have helped but these just seemed dull. Blackcurrant & Apple in the half foam sweet was very plain again, like the summer fruits all I could taste was the marshmallow like foam on the bottom. Dissapointing. The same flavour in the gummy was slightly better, it was stronger tasting than the Summer Fruits was but still mild. It had an even mix of the two flavours but nothing impressive. I can't comment on Orange as I didn't have any but I did have one lonely Tropical half foam sweet - hallelujah! At last, this is how tropical was supposed to taste in the other bags. Fresh and fruity with a slight tart aftertaste - this one sweet had enough flavour to provide the tropical smell when I opened the bag! Lovely. 

I liked a couple in the Juicy Jellies bag but the rest were rubbish. It seems Apple and Tropical benefit from artificial flavours as these were the only vibrant, juicy sweets in the bag. 

5/10 

The Fruit Shoot sweets are pretty good - especially the first two if you're looking for natural sweets rather than lots of added nasties and they're only £1 for quite a big bag too. It was interesting to see that (with the exception of the Juicy Jellies) the same ingredients were used but the strength/tartness/juiciness varied so much between bags, it seems the type of sweet used really affects the flavour. 

The all round winner for me was the (not very sour) Mega Sours!