Snak Club x Hot Ones

Snak Club is a pretty commonly found generic packaged snack and candy distributor.  I see their products regularly in convenience stores or airports, nationwide.  They distribute a lot of snack mixes, nuts, candies, etc, and frequently do random collabs with other brands, like Hidden Valley Ranch or Tajin.

"We believe snacking should be the best part of your day—full of flavor, excitement, and a little bit of extra crunch. If we’re bringing you the same, old, boring thing, then we’re not doing our jobs right. Our snacks are powerhouses of authentic seasonings, exciting flavors, and hearty ingredients that will energize your mind, body, and soul. Each bite bursts with deliciousness, making each Snak Club moment truly satisfying."

As an avid snacker myself, I quite like their philosophy.  Their reach seems pretty wide, and they've been around since 1984.  I've definitely picked up their products before (sour gummy worms in particular come to mind), but I didn't ever really think I'd review them, so didn't take photos or notes until I stumbled upon one of their collabs.

"Snak Club is spicing things up with Hot Ones, the hit YouTube series where host Sean Evans interviews celebrity guests as they take on increasingly spicy chicken wings while answering even hotter questions."

Now, do I watch Hot Ones? Nope. In fact, I didn't know it existed until now.  I was just drawn in because it was a fun looking snack mix.  And I do love the adventure of devouring snack mixes.

Smoky Sweet Snack Mix.

"An enticing blend that tantalizes the palate with medium heat, featuring the smoky essence of chilies, sweet fruit, and tart tomatillo. This smoky and spicy fusion promises an irresistibly intense flavor, capturing the essence of the popular celebrity interview show. These vegan snacks draw inspiration from the flavorful Los Calientes Verde Hot Sauce, spicing up the medium-heat mix of peanuts, pretzels, sesame sticks, toasted corn, cashews, and spicy seasoning."

Here you can see a pretty standard handful of the mix.  You may notice that there are no cashews here, even though the description mentions them.  That is because, um, I didn't realize it had cashews until my second day eating the mix, when I was already more than halfway through the bag (side note: um, do not pass any judgement about the fact that if I was at <50% remaining my second time having this, and they say the bag is 9 servings, that means I had ~5 servings as my first serving ... gulp.  Snack mixes like this are my nemesis!). There *were* a few cashews (halves) but they were hard to come by.  The other ingredients were in reasonably equal distribution (although peanuts definitely outnumbered the corn nuts).

Anyway, as you may have guessed given the fact that this most definitely did not last me anywhere near the specified 9 servings, I quite enjoyed it.  Every element was good.

The peanuts came in both full size pieces and halves, and were well salted and seasoned.  Fairly standard, but they carried the mix well.  The aforementioned cashews were much the same, although, far, far, far fewer.  Both were fresh, not too soft, just, good standard nuts. 3.5/5 for these elements.

The sesame sticks were the ones I honed right in on, as I always like a sweet element to my mixes, as these are often the sweetest.  These were not as sweet/candied as some other versions, but still had some light sweet glaze on them.  They had decent sesame flavor, good crunch, and they too were well seasoned.  Another 3.5/5.

Next, the pretzels.  The component I was least excited by, but turned out to be pretty good.  I'm super fickle when it comes to pretzels (not the shape, but the actual pretzels, I sometimes love them, sometimes hate them, and I can never really pinpoint what makes me like or dislike a certain pretzel).  Anyway, these were good, again fresh, crisp, well seasoned.  They really let the seasoning cling to them, so were the most flavorful pieces. Standard little twists shape.  They gave the mix some body and a carby element. Another 3.5/5.

And finally, the "toasted corn" which was like ... corn nuts, but somehow both crispier and airier, if that makes any sense.  These were wonderful, although hard to know if you were getting a peanut or corn piece, unless you looked very closely, as they were about the same size and both well coated in seasoning.  I absolutely loved the crunch they added. 4.5/5, probably the best corn nuts I've ever had (although clearly differently made compared to normal ones). 

So all the components, good on their own, distribution of components fairly good, and then there is the all important seasoning.  It was a fairly fascinating flavor.  I wasn't sure what chilies, sweet fruit, and tomatillo would really taste like, nor am I familiar with Los Calientes verde hot sauce, but this was, well complex.  It was savory and sweet and spicy, yep.  The ingredients tell me there was salt and sugar of course, but also apple cider vinegar, jalapeno, onion, parsley, and cumin.  The salt/sugar/acv/jalapeno/onion I definitely tasted, and made sense, but the parsley and cumin were total wildcards in there that I would not have guessed.  You may also notice that I didn't list any fruit, despite their description of having "sweet fruit", nor did I list tomatillo, again, despite being in the description.  I didn't taste them really either, although there was the sweetness (yay, sugar!) and there was something sorta verde tasting.  It was mildly spicy, and the heat did build reasonably well (uh, once you downed half the bag in one sitting).  I found it fairly compelling as it went well with all the mix-ins.  

Overall, I'm not sure I'd buy this exact flavor again, but I really enjoyed it (and all the other bags I had of it, as I got it in bulk by the case), and it was a bit different from your standard pub mix.  Strong 4/5, perhaps higher, as it just came together very well, and I liked every bite I had.