Trader Joe's Sugar Glazed Mixed Nuts

Let's pause for a moment to remember an older, oft-forgotten Christmas movie that shares its name with this product—that's right: Mixed Nuts, starring Steve Martin. It centers around a suicide-prevention hotline, features a cross-dressing Liev Schreiber, a young ukulele-playing Adam Sandler, and a serial killer known as the Seaside Strangler. Sound a bit awkward and weird? It is. Each character introduced is more strange and unexpected than the ones before...very much in contrast to this bag of nuts from Trader Joe's, which features all the usual suspects.

Peanuts, almonds, cashews, and pecans. I can't think of four more "normal" nuts. I mean, I guess walnuts could have made the cut since they're vaguely holiday-ish. But I don't think they would have enhanced this mix at all. Quite frankly, I'm not even sure this is a holiday product, but we'll treat it as such. It's kosher, too. So...if you're throwing a Hanukkah bash, keep these in mind. 

Personally, I wouldn't have minded some macadamias thrown in there, but no doubt they would have upped the price point by $20 or so. All four nuts in the bag are represented pretty adequately, except for the pecans. At least in our bag, they were quite scarce. 

Sweetened by cane sugar, the nuts are high quality and feel fresh. They're nice and sweet, but not to the point where you have to stop eating after only a nut or two. They're not completely covered in an actual glaze, but each nut is peppered with hundreds of granules of sugar. It makes them somewhat messy, but I'd rather eat granules of real sugar than something less authentic. There's no Christmas spice mix here. No berries. No chocolate. Just "sugar nuts," which, incidentally, is Sonia's favorite nickname for me...

Just kidding.

And on that note, we'll give our final scores. Three and a half stars from Sonia. Three and a half from me. Nothing spectacular or original here, just a solid nut mix sweetened with cane sugar.

Bottom line: 7 out of 10.

Trader Joe's Reserve Bourbon Barrel Aged Maple Syrup

"Syrup in my coffee? Why didn't I think of that?"

That's one of those sneaky underrated lines from Elf, our favorite Christmas movie. In fact, it's repeated quite often in our kitchen on those few mornings where Sandy and I have enough time and peace to enjoy a cuppa joe together. Especially because...you guessed it...from time to time we put maple syrup in our coffee. It's actually pretty good in place of sugar if you've never tried.

Of course, if you're familiar with the movie, that's not maple syrup Buddy's putting in his mug there...go with me and let's say it's bourbon. In the movie, hilarity ensues. For us, it raised the question: what would bourbon flavored maple syrup taste like?

No more guessing for us! We finally caved and bought Trader Joe's Reserve Bourbon Barrel Aged Maple Syrup. I say "caved" because we've been tempted often, but let's just say as a growing family we're somewhat value conscious, and $9.99 for a little bottle of maple syrup seems to be more aligned with luxury than necessity.

Not that it's a terrible price for quality maple syrup, given the cost factors that go into production, but it's worth a mention.

Anyways, as someone more acquainted with the darker amber and more maple-y flavor depths of Grade B maple syrup, it really struck me at first how light and super sugary sweet the TJ's borubon maple syrup is. It's a big step to Grade A. Wow. I could almost feel a cavity forming after my first taste. But once that shock wore off, the subleties of sweetness here began to come out a bit. It's kinda like a layered effect, and I'm not sure how to describe it except there's like these micro ebbs and flows with how sugary sweet this particular syrup is.

And there's a legit bourbon presence as well. It seems to slip in, about halkway thru, and provide like this little flourishing underpinning. It's quite delicious and seems to meld nearly perfectly with the sugary high notes. I will say that the bourbon is less apparent when sampled with things like pancakes and waffles - damn carbs soak up all that booze, it seems.

And yes, it works well in coffee. And better than bourbon barrel coffee too.

Leave the kids with Aunt Jemima or whatever - this is some pretty decadent syrup to not let go to waste. Savor and enjoy. At least that's what we're trying to do and ration out, as now our maple syrup line item on the family budget is tapped out for a bit...I kid. Good stuff, give it a try. Just wish there a Grade B version. Matching fours from me and the wife.

Bottom line: Trader Joe's Reserve Bourbon Barrel Aged Maple Syrup: 8 out of 10 Golden Spoons

Trader Joe's Scandinavian Tidings

You might remember some other Scandies we reviewed on here a while ago. This time, Trader Joe dropped the chuckle-inducing title of "swimmers" and went with "tidings," as in: tidings of comfort and joy or something like that. 

TJ's holds the holiday theme high here, as this product features a bold Christmassy red resealable bag, snowflake art on the packaging, and three ultra-merry colors/shapes/flavors: green trees, red ornaments, and yellowish stars. I say yellow-ish because, well, they're somewhere between yellow and off-white. That's just fine, because they went with vegetable-based coloring in this product, as we've seen from TJ's in the past. We don't need our candy to be electric-neon-radioactive yellow. I'll take the blackcurrant, carrot, and pumpkin colorings any day over "yellow number five" or whatever carcinogenic nonsense the other guys use.

As far as flavors go, there are three distinct tastes. The red ornaments are my favorite, and they taste just like classic Swedish Fish if you ask me. The stars are slightly softer than the other two shapes, and they taste like...I dunno...something sweet. Call me crazy, but I feel like the green trees taste slightly appley. There's no apple listed in the ingredients, so...I guess I could be wrong.

Both Sonia and I would have enjoyed these more if they were sour, in the manner of the legendary T's and J's. And honestly, I think I prefer the swimmers over these. 

Why? Well, at least three out of the four flavors present in the swimmers were pretty tasty. Here, I don't think the flavors are quite as unique or memorable. Plus—there are only three shapes, as opposed to four. I guess you could make a big tree shape out of all the trees in the bag and then pretend to decorate it with the stars and red balls, but that's not nearly as much fun as staging battles between dolphins, giant lobsters, seahorses, and rock fish. 

I mean...not that I actually did either one of those things.

There's certainly nothing wrong with these candies, but they're neither the most fun nor the best tasting gummy candy we've seen from Trader Joe's. It's a decent bit of gummies for $2.99, and the overall quality is on par with what we've come to expect from TJ's. I'll go with three out of five gummy candy Christmas stars. Sonia gives them three and a half.

Bottom line: 6.5 out of 10.