After the weirdness of my last batch of Rummy Bears, I decided some more experimentation was needed. The purposes of this experiment were to compare a new (to me) bear brand, against my usual, and also to see what they would taste like using SelvaRey Cacao Rum from Panama (my review of the rum will be added once I figure out what format I want to use for my tasting notes).
I started by buying two bags of bears: the usual Haribo Gold Bears; and the local store brand, Harris Teeter Sweet Monsters. Here are the pre-booze differences: the Harris Teeter Sweet Monsters look more like teddy bears, and start out softer and smaller than Haribo. They also have blue bears in the mix. I like blue. The Haribo Gold Bears look more like bears in the wilderness who haven’t had enough to eat. They’re also quite a bit chewier.
After 24 hours in the rum, the bears were plumping nicely and needed to be topped off, so I poured in the last of my SelvaRey. Though there was some coupling happening in the bowls, my occasional stirring prevented the major bear orgy of my last batch. On the second night, the bears had absorbed most of the rum, but I was out of SelvaRey and I didn’t want to add another flavor, so I just let them frolick in what was left and gave them a bit of a stir every six hours or so to prevent anymore unauthorized mergers.
♫ On the first day of Christmas my gummies gave to me
a whole bunch of yu-u-ummy! ♫
It actually was Christmas Day when the bears emerged from their bath and they looked like a bunch of lovely jewels once I drained the little bit of remaining liquid!
As with the last batch, I did a side-by-side comparison of pre-booze and post-booze bears. The Sweet Monsters (the store brand) have something about them that allows for good expansion without losing their definition, while the Haribo bears lost definition and got quite a bit slipperier than their more cuddly cousins. I found it interesting that the store brand started as the softer of the two, but Haribo finished softer. The Haribo bears clearly absorbed more booze. I noticed that in the amount of topping off necessary, as well as in the flavor. While the store brand bears tasted quite boozy, they didn’t have any of the alcohol “bite” that the Haribo bears had. I should also note that the SelvaRey Cacao Rum was a genius choice! The chocolate flavor really stands up to the fruity flavors of the bears.
So overall, I have to say I’ve been converted from Haribo to Harris Teeter Sweet Monsters … for now.
I’m back on my diet, after a December hiatus, so Rummy Bear experiments have been halted for the season, but will continue somewhere down the road. Perhaps I’ll prepare a batch for The Hukilau!
Cheers!