At the supermarket, I spied a box of Jelly Belly Sweet Rocks, and I had to buy it for a Cruft Labs review. A few years ago, we reviewed Bott's Beans, the candy based on the Harry Potter books.

The Sweet Rocks are a tie-in to the Ant Bully movie. Evidently the ants eat jelly beans and call them 'sweet rocks'. Whatever.

The whole point of the Sweet Rocks is really down to the four special flavors. Alka Root, Ant Hill, Caterpillar, and Grass Clippings.

We sorted out the jelly beans from two boxes and here is the total amount of the desired ones to test. I wish they put a bit more in the box. The regular Jelly Bellys are good, but we are really after the special flavors.

On to the testing:

Alka Root - Tasted like root beer to me. Didn't get any subtle nuance of something else. Everyone else agreed.

Ant Hill - This is dirt flavor. Not kidding, tastes like dirt. I was able to eat and swallow it, but Mom & Dad both spit it out.

Caterpillar - Several of us tried to figure this one out. Just tasted sweet. We expected something bad like vomit flavor, but it didn't taste bad. I'm sure the flavor scientists at Jelly Belly put effort into this, but we didn't find the flavor distinctive in any way.

Lawn Clippings - Again, this really tastes like grass. Mom said, "Subtle and delicious. Do we have more?" Michele said, "Disgusting!"

In summary, Ant Hill and Lawn Clippings tasted exactly like Dirt and Grass jelly beans from Bott's Beans. Nothing new there. Alka Root was root beer and Caterpillar was nothing special.

A bit of a disapointment compared to the strong flavors like Black Pepper and Vomit from Bott's Beans.

Cruft Labs will continue to bring you any advancements in jelly bean flavor technology as we find them.

Posted by michael at July 30, 2006 05:58 PM