If SweeTarts made a small, nondescript cherry version of its candies (in the shape of an engorged Tic Tac), they’d taste just like the Tic Tac Chill Exotic Cherry. Not bad. Not great. I like the tartness, but there’s not much “cherry” going on here. Surely nothing exotic.
The Tic Tac Chill series of sugarfree flavors (Exotic Cherry and Paradise Mint) come in a plastic box substantially larger than regular Tic Tacs - probably because the candies inside are about double the size of the standard ones. (Box note: in addition to the regular flip-top opening, the Tic Tac Chill containers have a front slide panel opening - where you see the name - that’s kind of cool and pretty straightforward to use, I thought. But Tic Tac seems to think it’s so complicated to operate that they’ve got video instructions online… go figure.)
Now, I haven’t tried the Paradise Mint, but there’s no mention of breath-freshening on the Exotic Cherry, so I consider these straight candy. Except that candy and sugarfree sound like Punch and Judy to me: they don’t tend to get along in my puppet theater.
But at least these Tic Tacs aren’t sweetened with aspartame; they have the much better-tasting xylitol. This sugar substitute also reduces dental plaque, supposedly, by attracting bad microorganisms to itself - then starving them to death because it’s not a real sugar they can use. Tell me about it.
But hey, if you want to trick your mouth and get a fairly weak cherry Sweetart-esque experience in a small package, Tic Tac Chill Exotic Cherry might be just the ticket. Don’t expect any high cherry drama, though.
The new Chill varieties of Tic Tac will be hitting shelves soon.
These are already on the shelves in CT, have been for a while, and I have to say that I love them. They’re sweet, but not overwhelmingly, and the cherry flavour is a gentle cherry, not the overdone faux cherry that you get in a lot of candies.
July 17th, 2008 at 5:22 pmi haven’t tried these, but i have a gripe with manufacturers.
i am a long-time lover of orange Tic-Tacs, but i can’t buy them anymore. I feel too guilty when i come to the last tic-tac. What am i supposed to do with the box? it’s completely useless and not recyclable. Does anyone else feel this way?
Why have all candy packages gone completely environmentally unfriendly?? (i’m looking at you, HERSHEY!!!)
July 18th, 2008 at 5:12 ami absolutely loveeeeee these cherry tic tacs. I tried the cherry tic tacs for the first time last week in Detroit. I flew back to my home in NY and have been looking for these tic tacs ever since!!!
August 22nd, 2008 at 12:13 pm