Altoids – the name frightens me. I immediately get an image of my head bursting into flames as a small white tablet of destruction sears the inside of my mouth and then wreaks its havoc on the rest of my body. My husband and my mother love Altoids. They laugh at me because I am afraid of them don’t care for them.
Of course I’m talking about the dreaded peppermint Altoids. Whoever created those things must have been a sadistic former Gulag prison guard. Imagine my inconsolable weeping hesitation when I received two packages of Altoids in the mail to review.
Fortunately, they were not of the peppermint variety. Instead I’ve been able to sample the wintergreen and cinnamon flavors from the new Altoids Smalls Sugar Free line.
Now these aren’t new flavors, but they are being sold in a new small size. The tin is about 3″ by 2″ which means it can fit nicely in your pocket or purse. The mints themselves are smaller too – about the size of a corn kernel as opposed to the normal lima bean size. (Yeah, as if you Candy Addicts ever eat lima beans.) These Altoids Smalls are sugar free, unlike their larger cousins. They’re sweetened with sorbitol and sucralose, and according to Wikipedia they contain a pork gelatin. You vegetarians will just have to resist.
The Wintergreen Altoids Smalls are a pretty blue color and, in my opinion, deliciously fresh. They have a nice typically wintergreen flavor and are not hot or overpowering like the peppermint Altoids. They have a bit of a “sting” in a pleasant sort of way. Their breath-freshening capacity is very good. Just one of the tiny mints left my mouth feeling as if I had just brushed with an expensive toothpaste and rinsed with a stinky brown mouthwash. (And I mean that in the best possible way.)
Because I live in a household of “non-returning borrowers,” I was not able to personally sample the Cinnamon Altoids Smalls. Of the two tins that arrived in my mail, my husband took one and my five-year-old took the other. Yes, my five-year-old. He prides himself on liking “the hot stuff.” I asked my husband for his opinion of the cinnamon flavor. He describes it this way: “There’s an intense burst of cinnamon flavor at first. It doesn’t overpower you with too much cinnamon or heat but has an excellent taste. Every time I ate one, it left me wanting another.” So there you have it, straight from the horse’s mouth. (Don’t tell him I said that.)
Why I ended the last two paragraphs with a sentence in parentheses, I do not know. Unusual prose aside, the new Altoids Smalls Sugar Free Mints are a delightful bit of tasty freshness that will slip into your pocket.
Buy Altoids Small Sugar Free Mints Online:
- at Amazon.com
- at Candy Direct
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my favorites are the spearmint. if you like spearmint, i totally recommend these. you can’t eat just one. i’m addicted. i also like the hot stuff-those cinnamon ones really are good.
May 11th, 2009 at 10:19 pmThanks, Amy. I do like spearmint so I’ll have to try them. I’ve been thoroughly enjoying the wintergreen which my son rudely polished off while I was gone this evening. I’ll pick up a pack of the spearmint next.
May 14th, 2009 at 8:27 pmIt looks like the Altoids Smalls tins changed, because the tin I have in front of me is one of those tins where the lid slides open, not the hinged ones. Does anyone know when they changed the tins?
May 17th, 2009 at 11:07 pmP.S.:
Apparently they also changed the amount of mints in each tin. The old tins have 60 mints each, and according to the pics, the new tins have 50 mints each.
May 17th, 2009 at 11:09 pmThese do look good, but I am a bit saddened by the change of the tin! I loved those little slide-open tins and recently lost the last one I had. They were perfect for little stuff, like earrings etc., and easy to toss in your purse.
Looks like I need to take a trip around town and see if I can find someplace selling the old tins still!
May 23rd, 2009 at 8:21 pmThese mints are super!
I have tried the three varieties and the peppermint is my favorite by far. At first, one mint at a time would satisfy but after a few weeks you will find yourself popping two or three at a time and chewing.
It looks like the manufacturer may have intentionally fashioned the mints to look like drugs. I know those pictured above remind me of some pills I used to take back in my drug stage of 2005. Lol.
Anyway, I highly recommended this product. My habit is currently around 3 tins per day. At least I don’t smoke and I am drug free.
Peace out! :)
October 24th, 2009 at 9:42 amI really don’t like these mints. I tried some and they tasted more like artificial sweetener than mint. Too bad they don’t make smaller tins of the normal altoids.
December 6th, 2009 at 8:17 pmI just tried one of the wintergreen Altoids, and the flavor is HORRIFIC!
The store didn’t have any of my favorite sugar-free peppermint Altoids, but they had these, so I figured I give them a try… The one I tasted and had to spit out halfway through tasted like super-strength Pepto Bismol.
Based on your review, I think I’ll try cinnamon Altoids if I can’t find peppermint next time.
March 8th, 2010 at 11:24 am