The 'Shroom:Issue 227/Critic Corner
Director's Notes
Welcome to February, the month of people forgetting it's still winter because we're all thinking about Valentine's and Easter coming and going to soon be shocked and surprised by cold fronts slamming us with single-digit temperatures in places where flip-flops are official state clothing. If you're one of the peeps buried under 4 feet of snow come snuggle on up with a hot cocoa and some fresh and warm reviews, and just do it anyways if you're not!
Thank you for voting Half-Baked Reviews as January's Critic Corner Section of the Month!!! Be sure to give your love to all of our sections here, and give a shout out to our writers whether in chat or in their forum threads dedicated to their sections. Be sure to vote vote vote!
And now for my regular announcements: We've decided to implement in Critic Corner something similar to News Flush over in Fake News, where no formal sign-up application process is required for one-time or limited sections. From now on if you just want to send in a single review for something you just read, watched played, tried, whatever, you just have to send me your review privately either to me directly in chat, or in a message to me on the forum at least one week before each 'Shroom is to be released! There's no commitment or obligation to provide a full monthly section (although you absolutely can shift it into one if you so choose), just send us your thoughts on a thing and we'll feature it here! If you have any questions or curiosities about this, please feel free to ask!
As always, if you would like to help Critic Corner, we always have openings for more writers! You are free to write for sections such as Character Review and Movie Review, or really anything you'd like to do! There's no pressure to have a huge section; they can be shorter and concise! The application process is very simple, starting with reading the Sign Up page, and sending your application to MightyMario on the forum. Any idea you have is welcome, and if you have any questions or need help signing up, please feel free to reach out to myself or other 'Shroom peeps!
Section of the Month
| CRITIC CORNER SECTION OF THE MONTH | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Place | Section | Votes | % | Writer |
| 1st | Anton's Half-Baked Reviews | 14 | 56.00% | Hypnotoad (talk) |
| 2nd | Book Review | 4 | 16.00% | FunkyK38 (talk) |
| 2nd | 'Shroom FM | 4 | 16.00% | MCD (talk) |
'Shroom FM
Hi everyone. Thanks for showing up. Wow, we're really far into February. It's almost like I've had an entire extra month's worth of time to listen to albums from 2026.
It would be stupid if I'd only listened to, say, three of them. Ha ha. Anyway,
Zach Bryan - With Heaven on Top
I'm a big fan of Zach Bryan's last album but this one just didn't grab me in the same way I'm afraid. The most obvious problem is the length - I'm not opposed to long albums at all and 78 minutes isn't unbearable, but there's a lot of songs here that just don't stand out at all. Most of these fall in the second half of the album, too, by which point it's already largely played its hand - it just brings the energy way down and makes the whole thing a slog, even the big hit "Plastic Cigarette" blended in with the rest after 16 tracks. There are some great highlights in the first half, particularly amongst the louder, more dynamic tracks - "Bad News" is my favourite track here, it feels much more dramatic than anything else here and the moments where the instrumentation swells are gorgeous. But overall, it just doesn't often reach the depth of his previous album, and a lot of this doesn't do enough to stand out.
Jenny on Holiday - Quicksand Heart
I've enjoyed Jenny Hollingworth's previous work as half of Let's Eat Grandma and really did want to like this, but sadly it didn't quite hit the mark. While there are some neat enough pop songs here, that's really the highest praise I can give - for the most part, there's hardly any flourish to this. The production is a large part of that, just about everything has this dull, plastic-y feel which means a lot of the tracks that should bang fall flat. This is painfully clear with the drums and guitars in songs like "Appetite", which is otherwise one of the more well-rounded tracks here. The pacing of the album also feels off in places - "Dolphins" is a more static track that builds up slowly to a bit of an underwhelming conclusion, and then is followed straight away by "Groundskeeping" which progresses in the same way and at a similar tempo, so much that it feels like the exact same song again. "Good Intentions" and "Quicksand Heart" are better but they also suffer from the same problem, both are straightforward pop songs that are just very hard to differentiate. Ultimately, there's nothing awful here but very little that feels bold or novel, which is a shame.
Searows - Death in the Business of Whaling
Plenty to enjoy here - Searows's voice is tender and soothing, very reminiscent of Phoebe Bridgers at times. The wet, gloomy atmosphere is well-crafted, both through the deep and evocative lyrics and the mellow, echoey soundscapes; "Dearly Missed" is the longest track here and benefits from that as it grows and releases in a really cool way, and "In Violet" is more upbeat and a nice break from the slower stuff around it. That said, a fair few of the tracks here do feel a little stagnant - either not really going anywhere or not innovating enough from other indie folk projects of a similar nature, and this does happen enough to drag the album down a bit. Still, it's solid enough.
Westside Cowboy - So Much Country ‘Till We Get There (EP) ⭐
Westside Cowboy were one of those bands I'd heard a lot about here and there, but never got round to listening to properly until I heard this last month. It's just a five-track EP and clocks in at under 15 minutes, but there's a great range of sounds and ideas here, and every song feels like it's doing something different. The middle three tracks here particularly stand out, they just have such a great energy, with a really lively and rich atmosphere, impressive vocal performances and very catchy guitarwork. The heavier songs here stand out a bit more than the lighter stuff - the opener is a slow track which builds up nicely but doesn't pay off amazingly well, and the closer is lowkey but quite nice - but nonetheless it all still makes for a rewarding and engaging listen.
Yoshi18 Reviews
Hi everyone! Welcome to the odd month of the year! The Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream Direct aired recently and I already made a preview of it (accidentally called it a review in that issue) so I thought, why not review Tomodachi Life this month? This is gonna be a good one!
Tomodachi Life
This is my third most favorite game of all time so yeah, if you like a game that much then where you start? Perhaps I should first tell a little story of how I met the game. Once upon a time, there was me, 4 years ago (damn was it already so long ago?), it was just a bit after COVID-19 stopped being a crisis. I had never really played life simulators (excluding Animal Crossing: New Horizons, which I bought on release back in 2020). I was just scrolling through YouTube and then I saw a thumbnail of a meme on a video titled (something with) "Tomodachi Life" and I was like "Oooh interesting!". I can already tell you guys, clicking on that video was one of the best choices I made in my entire life. I was obsessed with the game and couldn't wait to buy it! And when I finally bought it I had an amazing time. The game is funny and well-paced. Though after a long while of playing, it can get a little repetitive, but hey, every game is (or will eventually be) like this. So I feel like that's an invalid complaint. Gotta love all the funny shenanigans the Miis will randomly go through. Trust me, I saw the randomest shit happen in the game. This game was completely unknown to me but it was peak enough to make me adore it for what it is.
My final opinion
This game is just for everyone. Whether you like life simulators, random shit or just a place to chill (or you don't like the former two). You'll still enjoy (and maybe eventually even adore) it. The game is just that good. Now, I expected to say (a lot) more about this peak game, but you know what it just is with peak games? It's harder to explain that peak games are peak than that mid games are mid. You just love a game so much that you actually start to forget why you love it so much. You're just there to play and enjoy it. And (in my humble opinion) that's exactly what gaming is about.
Outro
And well, there's that. Not gonna make it a long outro this time so I just wanna thank y'all for reading! Stay safe and cya all next time!
Written by: Hypnotoad (talk)
Art by: Gabumon (talk)
Chocolate Bars - Winter Acknowledgment
I think it’s pretty strange how Winter starts on December 21st but the entire culture shifts away from it immediately after Christmas Day on the 25th, leaving a large void of like 2.9 months that technically are winter but functions as either a complete dead zone or a transition to Spring. For this reason (along with how I just had a pile of them I didn’t get to in December) I will be reviewing ‘holiday’ and Christmas-themed chocolate bars that feature winter flavors I feel should persist more strongly through January and February. Some of these are very obviously geared towards Christmas but I don’t care, I’ve decided that this is what I’m doing, thank you, enjoy.
As this is the annual February chocolate bar review, I must give this preamble to get us all on the same page:
By no means am I approaching these as an expert, or as someone with refined tasting talents that have been honed; I’m merely a guy with enough income to buy a dozen of these at a time to then come tell you if I think these are worth it to the average person looking for something a touch beyond familiar that feels neat for someone looking to spend upwards of $6 - $12 on something you can usually get for $2 to enjoy finer crafts, attention to quality, and perhaps unique flavors. You can read somewhere else on dozens and dozens of different websites babbling ad infinitum about the history of cacao, origins, purported health benefits of dark chocolate that don’t mention all of that cadmium and lead that’s also natural, and how it entered modern society as a symbol of wealth and luxury scraped off the backs of slaves and stolen culture in ways that are still reflected into today, but my goal here is to see for myself (and then share with you) which of these symbols of elite craftsmanship and sociopolitical pivoting actually tastes good!
While I am not a fan of numbered ratings for a myriad of reasons, including how unrelatable and meaningless they can be from person to person, I sometimes find it helpful to include them in reviews that I foresee to be massive and sprawling so I can develop some kind of internal connection and simplicity; plus it’s a great excuse to have more reaction faces drawn. Sensory aspects are the bulk, if not the only markers, of quality in many other chocolate bar ratings, evaluations, and accreditations, and that’s just simply not all of what I’m looking for. To score these, these are the simple questions I will ask myself:
Taste - Is the flavor appealing in any sense?
Texture - Does it feel satisfying?
Virtue - How do they come to terms with, ya know, slavery?
Charm - Was the dazzle that got me to buy it in the first place sustained?
Value - With the other factors considered, is the price worth it?To further elaborate:
- Taste - As these chocolate bars tend to elevate themselves beyond providing more than taste, I will need to evaluate them on how they satisfy other senses in relation to taste, such as smell.
- Texture - The crisp and firm snap of breaking into a chocolate bar is a sign of it being well-tempered and expertly formed, but does that and whatever other additions, thickness, shape, and design aid or inhibit my overall enjoyment?
- Virtue - The special feats and acts the maker participates in, whether through the medium of chocolate or through corporate practice, and if what they’re doing is sensible and fair.
- Charm - High achievement in this category is relative to the goal set out by the chocolate maker, through such things as package design and mythos, to what is actually carried through to me biting into it.
- Value - Retail therapy, or putting me in therapy with my renewed rage over frivolously wasted cash washing me with regret? Is the price all in the words they sew on the package, a spell cast to distract me from yet another subpar 70% dark, or have I found a new indulgence?
Omnom - Spiced White + Caramel
As part of my usual Whole Foods escapades every few weeks I always have to check out the specialty chocolate bar area. This section is always held separately from their chocolate bar aisle, tending to be separate shelving or a smaller table set near the wine and cheese, featuring elevated and wildly more expensive chocolate bars. On these displays you can find Vosges and hopefully ignore them to instead find local and small craft makers like Ranger, Mānoa, Marou, and most importantly for this review Omnom. Omnom is one of the more striking packages for me as they feature really fun and cute animal designs that look like origami or paper craft. The reason why Omnom is even on this table is because they’re single-origin and high-quality ingredients “placing ethics, sustainability, and transparency at the heart of the process”.
I chose this one first, the Spiced White + Caramel bar because it seemed the most interesting with it being a seasonal special, and also was on its own individual sale for $6.99 with the original price of $8.99. As the name suggests, this is white chocolate with crunchy salted caramel, spiced with orange peel, cinnamon, and malt, reminiscent of a festive Icelandic drink Malt og Appelsín. You come to appreciate the value white chocolate has after years of the shift towards flavorless white crème. Smooth, sweet, melty, buttery, nutty, incredible depth from an incredibly simple chocolate bar that offers a phenomenal defense of all white chocolate, an argument for its continued existence and merit, though potentially spoils a future reality in which it becomes a hard-to-reach luxury. The orange peel is nowhere to be seen in this, at least directly or obviously, perhaps doing more background work to add a little aromatics and slight bitterness to cut the sweetness. The cinnamon and caramel in this are relatively subtle, though they blend in wonderfully with the creamy sweetness of the white chocolate. I really appreciate the cinnamon in particular being so subdued and almost in the background, as that’s really where cinnamon exists in the physical reality of a Christmas setting, as well as the caramel bits not being super crunchy or sticky for the sake of my teeth. The barley malt seems critical here, as it gives a good level of its particular sweetness and nuttiness that keeps the white chocolate still tasting like chocolate rather than the vegetable oil changeling that works to replace it. Great blend of sweet, salty, bitter, working harmoniously together, and most importantly holds true to the flavors promised. Definitely encouraging to me to try other flavors they offer.
This review may be yet another that comes to post around when significant changes to the item’s availability come about, with Omnom filing for bankruptcy. The entire company has been bought out by Góa, a large Icelandic chocolate conglomerate, who has taken over all equipment, facilities, workforce, branding, and production of omNom chocolate. It’s hard to say if Omnom chocolate will continue its entire bean-to-bar premium style with high quality ingredients in the complete way it has been, if the recipe will change at all, but hopefully they keep having cute critters on the packages because that’s all that matters.
Taste ---- 
Texture - 
Virtue ---
Charm -- 
Value ---
Total: 23/25
Moonstruck - Peppermint Bark Dark Chocolate
Having this one after the omNom bar really spoiled it, as the Moonstruck chocolate just isn’t anywhere near as good. I tried Moonstruck last year, and wrote a lot about them so please click that link to Issue 215 for a LOT more context, but the results were just middle-tier or poor. Their Peppermint Bark Dark Chocolate is considered an ‘Exploration Bar’, an undefined category that currently only includes that and a Sasquatch Bar that I’m going to consider useless branding as their previous Elements Bars seem to no longer exist. Moonstruck defines Exploration Bars as them being able to “(...) open up the world of discovery – pushing the boundaries of what’s possible with chocolate”, which I consider to be quite a lofty presentation of what’s really just a dark chocolate bar with crushed peppermint candies sprinkled on top, especially when their main line flavors can have similar whimsy. I purchased this at a local wine shop for $7 while the other flavors available are only $4, but I wanted to get something seasonal and also simply encourage this wine shop to keep stocking fancy chocolate bars because not many places here do.
Highly unresealable plastic package, with Moonstruck thankfully having the foresight of giving the box’s window a cover. Despite this having a ‘Best Experienced By’ date of nearly 10 months later than the time I’m trying it, it has already bloomed. It’s critical to note that chocolate bloom is primarily a visual effect and is not a sign of spoilage, but is a sign of likely mishandling or improper technique and can lead to it not melting in your mouth or having the intended smooth texture. Melting the chocolate down into peppermint bark is actually one of the recommended ways of making good use of bloomed chocolate, and I accept that chocolate bloom happening easily is a fact of life trying to eat a food that’s stable at 68° F in Florida where it’s regularly 10, 20, 30 degrees above that, but we have ample air conditioning and plenty of other chocolates seem to survive it just fine. Overall I really don’t care too much about bloom unless I’m looking to display the chocolate on a board to serve, but it’s the most gracious reasoning I can propose for why it felt like I was trying to bite into a rock while eating this. One can argue that a firm snap is what signals exquisite tempering, but this bar is a bit too thick for that kinda thing going on, with the dark chocolate percentage being high enough to be unyielding. The peppermint, while having a nice flavor that’s exactly what you’d expect from peppermint candies, is also catastrophically sticky, gumming up every possible spot on my teeth that just makes eating this just that much more miserable. This is a complicated bar that looks like a simple one, and with there being so many other brands of peppermint bark that feel more elegant and do it better, as well as the fact that you can make your own pretty easily, I just don’t understand why this one is necessary. Moonstruck once again shows that it’s actually cheap to make an ethically-sourced chocolate bar with simple local ingredients, but that it takes more than that to make a good chocolate bar.
Taste ---- 
Texture - 
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Charm --
Value ---
Total: 13/25
Markham & Fitz
Markham & Fitz is a woman-owned chocolatier and shop based in Bentonville, Alabama, that focuses on bean-to-bar, ethical sourcing, and environmental stewardship. Founded by some college friends in 2014 who wanted to make good chocolate flavors while “celebrating people and restoring the earth” through higher wages for farmers, cacao transparency, recyclable packaging, among other things standard of chocolate makers in this category, going on to winning several awards. Their chocolate bars have managed to spread to most states–currently 39–and 6 countries in what appears to be primarily gift shops, boutiques, and high-end popups. I bought these two bars at a gourmet olive oil shop that carries a bunch of artisan and craft foods, very much at the gourmet artisan craft pricing structure, but as these were technically out-of-season being a few days into January the prices went from $11.99 to $6.99, landing comfortably in my ‘sure, I’ll try it’ affordability tier.
Festivus
Festivus is 75% Haitian dark chocolate with cranberries, orange zest, and cacao nibs, pretty straightforward with just that and some cane sugar in the ingredients. The package looks adequately fancy, with full-paper vivid art that edges slightly above gift shop tastes, with a nice touch of gold embossed text that makes it hard to read anything on it unless you hold it at an angle. Unfortunately dry, boring, with a touch of black coffee-like bitterness. I knew it'd be a bit bitter coming into it given what the ingredients and inclusions are, so that’s not exactly out of bounds or misrepresented, but the only taste available is the dark chocolate. It’s not the worst bitter dark chocolate I’ve had, and I think the sweetness level that I need from it is almost there at 75%, but I feel it could’ve used a little more help to give it a candied taste to align more with fruitcake. I have a big problem with chocolate bars ‘flavored’ with just a sprinkling of debris on the back rather than true inclusions, as I really don't believe the dried ingredients integrate into the chocolate. It looks pretty, but doesn't really do anything to qualify for the amount of prestige it gives to itself and its price.
A satisfying snap, I’ll give it that.
Taste ----
Texture -
Virtue ---
Charm --
Value --- 
Total: 14/25
Peppermint Pretzel
Peppermint Pretzel offers a little more promise towards my own specific tastes, being a 60% Colombian dark chocolate with peppermint and pretzels. The ingredients list is a little longer thanks to the peppermint candy crushed up in this, but offers notable intrigue with peppermint extract being a separate addition outside of the peppermint candies implying that the chocolate itself has it within as flavoring.
Very full of crumbs that go all over the place, which is made worse by the internal plastic packaging being a catastrophic blend of brittle and flimsy, making any fold in it turn into a perforation. Awkward dump of pretzels, which are gluten-free and unsalted so they offer absolutely nothing. Equally problematic and fortunate is that the pretzel pieces seem to be a single miniature pretzel rod that got snapped in half, so there’s effectively none of it on the bar, offering a window into tasting the chocolate bar with just the peppermint which I feel would be a better experience in lieu of something allegedly more visually appealing. I appreciate that the taste of peppermint is noticeably integrated into the chocolate, but unfortunately it tastes like when you're blowing up a balloon; it could’ve used quite a stronger kick to it as I never even got the cooling throat sensation that’s desired. The idea is there, and the execution isn’t really that bad, but it feels like they’re holding back for some reason that I hope is just a fault of their virtuous ingredient choice rather than their own taste.
Taste ----
Texture -
Virtue ---
Charm --
Value ---
Total: 15/25
TCHO Yule Nog
TCHO is a chocolate maker based in Berkeley, California, promoting its focus of working alongside cacao bean farmers and cooperatives every step of the way. So many of these artisan and higher-end chocolate makers that say they do this has me wondering just how many farms there are and if they’re just infested with American chocolate makers looking to check off a box, though TCHO seems to be a few steps more transparent than others which satisfies my need to know as much internal information as possible. TCHO’s approach differs from many others, though, in that it approaches cacao and chocolate in a much more clinical and almost-scientific way, straight-forward, techy, and academic with not much given for romantics and aesthetics barring a rather punchy bold text-based logo and package design. They’re also unique in that their boxes are not just square, but hold three individually-wrapped bars that give greater potential for sharing, saving, or portioning. I’ve had TCHO before, but I think it was pre-buyout and definitely before they completely reformulated everything to be entirely plant-based, and this may not have been the right one to choose to get back into.
I bought TCHO’s Yule Nog on sale for $5.99 (original $6.99) while at a Fresh Thyme Market in Chicago looking for seasonal snacks I might not find easily back home, neglecting to get Winter Squeeze or Merry Mint because I found myself much more curious to know what it’d taste like. This particular bar is small batch, USDA Certified organic, non-GMO, Fair Trade Certified, and 100% plant-based and dairy free, with the cashew and oat supported by white chocolate. To make it nogged it’s further flavored with nutmeg, vanilla, and ‘a hint of’ rum.
I don't think I've had anything as horrid as this in my entire life. Thoroughly disgusting oat milk taste that crashes this chocolate bar into the realm of shampoo. Viciously soapy taste and overwhelming nutmeg in this caused not just me but two other people to gag. I’m not sure where the rum flavor was, or if what made this so atrocious was meant to be that, but something in this was horribly wrong and should be legally considered as assault. I immediately had to drink something to wash the flavor out yet it lingers in there, sticking to the back of my throat. The reviews on their product page are overwhelmingly positive, where many of them reference someone named Karl which led to me finding out this exact bar used to be called ‘Karl the Nog’ as a very San Francisco Bay in-joke, so I’m left wondering if either I’m just the wrong audience or that it’s the vegans who are wrong and shouldn’t have any say in what something they won’t even consume is supposed to taste like.
Taste ----
Texture -
Virtue ---
Charm --
Value ---
Total: 9/25
Maeve
Formerly Seattle Chocolate, Maeve has undergone a massive rebrand in early 2025, obviously changing their name but now taking on a more whimsical and immersive neo-vintage aesthetic in what’s looking to be a successful connection to newer markets and generations that their prior stale quirky gift shop look couldn’t achieve. Maeve remains just one brand in Seattle Chocolate’s portfolio, as they also make jcoco chocolate bars that appeal to more high-end refined tastes, while Maeve focuses on imaginative truffle bar flavors that have a ganache center. As a company Seattle Chocolate prioritizes sustainability, direct and fair sourcing that gives back to communities, and support for women and farmers. Since their rebrand I’ve definitely seen an increase spread of their chocolate in new and different stores, often featured in specialty displays and endcaps as they’ve been pumping out limited edition flavor collections with frequency, which is why I have the selection I have coming up.
Apple Cider Donut
Unfortunately none of their Fall/Winter limited edition flavors are visible on their website, as they appear to be yet another company that scrubs away information from anything not currently available as will likely happen with the two links in the previous paragraph. Apple Cider Donut is a flavor that was part of their 2025 Fall Friendsy collection, and promises to give that farm hayride flavor through biscotti, demerara sugar, and cinnamon.
The graham biscotti is a very welcome inclusion because the milk chocolate is very soft and almost airy, given that it’s not a straight chocolate bar and instead a truffle bar. The sweetness within is very much apple in tone, which I did find intriguing enough to let it sit in my mouth while I figured it out, but there's not enough intensity or cinnamon to really scream ‘apple cider donut’ to me. The package promises crunchy sugar bits but I wanted more, I wanted my fingers to be covered in cinnamon sugar as that’s what apple cider donuts mean to me, and this just gave low quality milk chocolate with added natural flavor.
Taste ----
Texture -
Virtue ---
Charm --
Value ---
Total: 14/25
Cozy Cannoli
It’s nuts to me that the information for their Winter/Holiday collection is not available as these bars are still fully stocked and being sold at Sprouts, leaving me with nothing but someone else’s Instagram post to go off of. If you don’t know what a cannoli is, it’s a Sicilian pastry consisting of a tube-shaped shell, filled with a sweetened ricotta mixture, and can be flavored in a myriad of ways but most commonly in Italian-American spaces I can access with chocolate chips and pistachio pieces. Maeve visually replicates this with a mix of dark and white chocolate, and adding chocolate chips, pistachio pieces, and cereal flakes to mimic the fried pastry shell texture.
Unfortunately, it tastes like a basement. I truly don’t know what this flavor is supposed to be, perhaps a horrible misuse of vanilla, but the chocolate tastes stale and fake, intensely lowbrow impulse-lane-at-Burlington levels of unearned sweetness. The cereal flakes and bran do give a nice distinctive crunch that is reminiscent of licking cannoli shell crumbs off of your shirt, there's just not enough of it to create any genuine–or even weak–illusion of fried cannoli dough. To make it better I’d just add a solid sheet of graham cracker-esque dough, perhaps crispy phyllo or even stiff wafer or cookie, but the more genuine improvement would be complete elimination. White chocolate is not cannoli filling, nor should it ever be, and while I understand that ricotta simply cannot be rendered shelf-stable given our current understanding of food science as it is a high-moisture fresh cheese, perhaps the message taken should’ve been to not make this. Go visit your local Italian deli.
Taste ----
Texture -
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Charm --
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Total: 9/25
Hot Buttery Rum
The one in this bunch I was looking forward to trying the most because it at least sounds like it could have the most striking and unique flavor, Hot Buttery Rum: milk chocolate with rum essence (nowhere in the ingredients so I assume it’s within ‘natural flavors’) and toffee pieces. The package itself gets a little sassy with saying “keep your mulled wine and nogged eggs”, claiming that the real queen of winter beverages is hot buttered rum. So, what is hot buttered rum? It doesn’t really appear much different from pretty much every traditional winter/holiday drink, made with either hot water or cider, booze of choice (rum), and a variety of spices that come at no surprise: cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, and even allspice, vanilla, brown sugar; butter remains the only thing distinctive (and thus eponymous), but it’s just a dairy ingredient that runs the same track. Given that there’s only toffee and the promise of rum provided, I’m to assume that toffee is meant to do all of the legwork of butter and brown sugar, leaving the host of spices undeclared and absent.
As fully expected from my mystical flavor divination, there’s just not much here. The toffee bits provide a nice crunch, and that's about it. It’s almost embarrassing to try to talk about this because there’s really just nothing to it: run-of-the-mill toffee, and par-at-best chocolate, nothing at all really worthy of a lengthy brand refresh. The fact that cinnamon is included in the package art shows the vast disconnect between the lofty ideals of the conceptualizing process and the actual execution.
The constant theme with Maeve bars seems to be that the graphic design and art is great, the ideas are unique, the rapidfire seasonal flavors is captivating, the suggestion of it is there, but the execution just doesn't meet the concept. They're not bad, but they're just very basic-tasting sweet milk chocolate truffle bars with crunchy things in them, and they either need to step it up a bit or stop making promises they can't see through.
Taste ----
Texture -
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Charm --
Value ---
Total: 11/25
| The 'Shroom: Issue 227 | |
|---|---|
| Staff sections | Staff Notes • The 'Shroom Spotlight • Poochy's Picks • Poll Chairperson Election • Credits |
| Features | Fake News • Fun Stuff • Palette Swap • Pipe Plaza • Critic Corner • Strategy Wing |
