Snacks: Winter Ritter Sport

Christmas is over, but it’s still winter. So, the duck and I decided to try this year’s Ritter Sport chocolate winter mix – this time without waiting until the end of the season to look for a box of miniatures. Nevertheless, we still had to conduct our (now) traditional visits to four different stores until we found a box. When we had finally gotten a hold of one (the last one in the store, it seemed), we took a closer look at the individual chocolate bars for the first time and then realized why they had been so hard to locate even though astronomical winter was less than a month old:
Even though they are called ‘winter edition’, the chocolates are definitely Christmas-themed, as is the shiny packaging. Like most other Christmas snacks, those Ritter Sport chocolate varieties disappeared from most grocery store shelves as soon as Christmas was over, with only one box of miniatures waiting to be picked up by the duck and me so that they could be tested by two of the most unsuitable taste testers out there:

Snacks: Vacation Ritter Sport

It’s late summer! Well, it definitely felt like it just a few days ago. I even saw the duck rummage through our tiny collection of sunglasses in search of something that goes with a light summer bow!
This past summer sure was weird. In many ways. But it also was a lot of fun to go on vacation in our imagination (so cheap and comfy). In order to get some more of that vacation feel, we decided to add a few more senses to the mix and finally tested this year’s summer edition of Ritter Sport chocolates, called ‘Fernweh’, which roughly translates to ‘wanderlust’. The duck sure was happy to finally get to pose with the miniature box of summer edition chocolates. See, the first time we saw them at the local grocery store – as a big bag of mini bars (ha!) – it was still cold out. We looked at the packaging and thought that we might skip them because the pastel colors and the pictures of coconuts and mangoes made us think that all bars would be fruity and sport white chocolate. We are peculiar about chocolate and fruity chocolate is a thing we hardly ever like (though that’s mostly with darker varieties). Therefore we never had the urge to buy these vacation themed chocolates whenever we passed them at the store. Instead we fell in love with peanut butter Schogetten. But then summer came and we decided that once it was a bit colder (meaning: we wouldn’t have to worry about the chocolate melting away) we might actually give them a shot. So, we went out to buy a pack and it only took us four visits to different stores to get a hold of them (we even found a box of winter edition Ritter Sport during our search)! After our strange history with these chocolates, the duck and I couldn’t wait to try them and write another super subjective snack review:

Snacks: Ahoj Brause

It’s summer, the season the duck and I use to reminisce about our childhoods (whenever we don’t think about turtle encounters); recalling days when life was much simpler and our butts less lazy always makes us smile. This is why, during a recent grocery shop, we decided to pick up a pack of Ahoj Brause, possibly one of the most prominent tastes of German childhood in summer. Ahoj Brause is a kind of sherbet powder that has been around for almost a century. And, looking at the fun logo and the bright packaging, I can see the appeal, especially to the (very) young. I can totally imagine lazing around in a pool float that looks like a giant sprinkled donut, wearing some very pink flamingo sunglasses and holding a cool glass of Ahoj Brause in one hand and some reading material in the other while the duck is swimming rounds in the adjoining pool, stopping from time to time to take a sip of Brause from the pitcher at the side…
A pack of Ahoj Brause contains five pairs of pouches with fizzy powder that, if poured into a 0.2 liter glass of fresh drinking water, promises to transform into a fun summer drink. There are four flavors: raspberry, orange, lemon and sweet woodruff. The duck and I had a hard time keeping ourselves from devouring the powder straight out of the pouch, like, I’m sure, a lot of German kids actually enjoy Ahoj Brause; but, in order to test today’s snack the way it is meant to be enjoyed, the duck and I wanted to stick to the rules:

Snacks: Peanut butter Schogetten?!

The other day, when the duck and I went on our weekly grocery shop and did our routine special offer bin check, we did not expect much. But then we saw it – the chocolate that had the potential to change our lives; it was sitting there telling us: “Let’s go,” let’s turn around our lives, let’s embrace everything that might come our way, let’s be optimistic! Or, to put it less dramatically, we saw that there was a new kind of peanut butter chocolate that had not yet met our tummies: the Limited Edition Schogetten “LET’S GO” Sweet’N’Salty. Schogetten is one of the most popular German chocolate brands. Same as Milka and Ritter Sport you can find them at most grocery stores. What we like about Schogetten is that you can easily pretend that you want to share them as they come in individual pieces – no breaking off required. Like Milka and Ritter Sport they have lots of different flavors to choose from and sport the kind of base chocolate that we like: smooth, not oily, and not too many weird ingredients, just a few. Schogetten usually come in 100g boxes. I guess the duck and I lucked out with the 150g box we found!
There also were two other ‘LET’S GO‘ varieties in the bin: “Tutti Frutti” with white chocolate, peaches, and passion fruit (“no thanks” to fruity chocolate) and “Nuts in Dark” with dark chocolate and roasted hazelnut pieces (booooring). The peanut butter and salty cookie pieces variety was the only one that managed to reach our hearts and made us, in turn, reach out and carefully place a box in our shopping cart (that we had to learn to navigate in the past few weeks, due to the new “use a shopping cart to keep your distance” policies in most grocery stores – usually we’re basket types… and cases? Who knows). Peanut butter can do that to us. I still remember that time I wanted to cut back on sugar and processed food and found myself eating a huge jar of unsweetened peanut butter in just a few days. I don’t think eating a salad and then half a jar of peanut butter counts as “eating healthy (and in moderation)”. But it definitely counts as ‘eating delicious’ and that is exactly what we were hoping for with our newest grocery store acquisition: