Limited Edition Foods

Last week I noticed some Special Edition, Limited Edition, and Seasonal Celebration coffee creamers in Dominicks. There were two different brands with special/limited edition coffee creamers and each had two different ones. The brands were Nestle Coffee Mate and International Delight.

The two Special Edition Nestle Coffee Mate flavors I noticed were Cinnamon Buns, which sounds like a good morning coffee flavor, and Black Cherry Streusel, which sounds like a good dessert coffee flavor. The website describes Cinnamon Buns as “sweet icing combined with the delicate flavors of cinnamon bun” and Black Cherry Streusel as “dark cherry notes combine with crumbly streusel.” When I went to their website I also learned that they had five holiday seasonal flavors that might not be on the shelves anymore, but they might still be. Their seasonal flavors were Caramel Apple, Eggnog, Gingerbread, Peppermint Mocha, and Pumpkin Spice.

The two of the International Delight brand that I saw was Chocolate Mint Truffle, which is part of their Seasonal Celebration line, and Mocha Almond Fudge, which is a limited edition flavor. I also went to their website and discovered they have more seasonal and limited edition flavors listed as current. The other Seasonal Celebration flavors for Winter 2008 are Vanilla Spiced Rum and White Chocolate Raspberry. They also list Pumpkin Pie Spice as a Fall/Winter 2008 Limited Edition.

The website describes the Limited Edition Mocha Almond Fudge as “luscious notes of rich coffee, toasted nuts and velvety chocolate” and the Pumpkin Pie Spice as “rich with the fragrance of cinnamon and nutmeg.” It describes the Seasonal Celebrations Chocolate Mint Truffle as “luscious milk chocolate and a sparkling hint of mint,” Vanilla Spiced Rum as “flavors of rich vanilla and cinnamon spiced rum,” and White Chocolate Raspberry as “velvety white chocolate blend with luscious red raspberry.”

Alaskan Barley Wine has been distributed by Alaskan Brewing Co. since 2003 as a regular limited release. It started by being served at the Great Alaska Beer and Barley Wine Festival. In 2007 they started releasing it in bottles to the Alaska, Oregon, and Washington market as a limited release. This year they are increasing the area of release to all 10 states (Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Washington and Wyomin) that Alaskan Brewing Co. distributes their beers to. The Alaskan Barley Wine is a full bodied ale. It can be aged for as long as the purchaser wants like a fine wine. Its awards include first place at the 2007 Toronado Barley Wine Festival and bronze at the 2008 World Beer Cup. It is said to have a good balanced flavor unlike many American barley wines that usually go over the top and do not create a good blend. It is supposed to be in the 10 states this month (January) only.

Grand Hyatt Taipei and SPEY have released a limited edition SPEY Single Single Malt Chocolate Gift Box. This gift box includes chocolates made from VALRHONA chocolate and Single Single Malt Whisky from SPEY. The two were combined by Martin Thompson, the Pastry Chef at Grand Hyatt Taipei, to make truffles.

The SPEY 1956 Luxurious Gift Box is in a wooden box. It is priced at a little over US$200 (NT$6,800). It includes “one piece of SPEY 1956 Single Single Malt Whisky Chocolate, two pieces of SPEY 1991 Single Single Malt Whisky Chocolate, three pieces each of SPEY 1991 Chocolate Truffle and SPEY 1991 Dark Chocolate and one dessert plate “LEAF” from George Jensen.” The different year’s refer to what year of whiskey was used to make the chocolates. The price is probably most expensive because of the use of the 1956 in the one chocolate, as the article I learned about these from stated that a bottle of that recently sold for NT1,528,888 (over US$46,000).

The SPEY 1991 Single Single Malt Chocolate Gift Box includes just the three SPEY 1991 varieties of chocolate. It contains 3 of each of the varieties. It costs only NT$980 (~US$30).

The other day I found a write up about Limited Edition Guava Mango Pop Tarts. This Pop Tarts flavor is described as mostly pastry and light on filling, but then again I think all Pop Tarts are pretty light on the filling. The filling is flavored with guava and mango including at least minimal use of the actual fruits. The top has only a drizzle of frosting unlike many Pop Tarts flavors that have the top totally covered in that really sweet top frosting coat. Personally I am not much into Pop Tarts, but mostly it is because of that topping. This sounds like it might actually be an okay flavor, however, it still contains a lot of sugar and I am not much into sugary things unless I am actually eating candy. This limited edition is also being marketed towards Spanish speakers, as it has the back side printed in Spanish.

Back in October I saw the Limited Edition Rockin Nut Road Snickers in mini size as part of the Halloween candy selection. Today at a random snack shop at the currently quite deserted end of Navy Pier in Chicago I finally found the single bar version of it. I was much more willing to purchase it in this form, especially since my dad was buying anyways!

The package describes the Limited Edition Rockin Nut Road Snickers as “Almonds, Caramel, and Marshmallow-Flavored Nougat Wrapped in Dark Chocolate.” I certainly sounds like the Rocky Road flavor of ice cream. The flavor of it is a lot like the ice cream flavor or at least how I remember it, as I have not had it in a while.

Overall this is a pretty good Limited Edition Snickers version. I usually am not much into Snickers and the varieties I have tried of it, but this is one that I actually enjoy and would probably get it again, although it does seem this Limited Edition has had quite a long run and likely will be truly impossible to find soon. The main thing I like about this version is that it is much more chewy than I remember Snickers being. It is not that I do not like nuts, but I do prefer chewy when it comes to candy. Not lovers will probably wish it had more nuts. I think the marshmallow-flavored nougat also makes it more chewy. The dark chocolate part is also quite close to real dark chocolate taste.

I usually blog about somewhat current Limited Edition food and drink items, but this post is about an old set of Limited Editions. Ever since I told my dad that I was doing a limited edition food blog he has been telling me about this set that my uncle has. This year we went to his house for Christmas and he showed me the set. I took photos of the set and can now really blog about it.

The Freshwater Fishing Hall of Fame Whiskey Decanter series began in 1971 to help raise money to build the Hall of Fame. The series continued with one release a year for 10 years. There is then a final 11th bottle that commemorates the Hall of Fame. We could not exactly figure out the exact order of the bottles, although we probably could have figured out a rough time line if we had looked at the bottom of more of the bottle. We do know that the first in the series is the Muskie one pictured above and the 11th one is made to look like the hall of fame (pictured below).

The other bottles in the series include ones shaped like a walleye, a perch, a rainbow trout, and a northern. All of the bottles are filled with 4/5 a quart of 80 proof 100 months old Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey from the James B. Beam company. Many of the bottles, if not all, have the National Fresh Water Fishing Hall of Fame Official Seal on them. According to the website of the Hall of Fame, the proceeds of these decanters helped the Hall of Fame get started and over the period of 10 years netted them $300,000.

A few days before Christmas I went to Walgreens to pick out candy to have in our shoes on Christmas morning. Although I did not buy any (thought they were kind of expensive), I did notice two different Russell Stover Limited Edition Private Reserve assortments.

One assortment was in a green bag. These ones were sugar free chocolates with supposedly double the center than they used to put in these types of squares. This assortment only has two flavors. The flavors are Triple Chocolate Mousse, which looks like a dark chocolate piece with some sort of white colored filling or at least that is how it looks on the package, and Vanilla Caramel, which looks like a milk chocolate piece with a caramel filling and I assume has a more vanillay flavor than normal.

The other assortment was the regular stuff with sugar and was in a red bag. This assortment has three flavors. One of the flavors is also Triple Chocolate Mousse and actually the way it looks on this bag makes me think perhaps it does not have any sort of filling at all and the white part is on the bottom. Either way I am thinking the triple chocolate means some sort of milk, dark, and white chocolate combination. The other two flavors are Caramel, which looks like it is milk chocolate with a caramel center and rather boring (i.e. too normal of a flavor) part of the assortment, and Vanilla Bean Brulee, which looks like dark chocolate with a yellow colored filling.

I am in Chicago for the holidays. I hoped that going to a grocery store in a different area might reveal some limited edition food items I had not yet seen this season. In fact, I did find four limited edition Lucerne yogurt flavors at Dominick’s, but I was surprised that even here they did not have much seasonal stuff that I am used to seeing. The main thing is I still have not seen any holiday sugar cookie dough anywhere. Dominick’s had something close, but it was just one of those new tubs of cookie dough with holiday images on the lid sticker. Inside it is just regular sugar cookie dough. How boring!!!

Anyways, the four Limited Edition Lucerne yogurt flavors are pretty interesting. Two of the flavors are Cranberry Orange and Pumpkin, which is the same flavors I found in Lucerne cream cheese back in early November. These two flavors are part of the Low Fat line of Lucerne yogurts (the ones in the red packaging). These flavors do seem like they should be off the shelf by now, but the expiration date was the same as the other flavors and about as far in the future as you normally see.

The other two flavors are Caramel Apple and Gingerbread. They are part of the Light line of Lucerne Yogurts (the ones in the blue packaging). I was kind of hoping they made these in the cream cheese as well like they apparently did with the first two flavors I mentioned. In particular I think Gingerbread cream cheese would be at least interesting to try out. Perhaps they did make them, but I certainly did not see them in the store.

In the grocery store a couple weeks ago I noticed the Starbucks coffee bean blends for the holidays. This includes Starbucks Christmas Blend, which is a blend of Asia/Pacific and Latin American beans with some spices, Starbucks Decaf Christmas Blend, which is a blend of Indonesian beans with some spices, and Starbucks Holiday Blend, which is a blend of Latin American and Asia/Pacific beans. They do not really sound like they are all that special with just different bean combinations with perhaps a little bit of spice flavor in the Christmas ones.

At Starbucks they also have some special holiday specialty coffee drinks. This includes the Gingersnap Latte, the Peppermint Mocha Twist, and the Espresso Truffle. The Gingersnap Latte is described as “Rich espresso topped with Australian crystallized ginger.” The Peppermint Mocha Twist is a peppermint mocha with “bittersweet chocolate and dark chocolate curls.” The Espresso Truffle is described as “Chocolate and espresso meet under a light cloud of whipped cream.”

The other day I noticed a limited edition in the last place I expected. This limited edition is a Kids Cuisine meal. I have often seen special character Kid Cuisine meals and even more often advertising packaging for different television shows and movies, but this was the first time I actually saw Kid Cuisine packaging that very specifically said that Limited Edition.

The Limited Edition meal is called Spongebob Squarepants Chicken Breast Nuggets. The meal includes chicken breast nuggets in the shapes of Spongebob Squarepants and Patrick. The sides are macaroni and cheese and corn. The dessert is vanilla pudding with a seeing stars sprinkles packet.

It does look like an interesting meal for a Spongebob Squarepants fan. Kid Cuisine meals tend to be pretty overpriced, though. Not to mention the food taste is supposedly among the worst for frozen meals. I have also noticed that a lot of kids do not like all the parts of the meals. They either think the dessert is horrible or one of the sides tastes odd even if they normally eat that type of food. In particular, I have heard that there chicken nuggets are not that good. Thus this limited edition might look interesting and will get kids to maybe beg their parents to buy it for them when they go grocery shopping and spot this, but they will likely be disappointed and the person buying it would have wasted a lot of money on crap. Of course, there will probably be some kids that actually like it or at least have been tricked into liking it just because it is Spongebob related.