Gum Reviews: Stride's Sour Patch Kids, lime flavored gum

Stride has never been my favorite chewing gum. I'm a Trident man. However, Stride usually comes in a close second to Trident; kind of like the Roger Sterling to Trident's Don Draper.

Anyway...I like what Stride's been up to lately, especially with its "Fearless Fruit" flavored gum, a fun, tasty, tropical punch sort of thing that has surprisingly good flavor-keep. But this new "Sour Patch Kids" line is an embarrassment to Stride gum.

Its flavor-keep is absolutely horrid. Horrid. Non-existent. Time-wise it's almost as bad as Fruit Stripe gum, which is the Mayfly of gums. But at least Fruit Stripe tasted so incredibly good--during those 10 precious seconds it actually had flavor--that one was always tempted to forgive it for turning into a rubberized ball of chemical mush before you could even decide what to do with the wrapper. Stride "Sour Patch Kids" gum doesn't even have that going for it.

This gum does not deliver anywhere NEAR the taste experience of an actual Sour Patch Kid. If you call something "Sour Patch Kids" flavored gum, you better be ready to bring some serious, jaw-stinging sourness, the kind of borderline masochistic experience that makes sweet/sour candies so great. You wouldn't think it'd be that difficult...but apparently it is.

The main problem with this gum....it's not a package of Sour Patch Kids!!! Stride is really overreaching here, I think, by naming a gum flavor after a candy and a great candy at that. I'm sure it's been done (or tried before) but in this case it falls flat. Sour Patch Kids are legendary, and any gum named after them is bound to be a poor substitute, like a junior high basketball coach named Michael Jordan. Even as I paid for my "Sour Patch Kids" gum I was instantly bummed out that I hadn't bought actual Sour Patch Kids.This gum was D.O.A., never had a chance.