Wednesday, June 26, 2013

Review: KIND Nuts & Spices Maple Glazed Pecan & Sea Salt Bar


There is no better feeling as a blog writer to know that the companies that you are writing reviews about have noticed you.  Granted, sometimes those reviews are extremely negative and it's probably not good for that company to notice you, but other times, it can be kind of fun.  Whether the interaction comes via Twitter, Facebook or directly by e-mail, it's always an affirmation that at least someone is reading.  From time to time, as I've mentioned before, companies are gracious enough to forward on samples of their products for me to try out for the blog that is the case with this KIND Nuts & Spices Maple Glazed Pecan & Sea Salt Bar that will add to my collection of previous reviews.  The bar itself is 1.4 ounces with 210 calories and six grams of protein.



As bar that is tagged as being part of the Nuts & Spices line, it should come as no surprise that both of those components are present in the bar in spades.  In the case of this bar, it was heavy on the nuts as there were a plethora of large pecans, almonds and peanuts, as you can see in photo below.  What you necessarily can't see was the presence of sea salt for the spice component, but its smell was definitely present, although the overpowering smell of maple overtook everything with this bar.  That maple, combined with some included honey, also made this bar quite sticky, so it was glaringly obvious this bar was going to be sweet, salty, crunchy and all sorts of fun.

After taking my first bite, I was unsurprisingly met with some extreme crunch.  The variety of nuts broke up quickly, as you'd expect, but their presence in extreme amounts made this fun for a crunchy junkie like myself.  As for the nut flavors, I'd say that the almonds hit first, but then the peanuts and pecans hit at the end, with an additional salty component added in by the sea salt that lingered in my mouth as an aftertaste though.  While the crunch and salt was fun, all real conversations about this bar should deal primarily with the maple flavoring because it was the main star of the show.  It was sweet and dense and had that flavor that you'd expect from any sort of garden variety maple syrup.  It's punch may be a bit much for some, but I do love some me some maple syrup, so I was okay with it.  That said, I don't often salt my pancakes, so the presence of salt mixed with that maple was quite a bit different than anything I've ever experienced.  I'm not saying that is a bad flavor experience, it's just one that I've never had before, so it was different for me and I can't say that it was my favorite thing in the world, but it also wasn't bad.

Buy It or Fly By It?  This bar is all about the maple flavor and if you can stand maple, you'll find this bar to be quite good, even with the odd salty taste at the end.  It was certainly different, but it wasn't different enough for me to not like the bar and in an odd way, I found myself being drawn to this bar, so it gets a BUY IT rating.  If you don't like the sweet and salty flavor combination and/or maple flavoring, this bar is not for you.  If you can stand those things though, I think you'll be intrigued by this bar like I was.

BUY IT!!

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