Review: Larabar Snickerdoodle Fruit & Nut Bar

Larabar has released several new flavors and after a recent Larabar review, a representative contacted me asking if I'd like to try out one of their new seasonal flavors as a free sample.  Never one to turn down a free sample, I was then sent four of these Larabar Snickerdoodle Fruit & Nut Bars to try out and/or share with friends and co-workers.  Like I and the wrapper said, it's a seasonal flavor (!) and it comes in at 1.6 ounces with 190 calories and four grams of protein.  As with most Larabars, it's made with limited ingredients and is also dairy free, gluten free, kosher and soy free, among other things.

As you can see above, this really does not look any different than a classic Larabar in that it's mainly a date puree with some nuts mixed in.  In this case, the nuts included almonds and cashews.  Along with those nuts are some cinnamon sice, sea salt and vanilla extract.  Yep, that's the entire ingredient list and like I said, that's what makes Larabars "pure" I guess.  The cinnamon spice had a somewhat potent smell, but it really wasn't anything that was going to clean out your sinuses or anything like that.  The bar was also quite sticky to the touch, but that's pretty much standard operating procedure for these bars.

Taking a bit of this, the immediate taste was the sweetness coming from the standard date puree of the bar.  I then experienced a hint of salitness, but was left wanting more for a bit.  Notice how I said for a bit?  That's because the cinnamon flavor was late arriving and the longer I let it linger, the more it heated up.  It wasn't too spicy, but it definitely announced its presence strongly.  As for the rest of the bar, the nut chunks added a grainy crunch and occasional pop to the typically soft bar, but that was about it.  All this bar consisted of was a standard Larabar taste with a hint of cinnamon and was nothing like the namesake cookie other than the presence of cinnamon flavor.

Buy It or Fly By It?  Larabar should be glad this is just a seasonal flavor and only comes around occasionally, because frankly, this isn't very good and doesn't deserve to be on the shelves for long periods of time.  I can see how they tie the cinnamon presence to the holiday season (a co-worker had to draw that comparison for me since I'm a little slow after she tried one of the free samples out), but despite that holiday tie-in, this is not one that I'd be reaching for so it gets a FLY BY IT rating from me.  Some people may enjoy this and all the cinnamon that it brings, but for me, it was just boring and not really all that memorable.  Also, the fact that they tried to tie the name of this bar to the namesake cookie is just goofy and non-sensical in my opinion.  Cinnamon is the only tie-in and perhaps this bar would have been better named as "Holiday Heat" or something like that.

FLY BY IT!!