Review: KIND Almond & Apricot Fruit & Nut Bar

This is not the first KIND review on this blog.  In the last review, I appreciated the mix of crunch and sweetness that made up the bar.  It was a delightful snack bar, so I was anxious to see if this new variety, the Almond & Apricot Fruit & Nut bar, could get the same sort of reaction out of me.  Ordinarily, I'm not a fan of apricots, but I was willing to give this one the benefit of the doubt since the last review was so positive and the fact that I got this one for free again through a KINDING Mission at KIND's website.  Just for kicks, here's the hard numbers on this one:  all natural, 1.4 ounces, 190 calories and three grams of protein.

Visually, this one looks like the last KIND bar that I reviewed.  The main characteristic is large almonds, so you know it's going to be extremely crunchy.  There's also bits of rice crisp mix in there and also some coconut as well.  The fruit component of the bar, the apricots, is also visible as the apricots are in small and thin tan/yellow slivers interspersed throughout the bar.  All of this is then bound together by honey and this honey makes the bar a bit sticky to the touch.  Still, this one puts it all out there for the world to see, so you can definitely see what you are about to eat.

Since you can see the large almonds and can expect the crunch, I'll go ahead and say that crunch is definitely the prevalent flavor in this one.  For a person that absolutely loves crunchy foods like I do, this is a very welcome addition.  The next strongest flavor that I was able to detect was the coconut flavor, which is odd since apricots are the thing you'd expect next.  This was not the case on this one though.  The apricots were there but they were neither sweet nor particularly noticeable.  The only thing the apricots did was add a slight gummy chew to the bar at the very back end of the flavor (almost an aftertaste) and then since they were slivers and not clumps, they managed to stick in my teeth repeatedly as I was working my way through the bar.  That was annoying, to say the least.

Buy It or Fly By It?  I would FLY BY IT.  All this bar has going for it is crunch and while that is definitely nice, I'd like it if the fruit component of the bar would have backed itself up and shown itself, even if it was apricots.  That said, if you end up with this, it's not awful, it's just not something that you are going to be particularly happy that you purchased.

FLY BY IT!!