Review: Cascadian Farm Organic Trail Mix Vanilla Almond Cherry Bars

Before it's all said and done, I might end up buying a part of Cascadian Farms.  I mean, the first sent me free products and then I started buying their products at the store on my own, so the next logical step would be to buy a part of the company, right?  Okay, that might be a bit much. I think I'll just stick to reviews and that leads me to this review of the Cascadian Farm Organic Trail Mix Vanilla Almond Cherry Bars that I picked up on sale at Kroger in a box of five bars for $2.99.  Each bar is 1.2 ounces, has 130 calories and also a small two grams of protein.

When I first took this out of the wrapper...let me correct that...when I first extracted this from the wrapper, I was shocked at how incredibly sticky this was and that's why I have to use the word "extract" when describing this because it stuck to everything and it's not like these were overly warm and melted since they had been sitting at room temperature on my counter tops for a couple of days prior to me trying these.  That was odd, but sticky should really have no bearing on anything other than how it feels.  As for the rest of the bar, it was the typical Cascadian Farm granola mix that contained a very large amount of vanilla chips, which was unexpected and also outstanding as those chips gave this bar a wonderful smell of vanilla.  The bar also contained several good-sized almonds spread through, along with a small amount of dried cherries and some some pretzel pieces as well.  In terms of appearance, all the named ingredients were well covered, especially the vanilla as it had both a plethora of chips and also a wonderful vanilla smell.

As I took my first bite, I expected some solid vanilla flavor, but I did not expect it to be as solid as it was, meaning that it was outstanding.  The chips had that vanilla tang and freshness and also an added mouthfeel component as the chips melted in my mouth to bring a degree of decadence to it.  The vanilla was then assisted by the sweetness and mild tang of the cherry flavor, which came along as an aftertaste.  The bar itself, which was soft, also had a degree of solid crunch added not only by the almonds but also by the vanilla chips prior to them melting in my mouth and then that was then assisted by the airy crunch of the small pretzel pieces.  In terms of the total package, this bar was pretty much the definition of decadence with some additional crunch to go along with the sweetness, almost like something that you'd find in a dessert.

Buy It or Fly By It?  I'm all for decadence and also all for sweets, so this one gets a BUY IT rating in my book.  In fact, I would go so far as to say that this is one of my favorite bars that I've ever tried for this blog. The fact that it was so overwhelmingly sticky was weird, but the flavor more than made up for that and made this an outstanding snack-time treat.

BUY IT!!