Ruffles Ultimate Kickin' Jalapeno Ranch

I'm going to start by saying I love ranch flavored things and ranch dressing in general.  I was tempted by the bag anyway since it's got rivets or something on it.  If these chips are so ultimate that they can only be contained by metal then I need to try them clearly.

But, when I opened the bag I smelled... cucumbers?  The hell?  These do not smell appealing at all.  This smells nothing like jalapenos or ranch and I'm already kind of nervous to taste these chips.  I can't even... what is this smell?  It's not quite like cucumbers, but it's close?  Urgh.  Well - here goes nothing.

But what do they taste like?
They taste better than they smell, but not by much.  The first bite is kind of a cucumber-y ranch flavor and then after a few seconds there's a punch of spice which I guess is the jalapeno.  The spice actually hurts my mouth a little and it sticks around.  The chips themselves are weirdly big and almost like styrofoam.  It's like eating styrofoam that has a little ranch, was rubbed with a cucumber, and then someone put hot sauce on.  It's about as terrible as it sounds.

There's something very unappealing about these.  They definitely don't taste enough like ranch to me - they taste like nothing good!  The signature Ruffles ridges are too big and just everything is wrong.  There is nothing close to 'ultimate' about these chips.

Wow - I am just all levels of disappointed with these.  I think they were at a disadvantage from the start since I always have high hopes for ranch flavored things, but these just completely missed the mark.  They're pretty terrible actually.  I definitely would not buy these again and, to be honest, I don't even think I'll finish the bag.  Yeah - just tried another one and nope - these are going in the trash.

I still have a bag of Ruffles Ultimate Sweet and Smokin BBQ, but after this debacle I don't have high hopes for them.

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