Deep River Snacks Zesty Jalapeno

More Deep River chips courtesy of my mom who spotted them and snagged them for me.  Today's chip is the Zesty Jalapeno flavor.  I've never tried Jalapeno chips before (zesty or otherwise) so it'll be an interesting experience.  I like spice if it's the right spice - flavorful, not just painful.

They don't smell like anything much, but as I've learned, that doesn't always mean much.  They seem almost a sickly green color and have weird brown speckles on them.  Excellent!

But what do they taste like?
It just tastes like spicy nothingness.  Ow.  Nothing that burns my mouth.  Ow.  These are definitely spicy, but they don't have any sort of flavor at the same time.  It's very disconcerting!   And it's burning my mouth still.  I only tried one chip to start and there's still spicy pain everywhere.  I wish I had more to describe about these, but the only defining feature at the moment is that they 'are quite spicy'.

I keep eating them in the hopes that I'll taste something else, but these is really nothing to these other than that they are extremely spicy.  I can't keep eating these - they're burning my mouth and it's the kind of burn that will probably last for a bit, too.  It's like Deep River decided 'Jalapenos are spicy... ok that's thinking enough - put these into production!' because it is just spice.

I'm not sure what other Zesty Jalapeno chips taste like, but if they're anything like this then I'm pretty disappointed.  These were definitely not the chips for me, though I do like the kettle cooked crunchiness that Deep River has going on.

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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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