I Ate the Beef Taco Jelly Beans
And the guacamole, salsa, churro, horchata, and margarita jelly beans, too
I am part of the problem.
When Jelly Belly introduced the purposefully disgusting Bertie Bott’s jelly beans in flavors like earwax, booger, vomit, and rotten egg, I bought them.
When Brach’s introduced the Turkey Dinner Candy Corn — flavored like a whole Thanksgiving meal from the turkey to the apple pie — I bought three bags because if I had to eat them my friends did, too.
I bought the Zombie Skittles (“Some taste like rotten zombie”) and the Swedish Fish Oreos. I bought the Dill Pickle Mints made by Archie McPhee’s. If it’s weird, I have probably tried it. I knew none of these sweets would be “good,” but a few bucks is a small price to pay to appease my curiosity.
That’s exactly what these candy companies are counting on. They don’t care about putting out a quality product that brings delight, they just want your money, your attention, and your social media posts. And it’s totally working.
We can no longer be surprised when companies push out deliberately disgusting or unpleasant candy because we have been rewarding their bad behavior for years. They make food that literally tastes like puke, and we pay for the privilege to eat it!
Well, oops, I did it again.
This week I picked up a bag of Brach’s newest atrocity, the Late Night Taco Truck Jelly Beans. Included flavors are margarita, churro, salsa, guacamole, beef taco, and horchata.
So what do they taste like?
Look, I love you. I really do. But I ain’t eatin’ the beef taco jelly bean for free. If you’re here and reading this because you’re also curious about the beef taco jelly bean, please consider becoming a paid subscriber so I can continue this vital reporting. It’s just $6 a month or $60 a year! That’s like giving me $1 for every gross jelly bean I ate! For you! So you don’t have to! So you don’t have to play Big Candy’s wicked games! You can also buy me a one-time snack here.
OK. Now that that’s out of the way, here’s the good news: I successfully ate the beans. The bad news: I cleansed my palate between each flavor with a LimonCello LaCroix so now I’m burping burps that taste like the ghost of a Taco Bell trash can.
Here’s what each flavor tastes like:
Margarita: There’s no salt, there’s barely any lime. It’s … citrusy-ish? Citrusy-esque? It is not a jelly bean, it is a squirt of Bath & Body Works Lemon Lime Fizz Gentle Foaming Hand Soap. I should hate it. I do not.
Churro: It tastes like what a cloud of churro-flavored vape juice probably smells like when wafting out the window of a 17-year-old’s 2006 Honda Civic with six sun-bleached Vanillaroma Little Trees hanging from the review mirror. Vague. Lingering. Sweet but also sad.
Salsa: Imagine someone eating a large spoonful of Pace Picante Sauce and immediately sneezing it into your mouth. Entirely awful.
Guacamole: The cilantro flavor hits first. Then you gag, double over, and hit your head on the table. While passed out you have a vivid nightmare of being choked by a rotten avocado while angry onions and heads of garlic repeatedly kick you in the stomach.
Beef Taco: I was prepared for this one to be the worst. It is not. Salsa is the worst. But this one is a close second, tasting like crusty week-old taco meat that has been reconstituted with cat urine. Why is it tart? Beef tacos are not tart!
Horchata: The best in the bag, but that’s not a good thing. It’s evidence that Brach’s could make a jelly bean inspired by a delicious thing that tastes how it’s supposed to taste and they choose not to!
Like, you could’ve made a whole Mexican bakery worth of beans, Brach’s! Where are the concha jelly beans? Where are the tres leches cake jelly beans? Where are the puerquito jelly beans? WHERE ARE THE CHOCOFLAN JELLY BEANS? A CHOCOFLAN JELLY BEAN WOULD BE INCREDIBLE!
Assholes.
But I’m the asshole, too. I bought the bag. I ate the cat-piss and salsa-sneeze-flavored candy beans. I am part of the problem. I see that now. Never again, Brach’s. Never. Again.