Choward's Violet

Name: Violet & Scented Gum
Brand: Choward's
Place Purchased: gift from Pennsylvania
Price: unknown (but have seen regular Chowards for $1.25)
Calories per ounce: (here's some stuff online)
Type: Mint & Gum

I have a vague recollection of some dolls that were popular back in the late sixties/early seventies called Kiddles. They were little dolls with insanely huge heads and long, stylable hair that smelled of violets. To this day the scent of violet makes me think of those dolls. I never owned any (I think my friend down the street, Lisa did though) but I can recall wanting them badly.

Anyway, my stepmother sent these to me a couple of weeks ago and they went into my pile of chocolates, until I took out a candy bar and it tasted like violets. So I sequestered the invasive violets in three layers of paper bags (and promptly forgot about it because it was jammed in three paper bags and looked like trash). Then I came back to the office after the weekend and it smelled like violets, "Oh, I forgot all about them!" Well, now I've photographed them and chewed them up and can speak knowlegably about them. I did a little digging to find out more about Choward's, you can read the history here.



First, I preface this review (actually, it looks like I've prefaced the review several times, would you like to just skip to the bottom for the rating?) with the fact that I love herbal/floral flavors. My favorite ice cream flavor at the moment is Orange Blossom and Pistachio. However, probably from the above association with those damn little dolls, I just can't get behind the little violet mints.

The mints themselves really aren't terribly flavorful. They're sweet and very hard (like a piece of soft shale) are the color of the putty I used to caulk my shower and smell like something I might use in the shower while I'm there. They don't really dissolve so much as just slowly deteriorate in your mouth. As a touchstone though, I found the peppermint version of Choward's pretty good, like a dense pillow butter mint. I don't know why the violet texture was so much more, um, sturdy, but it wasn't really appealing.

The gum, however, is pretty cool. The color, let's face it, is something you just wanna string up on a necklace or something. The flavor is not at all like the mint, it's got a nice cinnamon/clove twang to it and a little touch of the flowery violet. The chew is a little sticky and not at all like a chicklet, lacking that burst of sugar and cooling mint. Even after spitting out the gum after chewing for about ten minutes, it scented my breath wonderfully for a two hour meeting.

Other reveiws: here and here. (more kiddles pages - here, here and here.)

Ratings: Violet Mints - 5 out of 10
Scented Gum - 7 out of 10