How have these been around for years? (Bassett's Sherbert Fountain)

Member Name: Claribella

Product:	Bassett's Sherbert Fountain
Date:	27/04/09 (48 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Cheap

Disadvantages: Awkward to eat

These Sherbet dips are a funny little contraption. They combine a white, sour sherbet with a long, circular stick of liquorice and put them in a round, paper tube. They cost around 20p and are available at most supermarkets in multi-packs or you can get one individually from local shops like Spar.

The packaging is a dull yellow and the top looks as if it's been wrapped by amateur; the crumpled paper surrounding the dark, tar-like stick of liquorice that comes loose with out any muscle power. It will have smudges of white powder here and there which I find comes off easier if you lick it away. I hate the way that the liquorice sticks out of the top of the packaging. Surely this is unhygienic? How many grubby hands have touched that?

The idea of the whole thing is that you suck on the end of the liquorice which makes it wet and then the sherbet sticks to it when you dip it into the tube.

I don't particularly see the appeal of these things and maybe that's because I'm not a lover of liquorice and to be honest, sherbet isn't high on my list either. The liquorice has such a strong flavour to it that it often makes me cough and the sherbet is pretty tasteless too. I always find that the tube is just about half full and it's so hard that you have to spend time moulding the tube through your fist to break it up a bit. When it's finally soft enough to eat and you lift some out on the end of the liquorice stick, it gets absolutely everywhere and if there's even a breeze of wind then there's absolutely no chance that you will get it in your mouth before it blows in you face and down your top. Not good if you are wearing black!

The other annoying thing about these is that the more you suck on the liquorice the softer it becomes so when you push it into the sherbet it bows. Then you have this clever idea of biting off the soft bit so you have the harder bit back again but this only creates another problem; The stick is just long enough to reach the sherbet as it is but now whenever you stick it into the tube it comes out empty every time. Ou can rip the tube to get to the rest of the sherbet that ends up in one big mess!

The final problem with these is the fact that you finish your liquorice and then you are left with the remainder of sherbet which is bland and boring on it's own.

Over all I'd say keep your twenty pence and put it towards a lottery ticket, you'd have more chance of winning that than ending up with equal amounts of liquorice and sherbet until the very end of your eating experience.

Summary: I'm not too keen onthese for lots of reasons