Allsorts of things going on here. (Bassett's Liquorice Allsorts)

Member Name: hypno06

Product:	Bassett's Liquorice Allsorts
Date:	08/07/09 (148 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Cures a sugar craving.

Disadvantages: Not suitable for vegetarians.

My last sugar craving saw me taking advantage of the BOGOF in Tescos of Bassett's Liquorice Allsorts.......Bertie Bassetts have been amongst my favourite sweets ever since I was a small child. I know that the taste of liquorice is one of those "love it or hate it" flavours, but for me it is definitely in the "love it" category, and the fact that many others dislike it so much means that there is more for me to snaffle myself when I offer the bag round!

So.....Bassett's Allsorts......they famously came about when the salesman at Bassetts, an accident prone chap by the name of Charlie Thompson, tripped over, way back in 1899, dropping all the different sweets that he was carrying. This act of carelessness meant that he had a tray of muddled up confectionary, and rather than sit and pick everything out, putting it back into its neat and tidy pile, he took the easy option, and just invented a new mix of sweets instead.....

Made by Cadburys, more information can be found on www.cadbury.co.uk

The current liquorice allsorts bag contains a variety of sugar and liquourice sweets, in various designs and colours, togeter with a few that are pure liquorice, some that are aniseed jelly with pink or blue bobbly bits on the outside, and some that are surrounded by pink or yellow desiccated coconut. Every bag or box should also contain a liquourice Bertie Bassett shaped sweet......Bertie being the character made from sweets that has graced the pack for as long as I can remember (whether Bertie goes back as far as 1899, I don't know, and I don't know if his features resemble those of the haphazard Charlie Thompson in any way either.......)

The pack of allsorts is quite keen to tell you that it only contains natural colours and flavours.....all well and good, but it also contains bovine gelatine, so is not suitable for vegetarians who take their stuff seriously.....so many packs of sweets are not suitable for veggies, and I think it is time they did something about this (I am not vegetarian, by the way, but surely you buy sweets hoping to eat sweets, not animal produce!).

Anyway.....having always seen Bassett's liquorice allsorts as a bit of a no-brainer - they never fail to cure my sugar craving with all their yumminess.....I was a little disappointed as I tucked into my latest bag.

Nothing seemed to have changed.....the sweets looked the same as always....the colours were the same.....etc. I have to admit that I have not looked at the ingredients or paid as much attention to the packaging etc before, because I haven't before been intending on reviewing them, so whether I was just paying more attention than normal, I don't know.

But the upshot is that I was slightly sad......

I love the taste of liquourice.....but I found that the coloured sugar squares didn't have a taste, other than of, well, coloured sugar, I suppose. This led me to wonder what the coloured sugar was there for.....

I really really love the nobbly aniseed sweets.....but this pack had none in! Bad luck, probably, and another pack may have had more than its fair share.....but I wanted some.....and I didn't have any. hmph.

And then to add insult to injury, despite rummaging for the prize.......I didn't get a Bertie Bassett sweet. Double hmph.....

Now, I fully accept that I might have just got a rogue pack (and the pack does remind me that "contents may vary").....but it did lead me to start wondering exactly what it is about these that I like! And the answer is, that I am not quite sure!

So, the conclusion is that I will probably buy these again - I certainly prefer these rather than shops own brand version which never seem to get it right - but that I might be less inclined to head straight for them, BOGOF or not, next time I have a sugar craving (in about 10 minutes time then!!).

I feel that Bertie has let me down this time. I will give him another chance....but not today.

Of course, even in my disappointed state, it did not stop me from devouring the whole packet - a whopping 800 ish calories worth of disappointment.....and not a nobbly aniseed sweet in sight.

Summary: Don't let me down again, Mr Bassett!