North Country Cider: Lineup Review
April 26, 20222022 Cider Label Contest – CiderScene
May 3, 2022Sometimes you are having a cider, seltzer, or even water and it just isn’t going the way you wanted it to. May it taste a bit off or it doesn’t have much flavor at all, sometimes you need to power through or pour it down the drain. Luckily, if you have Tasty Tabs, you can use the power of scent to enhance any beverage and trick your brain into tasting something different entirely.
According to Scienceworld, about 80% of your taste is derived from your sense of smell. Without smell, your sense of taste would be fairly limited. Tasty Tabs harnesses this science and has created four flavored tabs that go around the tab of your favorite beverage and make things taste… better.
Tasty Tab’s Description
Bring life to the party with the classic vanilla, strawberry, margarita, and blueberry muffin scented flavors. It introduces a refreshingly new way to enjoy the hard seltzer beverage that you can scratch and smell when it’s time to relax. With 0 calories per sticker, 0 carbs, and 0 chemicals since you’re not consuming them, they’re a fun way to spice up backyard barbecues, sitting on the patio or porch, tailgating parties, and entertaining guests.
Our Experience with Tasty Tabs
The Tasty Tabs come in an 8-pack, 4 sheets with 2 different flavors on each. As mentioned above, the flavors are vanilla, strawberry, margarita, and blueberry muffin. We tried each one with a variety of beverages. I tried the strawberry with Wild State Cider’s Classic Dry. I tried the vanilla with straight water. I tried the Margarita with a non-alcoholic IPA. And, finally, I tried the blueberry muffin with a lemon Whiteclaw Hard Seltzer. The tabs are small stickers that are easy to grab off of the sheet. You stick it to the tab and wrap it around the metal. When ready to enjoy, you can scratch and get things rolling!
I found that the cider being dry and potent in its apple flavor overpowered the strawberry scent/flavor. There would be sips I sensed nothing and somewhere a strawberry strudel flavor was apparent and 50% of the total flavor I was sensing – it was bizarre!
The water worked extremely well and the vanilla was an almost cake-like experience. The vanilla scent was close to the flavor you get from the sticks for Fun Dip. It was pleasant but certainly not my number one option for flavor, personally.
The non-alcoholic IPA was probably the most experimental I got with flavors. As it has its alcohol removed, it isn’t as potent or bitter as a traditional IPA. Either way, it certainly felt more like a complex cocktail when mixed with the Margarita Tasty Tab. Citrus and sweetness poked through the IPA and make it feel balanced on several fronts. I would suggest another drink here in the future to mix with the Margarita, but it was a risk I wasn’t mad about.
My last experience was the best one or the one that created a new flavor profile with the best results. The lemon from the hard seltzer went so well with the blueberry muffin scent. It was like a tangy muffin with a bounty of sweetness. The lemon was the main driver of taste, naturally, but the blue muffin taste, like Little Bites (a nostalgic childhood snack), was a welcomed experience. Obviously, it wasn’t as overwhelming as those little snacks, but it carried the same essence. Just like lemon can enhance true baked goods, this flavor combination fell into the same good company.
Collectively, I found that these scents were very pleasant and reminded us of other scratch and sniff products. They are sweet on the nose and remind us of candied versions of their real-life counterparts – often reminding me of treats I had as a young lad. I will note that the scent doesn’t last forever, so be ready to enjoy your drink and tab in a closed timeframe. Of course, you can always give it a few more scratches to get the flavor amplified for a period of time. All in all, it was a fun experience that we would enjoy having again sometime soon.
To try your own Tasty Tabs, visit their website.
Other Products
Tasty Tabs also make Tasty Straws which flavors your drink and makes things more effervescent, too. These come in an 8-pack and cost $8.00 total. These are alcohol-free, gluten-free, BPA-free, and non-GMO. While we haven’t tried these, they do sound interesting enough for a go!