Not Your Average Salt & Vinegar Crisps

Who knew there was a whole wide world of weird vinegar-flavoured things out there?

It's Leap Day 2024! This day will never come again — at least not for another four years. Time to get imaginative and explore a couple of lesser-known vinegar-flavoured comestibles.

Jude's Salt and Vinegar Ice Cream

British ice cream manufacturer Jude's brought out a limited-edition Salt & Vinegar ice cream in 2022. Sadly, as the flavour was commissioned by a cruise ship company, few of the public got to try it, and it hasn't ended up as a regular in grocery store freezers.

Vinegar Taffy

Made by pulling and stretching a boiled candy base over and over until it takes on a soft, fluffy, and chewy texture, taffy has been a popular American candy since its invention around the early 19th century. In the mid-1800s, a 'taffy pull' became a popular social event! What many non-Americans, and even many Americans, may not be familiar with is vinegar taffy, which is flavoured with vinegar, often apple cider vinegar, providing balance to the intense sweetness.

Japanese Apple Vinegar KitKat

I've saved the best — or worst, depending — for last. It turns out that Japan is home to a dazzling, even overwhelming, variety of speciality KitKat flavours. Some are relatively unsurprising, such as 'sublime raspberry', 'café au lait', and 'melty caramel', some are typically Japanese, such as 'soy sauce', 'yuzu sake', and 'sakura mochi', and some are a bit more out there, such as the unorthodox 'Easter banana', the difficult-to-parse 'sugar butter tree', and the rather mysterious 'ocean salt'. As you can tell, I could go on... but you can have a look at the full list yourself here. And yes, they have a cider vinegar-flavoured KitKat, fascinatingly reviewed by this blog.

— Beatrix Swanson