They're In: Beer Battered Onion Rings Ruffles!!

Rich and I went to the fair tonight. Fat guys don't go to fairs for rides or to look at animals- no, we go for food. Fat, delicious, overpriced fair food. And we ate lots of it. On our way out, Rich got a sausage with onions, and I strongly considered getting an order of pretty delicious looking onion rings. But then I thought- no, dummy. Why spend 6 bucks on onion rings when I have these at home?

BOOM.

Ruffles ran quite the enormous ad campaign for the last 5 months or so to pick a new flavor. Facebook followers voted in different rounds to narrow it down from 16 possible flavors to 1. These were the winner, beating out baby back ribs in the final round. I certainly would have liked to try some of the other ones, even though I never was fully clear on what was going head to head with what- my comments and votes usually went something like "bring back The Works (one of the greatest flavors of chips ever)" or "make BBQ available across all of the US, then worry about new flavors." No, I'm not bitter at all. 

I never really understood what was going on, since while Ruffles was doing this promotion, they also introduced 3 other flavors, only one of which were actually good in our opinion. Hopefully this means they will be as adventurous in the future and bless us with some other weird flavors. But, for the time being, these are the new hotness. And after months of curiosity, I was luckily still following Ruffles on facebook and happened to see that they had landed in super walmarts. Off I went. 

Could Ruffles turn this

into this

successfully??

The answer is yes. Hell yes. 

Upon opening the bag, I noticed a bad smell- an odd mixture of beer and that odd au jus meaty scent that was so prevalent in the Cheesesteak Ruffles. They're ugly too- they're brown and have tiny specks of brown seasoning on them. But they are good, and that's all that matters. They 100% taste like onion rings, and have something else going for them too- if I started chewing these and then got smashed in the head and lost all my memory, I would absolutely, without a doubt, believe I had just bit into some onion rings. The potato seems to dissolve and get chewy much faster than previous Ruffles- they actually feel like you're chewing on fried batter. I don't know if that's just a trick of my chip-crazed brain or if Ruffles scientists had some magical breakthrough, but it's cool. 

They don't have the best aftertaste (that beery, au jus flavor a little bit), but Ruffles did a fantastic job capturing the flavor of onion rings. I wonder if these will have any lasting value- only time will tell. But for a unique flavored chip from one of the biggest potato chip brands in existence, these are absolutely worth trying. If you like onion rings, go get a bag- you will be impressed. 

I give these a solid B. They lose points because I feel like they won't have the best lasting value, and I had no trouble stopping my eating of them. 

-Mike