Happy Holidays from GumAlert!

Hello readers! We wanted to wish you and yours a very Merry/Happy/Blessed whatever it is you celebrate!

Also a BIG GUMALERT ANNOUNCEMENT!!!

We may have a bit of a lull on new posts because there's a new chewer in the GumAlert family! I am happy to announce the birth of my first daughter, Delilah Charlene, born at 10:01am on Christmas Eve, 9 pounds, 2 ounces and 21 inches long. She is just beautiful and Mommy Shannon and Aunt Katie are busy loving her.

New posts in the new year!

Trident Splash Strawberry with Lime

Flavor: I thought I had tried this gum a while ago when it first came out, and didn't like it, so I fully expected to give a negative review on this one. Trident Splash Strawberry with Lime is a delightful mellow strawberry flavor with an awesome tart blast of lime gel in the middle. The lime is, at first, perfectly tart and as it dissipates, the strawberry that's left is really nice - sweet, but not too sweet. Very nice flavor medley.

Texture: As with most, if not all, pellet gums, it's coated with a crunchy candy shell. This gum's shell is a little softer than most, so you don't have those abrasive shards of shell. It's just enough to give the chew a little texture, and as the shell dissolves the gum you're left with is smooth and pliable, not to soft and not too hard, and no squeak at all to speak of.

Overall: Neither Katie nor I are really pellet gum people, but we are able to judge objectively, and this gum really is the bee's knees. I can't find any fault at all with it, and if I were a fruity pellet gum person, this gum most likely would be my favorite. I'll definitely chew it again.

Rating: ooooo (five gumballs)

Stride Forever Fruit

Flavor: When this gum first came out a couple years ago, I remember thinking it could be my new favorite. It has the same pineapple-citrus-peach flavor as Trident Tropical Twist (an old favorite) with an added bonus coconut undertone. It's a little too sweet for me, and the longer you chew, the more nutri-sweety it seems. After chewing a whole pack, this flavor gets old to me. It's like drinking too many malibu bay breezes at a beach bar-- they're delicious, sure, but it's the sort of thing that's better rotated with other flavors, not dominating your palate for a whole night.

Texture: The texture here is well done. A nice bite, maintains shape and flavor for a long time. But, as with all Stride varieties, I feel it forming sores on my tongue as I write.

Overall: It's a good gum, a vacation gum, if you will. Throw a pack into your weekly rotation, why don't you, and add some zest to your ordinary gum-chewing experience.

Rating:ooo (three gumballs)

Stride Winterblue

Flavor: At first I was confused by the what "Winterblue" was supposed to taste like, but I actually think it's quite a clever little new flavor creation by Stride. "Wintergreen" has become known as a flavor - there are Wintergreen Tic-Tacs, and now Wintergreen Trident, at the very least. Winterblue is a kind of similar mint - really mild. There's no blast of flavor or sinus-clearing menthol explosion, it's just a nice, easy mint. This is a gum for breath freshening or thirst quenching, but I don't think it would do much damage to garlic bread breath or fool a cop at an alcohol checkpoint if you've been downing carafes of merlot.

Texture: Eh, it's alright. It starts off pretty tough and never does soften enough to really chew with ease. There's a bit more effort involved in the chew then I prefer, and it's got quite a noticeable squeak.

Overall: This is a decent gum. It reminds me a little bit of Original Trident, but the rough texture and the fact that it is not, in fact, Original Trident, prohibits from giving it a very high rating. It's worth the try, and I'd purchase it again if my options were limited.

Rating: ooo (three gumballs)