Stride Mega Mystery

Flavor: One of Stride's two new flavors for Winter 2009/2010 is the gimmicky "Mega Mystery." Stride must really have a lot of brand confidence, as they're expecting consumers to buy this gum on brand alone, without even knowing the flavor. I've never been good at "Guess The Flavor" games the products play (Doritos is famous for this,) but Stride Mega Mystery isn't really a mystery at all. On first chew you're blasted with a fantastic fruity medley that I would describe as Tropical Punch. It's a lot less melony than Trident's tropical varieties, but very heavy on the pineapple. Blended with hints of mango and citrus, it's like a tropical drink in stick form. Delicious. Unfortunately, Stride's claim of being the longest lasting flavor falls short with this one, and it becomes bland and tasteless within 10 minutes.

Texture: Soft and smooth at first bite, never disintegrating or softening. Perfect for cracking and snapping, and even blowing pretty decent bubbles (especially if you're a two-piece chewer like I am.) This is a great chew.

Overall: A friend of GumAlert alerted us to this new flavor a couple months ago, and since then I'd been on a frantic search to find it. Imagine my joy when, in the checkout shelves in A&P the other day, a rogue pack of this was stuck in with the Stride Nonstop Mint. I snatched it right up and have loved it since, and it's pained me to save the two sticks to do this review. I'm generally pretty neutral when it comes to Stride, but this one is a home run, and I hope it sticks around.
Rating: oooo (four gumballs)

We popped Vanity Fair's bubble, all right!

Hooray! Our fans successfully chewed out the folks at Vanity Fair so vigorously that they issued a (half-hearted) apology and will no longer try to compete with Gumalert.

Funny, they haven't heard of us though. What a coincidence.

Happy chewing!

Vanity Fair is Stealing Our Gum Reviews!

Folks, I've got some disappointing news.

Vanity Fair has launched a new segment, "Chewed Out: The Gum Review" by Juli Weiner. It seems as though this established publication has pilfered our gummy style. Not only is the format nearly identical to our own, the voice itself seems to imitate our own (even the photograph looks like ours!).

This is editorially irresponsible! If you love Gumalert, let the folks over at Vanity Fair know it. We are the original Gum Girls, the experts of gumz, the long-winded and painfully comprehensive reviewers of your favorite Orbit, Trident, Bubblicious, Stride, the gob in your cheek as a child, the pellet you pop to freshen your breath after lunch. We are proud of the work that we've done.

We've seen some smaller gum blogs pop up here and there, and we can't really complain about them-- let's face it, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. But this is an entertainment giant taking queues from the little guys with not so much as a link to our blog!

As always, let us know what your favorite gum is, if you haven't already done so, or send us your questions, thoughts, comments, rants about sucralose or aspartame. Because we really do care about gum, however obsessive and weird that might seem.

Trident Strawberry Fusion

Flavor: From what I can tell, this is one of two flavors of the Fusion variety, which leads me to believe that this may have been a Trident experiment of sorts. From the get go, this gum is trying way too hard. "Fuse it Up! Chew the sweet pieces with the sour pieces and you've created a FUSION of FLAVOR that's all your own!" Have I missed something here? What's "all my own" about doing exactly what they tell me to do? The gimmick is that there are two gums in one pack-- one sweet, and one sour, and when combined, the result is a perfect (and somehow personalized) super-gum. What is really is, however, is half a pack of pretty good strawberry gum and half a pack of the same gum only really dull and crappy. When combined, the flavor is just the "sour" gum after you've chewed it a while. The packaging itself is even misleading, as the "sweet" and "sour" designations appear on either side of the pack, but are paired with arrows that point to the opposite side of the pack. How am I supposed to know that pink indicates sour and red indicates sweet? It's just not intuitive. I have to say the sour gum is pretty tasty, but this whole Fusion thing only means you get half a pack less of the good stuff for your money.

Texture: One piece is tough all the way through, and doesn't pack much crunch for a pellet shell. When you add a second piece, it doesn't blow your mind away with lightning bolt fusion power, it just... gets tougher. It's a big wad of tough, squeaky gum.

Overall: A swing and a miss Trident, I'm sorry. I think the real error here is the target audience-- Trident pellets are not traditionally appealing to kids, but this kind of gimmick is definitely targeted toward them. If it's an effort to drum up some younger interest, I give this outstanding sugar-free gum producer credit for that, but it's really just not working. Kids don't want anything to do with a gum that touts "Cleans teeth" alongside "FUSE IT UP!" And adults want a quality product, a real solid strawberry candy-tasting gum, not this weird game in which, invariably, all chewers wind up being losers.
Rating: oo two gumballs

Trident Bubblegum

Flavor: Basic bubblegum. Trident doesn't do anything too fancy here like some of the other new bubblegums... there's no tang, no sour-to-sweet, it's as basic as basic gets. Think Bazooka Joe.

Texture: When I get a gum with a texture this bad I often wonder if I happened to pick up a stale pack. On first bite, it's really hard, and it takes quite a while to soften up to a chewable consistency. And from there, it remains hard. I think any respectable bubblegum should be soft and malleable from the get-go, and stay that way for at least 20 minutes. A bubblegum that doesn't easily lend itself to bubbles is hardly a bubblegum at all.

Overall: Other than the fact that this might as well be a chewing gum, it's alright. Certainly nothing to write home about. There are far better bubblegums out there.
Rating: oo (two gumballs)

Hubba Bubba Max Island Punch

Flavor: As per usual with sugary gums, I feel like an alcoholic drinking my first real beer after many years gone dry when I chew this gum. The flavor is initially delicious, much like a fruit punch lollipop, with a little extra flavor that's faintly reminiscent of cherry blowpops. After years of sucralose and xylitol, some good ol' fashioned sugar and corn syrup really hits the spot. I imagine kids and adults alike would really enjoy this flavor. Fruit punch for the kiddies, rum punch for the rest of us.

Texture: I got to tell you, this gum can blow some serious bubbles. The longer you chew, the bigger and better the bubble. It's got incredible elasticity and seems to be intended for the sole purpose of blowing some slamming bubbles and packing some serious flavor punch (pardon the pun).

Overall: Shannon and I both had to chew some sugary gumz for our professional photoshoot to update our disturbing blog picture (thanks Colin! Photo coming soon). Shannon chewed strawberry and I chewed Island Punch, and I could instantly rate this gum a lot easier than other sugar gums, because I had a fair comparison sitting right next to me (Usually it's difficult for me to be un-biased as a loyal non-sugar gum chewer). Shannon regretted that we couldn't find Big League Chew because it blew better bubbles, but my gum blew better bubbles than any wad of Big League Chew that I can recall. She muttered "This is disGUSTing" intermittently and with each utterance I was reminded of how tasty my gum was. This gum is really good, and I don't even like sugar gums, or fruit punch, or green candy really as a general rule. I just gave my roommate a piece and I think he put it best: "Mmmm. Me gusta. That's good."
Rating: ooooo (five gumballs)