Hubba Bubba Glop Strawberry Gush

Flavor: Let me start out with a disclaimer: This gum is not intended for adults. Glop is a marketing strategy geared expressly toward children in all of its attributes-- it's fun, it's teeth-hurtingly sweet, and there's nothing healthy about it. That said, the flavor is a super sugary strawberry, far too sweet for a mature palate but, I'd imagine, just right for young taste buds. It's filled with a sugar syrup (Glop) that dissolves almost immediately. The flavor subsides altogether soon after the glop dissipates, leaving the chewer longing for another shot of Glop.

Texture: This egg-shaped gum is unique compared to the ordinary over-the-counter package. The shiny outer shell crunches a lot like a gumball, but the soft inside stays true to Hubba Bubba classics. The glop could be more abundant, and it's nearly impossible to blow a bubble with it at any stage of chewing.

Overall: This gum is really more of a candy than a gum. The gum that remains after the initial crunch and glop explosion is hardly a gum at all, a stale old gumball. But for kids, I'm sure the neat packaging (a hard plastic tube that might be reused for something kids reuse plastic containers for) and the wild 'n crazy glop-ness of it are incredibly appealing. I, for one, would never have been allowed to eat it, but definitely would have saved up change to buy myself a pack now and again and eat it on the walk home from the corner store.

Rating: ooo (three gumballs)

*photo courtesy candyaddict.com