vitamingum Cinnamon

This review is sponsored by our friends at vitamingum!

Flavor: Cinnamon seems to be a hard flavor to get right in the gum world, and a really good cinnamon gum is hard to find. I always tend to judge cinnamon gums against my all-time favorite cinnamon treat, the Atomic Fireball. To me, the Atomic Fireball was always so perfect - it had a brief period of mouth-tingling hotness, and just when you think it's getting to be too hot to handle, the sweet layer kicks in and lulls the fire into a perfect warmth. This gum is pretty similar to that - starts off awesomely strong, and settles down nicely. vitamingum really did a nice job with the cinnamon.

Texture: When I bit down into my first piece, I was concerned. Although it's a pellet, there's no discernible candy shell crunch, and the first few chews are really way too hard. Thankfully, within 5 - 10 chews it softens up nicely. The chew has a slight stickiness, but nothing too horrible. It does have a little squeak, as well.

Presentation: Minimalist, standard pellet pop-out pack. Stark white with the perfect shade of cinnamon-red. The logo is reminiscent of vitaminwater, with the space between the words removed. I've said before that I like when cinnamon gum packaging features actual cinnamon sticks, and we've got that here.

Overall: vitamingum has hopped on the Gum Friends-with-Benefits bandwagon, but instead of claims to "vigorate," "vitalize," "release energy," or any other other vibrant marketing terms other brands have conjured up, vitamingum just claims to have vitamins. In and of itself, that's pretty cool. I know that I am pretty terrible at remembering to take my multivitamin each day, and this makes me feel a little better about that. It should be noted, though, that each two-piece serving of vitamingum only contains 10% of the recommended daily value of 12 vitamins, so you'd have to chew 20 pieces of this (almost 2 whole packs) to get your 100% of vitamins for the day.

Rating: oooo (four gumballs)

Big Red

Flavor: “No little gum freshens breath longer than Big Red.” I just spent the better part of an hour watching old Big Red commercials on You Tube, and although I enjoyed every second of it, I have to admit that I never did understand the marketing plan for Big Red. Cinnamon gum isn’t refreshing, it’s sort of the opposite of that. Like the candy red hots, this gum produces a heat in your mouth (that does, admittedly, "go on and on while you chew it.") But I’m not sure I’d be so inclined to lock lips with somebody who’d been chewing it with the kind of passion portrayed in these commercials. In fact, when someone’s chewing Big Red, you can smell it across the room, and your general reaction isn’t, “My, what fresh breath that stallion has! I want to kiss him for a long, long time,” but rather, “Oh god, that guy’s chewing Big Red, I can smell it all the way over here.” But I don't care; those commercials are timeless and I don’t fault them for filming dozens of cheesy scenarios based on that simple jingle.

Texture: Based on the commercials, you’ll be too busy frenching somebody to ever actually chew a piece of Big Red. It’s a good piece of gum, texture-wise, a lot to chew and doesn’t toughen up. It produces an unpleasant foamy saliva in my mouth, but I think that might be the sugar combined with the heat, to which I’m a little sensitive.

Presentation: This new fangled “slim pack,” to me, is just as disoncerting as the new take on the Big Red commercial (more on that later). These packs used to be five for a quarter. Sure, now the packs are big and flashy and fit in your back pocket, but they used to fit in your front pocket. If you ask me, if it aint broke, don’t fix it.


Overall: I wasn’t kidding when I said I really enjoyed watching all the Big Red videos. I counted: at least five guys so caught up in kissing that they missed a car ride as it pulled away (and another two that missed a boat-- not to mention two who actually missed their queue in a parade), a pair of kids necking in a photobooth, another couple through a window while her parents were asleep, a pair posing for a sculptor, some campers, a racecar driver, a politician, a couple in a medieval theatre troop, a football player (who misses his bus), and a bride and groom, just to name a few. Let’s face it-- Big Red makes everybody all hot and bothered! The commercials are simultaneously wholesome and scandalous. I was going to hyperlink every commercial that I just referenced, but the whole dang paragraph would be blue.

It just attests to the fact that Big Red has sold gum for decades using the same old nostalgic, formulaic commercial again and again. Why did they trade it in for a singer juggling a pack of CGI gum? In fact, the initial concept was such a successful commercial, that the behemoth Verizon changed the lyrics and made their own version. Even if it was a spoof, Verizon recognized the power of the Big Red spot and capitalized on it. That's thinking like a major corporation.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go make out endlessly with my boyfriend in a phone booth in the rain, or something equally surprising and ironic. 



Rating: ooooo (five gumballs)

International Spotlight-- Excel Inferno

Flavor: Excel is the Canadian version of the American Eclipse pellet-style gum. Thanks to our friend Sandy, we got our hands on Inferno, the cinnamon flavor. Since I'm not a fan of “hot” gums and candies, I tested this gum with my roommate, who is a fan of uncomfortable burning sensations in his mouth. The sting, for me, was at first really overwhelming, and I thought it would please fans of this sensation, but my roommate felt it wasn't spicy enough at all. The heat faded quickly into a sweet, more traditionally cinnamon flavor. I continued chewing for a while and I have to say it's a nice flavor, and it lasts a pretty long time. If I were a cinnamon person, I might be really impressed with this gum. My roommate, however, spit it out and deemed it “disgusting.”

Texture: It's your average pellet gum. The size of the piece is far too small, and the texture is perhaps a little too firm for my tastes. But it's not a bad bite, all in all.

Overall: Well, Canada, it seems we have similar taste in gums. I'm curious to try the Eclipse version of this gum and see how they match up. The french alternate text was a delight to see, though, I must say, and the pun on Excel (“Excel-lerate your breath!”) was cute, although sort of a stretch. It's not really breath-freshening, either, or “Rafrachaichaleine!” as they might say in Quebec. But it's all right.

Rating: ooo (three gumballs)

Trident Cinnamon

Flavor: It's a nice, sweet cinnamon. It gives a little bit of tang to your tounge, but it's not too overwhelming that you can't leave it between your gums and teeth for a minute or two if you need to hide the fact that you're chewing. I like that the packaging features actual cinnamon sticks. I feel like most cinnamon candies and gums lose sight of the fact that cinnamon is a spice, instead choosing to market it as some kind of XTREEEEEEM HEAT or something.

Texture: Starts off a little too soft, but rapidly congeals to a fantastic texture for a prolonged chew. It's a bit softer than most gums, but I don't consider that a bad thing, necessarily. It does develop a squeak (I need to rapid-fire test a bunch of cinnamon gums to see if it's a cinnamon thing) but it's nothing that would cause embarrassment in church or anything.

Overall: I had a hankering for some cinnamon gum the other day, and I realized that it's been a while since we've reviewed any cinnamon here at GumAlert, so I picked up a pack of Trident Cinnamon. It's a choice I didn't regret. My pack is a little different than the one pictured above - instead of "Long Lasting Flavor" mine says "A Classic is Back!" I never really noticed its absence, but a quick Google search yeilds much information, including a blog dedicated to "Saving Trident Cinnamon." It had apparently been discontinued a couple years ago. Many thanks, Trident, for bringing it back. It's a valued member of your comprehensive line of gums, and one I will turn to again when a cinnamon craving hits.
Rating: ooooo (five gumballs)

Wrigley's 5 Flare

Flavor: The flavor of Wrigley's 5 Flare certainly is nothing to write home about. I'm a fan of a cinnamon gum once in a while when I'm in the mood for a change, but 5 Flare just falls flat. It's a little bit too sweet for my taste. If you like a milder cinnamon I suppose it would be fine, but I prefer my cinnamon flavor to be a little stronger, a little cinnamonny-er than this. The good part about it is that the flavor that IS there DOES last for a while.

Texture: In a word: SQUEAKY. Very, very squeaky. After the artificial sweeteners dissolve away it becomes by far the squeakiest gum I have ever chewed. It's SO squeaky, I'd be self-conscious chewing it in a business meeting. The sound and the feeling in my teeth is driving me absoutely crazy as I type this. Squeakiness aside, the firmness is damn near perfect, but I can't rate this gum very highly on texture due to that damn distracting squeak.

Overall: Not good, overall. I can't see myself ever picking up another pack of Wrigley's 5 Flare again. There are better cinnamon gums out there, with better flavor, that doesn't squeak. And also I have to say that I hold a bit of a grudge against the 5 line due to the packaging. 5 was the first gum line to come out in those flat "pocket packs." It was cool, and novel, and unique. It made the 5 line stand out. I liked it. But since then, ALL THE GUMS have switched to this stupid flat packaging. I miss Plen-T-Paks! They fit fine in my purse, pieces rarely fell out of the pack, and they slid in perfectly into this little shelf I have in my car where I keep my car-gum. The flat packs don't do any of those things. I suppose they're fine for men who carry gum in their pockets, but they don't work for me. End rant.

Rating: oo (two gumballs)