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I blame Instagram's influencers as to why I spent weeks hunting down the Twix Winter Spice bars. At least I found them, unlike the McVitie's Digestives Christmas Pudding Milk Chocolate Biscuits, which still remain elusive (on that note, I finally found McVitie's Digestives Gingerbread Milk Chocolate Biscuits).
Made by Mars, this limited-edition Twix introduces festive spices into the mix. If you hate spiced products at Christmas, look away now!
I found the two-finger Twix Winter Spice bars in my local Co-op store, hidden away on a display tucked behind a structural column in the middle of an aisle. Needless to say, I picked them up to see what they were like. I mean, Instagrammers were going crazy over this latest "game changer" and I was curious to see if it lived up to the hype.
Packaging
The Twix Winter Spice bar is packaged in a two-finger pack inside a red and golden film wrapper. It's a subtle twist on the regular Twix wrapper, and doesn't scream "Christmas" but instead nods to it.
Other than the words "limited edition" and "Twix Winter Spice", there's not much else going on here. There's a graphic of a pair of Twix bars and an indicator to the calorie count (113 calories per individual 23g bar in case you wondered).
On the rear is the ingredients list and nutritional information.
Twix Winter Spice ingredients:
Sugar, glucose syrup, wheat flour (16%), palm fat, cocoa butter, skimmed milk powder, cocoa mass, lactose, milk fat, whey powder (from milk), mixed spices (cinnamon, coriander, cloves, nutmeg, ginger, cardamom), fat reduced cocoa, salt, emulsifier (soya lecithin), raising agent (E500), orange peel, natural vanilla extract.
Twix Winter Spice contains 49% sugars and is suitable for vegetarians.
Twix Winter Spice Review
Unwrapping the Twix, I picked up a slight ginger and cinnamon aroma from the bar. In terms of appearance, these look like two regular Twix fingers. Machine made, they're finished with a ripple coating of milk chocolate.
Snap it in two and pull it apart to reveal a gooey golden caramel on top of a crunchy biscuit. As I did this, it yielded more noticeable festive fragrances, with a hint of nutmeg supplementing the ginger and cinnamon. I also picked up the faintest hint of orange notes.
What does it taste like? It's Christmasy. It's the classic combination of festive spices and so this tastes like most things that are Christmas spiced, albeit in a Twix format.
The heady spices sit front and centre, which ought to be a good thing as some festive products only have the subtlest hint of spicing. However, the spices used here drown out the flavours of the caramel and the chocolate.
It's still as easy to eat as a classic Twix bar and you'll find yourself polishing off the two fingers in a heartbeat. Nutmeg, ginger and cinnamon linger in the aftertaste for a while.
I'm not sure how I feel about this one. It gets top marks for full-on flavour but at the cost of masking what makes a Twix a Twix. I like the fact it's a novel twist on the classic Twix bar, and I like the bold flavours. But it masks the carefully balanced caramel-biscuit-chocolate harmony of an original Twix bar.
Bite into this expecting a chewy and crunch festively spiced chocolate bar and you'll be happy. Go into it expecting a Twix bar with a mild hint of Christmas spices and you'll be disappointed.
I'm glad I tried it, and I think it's an interesting product, but I can't help but think it would be better packaged in a smaller format as part of a Christmas edition of a Celebrations tub.
Twix Winter Spice Review
RRP: £0.95 | Twix | Shop now°
An interesting take on a Twix. The winter spices sit front and centre, but to the detriment of the carefully balanced flavours of the original Twix bar. If you like Christmas spiced products, you'll like this. I'd like to see it miniaturised and added as a limited-edition sweet in a Celebrations tub.
Where to Buy Online
Online, you're pretty much limited to Amazon and eBay. On Amazon, there's a five-pack of Twix Winter Spice here° as well as a case of 24 Twix Winter Spice Xtra bars here°.
In-store, I found these in my local Co-op. I haven't seen them anywhere else during my weekly shops.
Do you enjoy Christmas varieties of your favourite chocolates? Let me know in a comment below.
