Maynard’s Wine Gums

While having lunch with M. and Trash Giant, Trash had brought a couple of candies for M. and I to try. Apparently, M. had picked up a large back of grotesque candy and Trash loves to watch M. and I’s faces contort as we try to power through them.


The first on the list was Maynard’s Wine Gums. Yes, as in wine-flavored gummi candy. They come in a tightly wrapped plastic tube and look sort of like JuJu Be’s or Dots. We sorted them out, so both M. and I got the same number of each color. With the exception of the green one. Wait, what? Green? Yes. Green.


We started out with the darkest one. We figured we’d bust out the lighter wines first to maintain proper palate, right? Yeah, we’re classy like that. We jumped right into what was sure to be a Zin or maybe a Pinoi Gris. Frankly, it wasn’t bad. It chewed like a JuJu Be or a Dot, and stuck to your teeth like one, as well (remember this part). It really didn’t taste a whole lot like wine, but I guess you could kind of see where they were going with it. Not a bad start.

We headed for the darker colors next. In fact, there was an orange-ish colored one that I went right for. I’m not sure if it was meant to be a rose or something, but it was delicious. It did taste a little like orange, but I wasn’t sure if my mind told my tongue it was going to taste like that due to its color. Stupid brain. It was good though.


Then, M. claims he read “Claret” on one of the gummis somewhere, but I couldn’t see that anywhere. That one was far less tasty than either of the first ones. Not sure exactly what the flavor was on that one. Not awful, but not good.

We finally got to the darkest of the bunch – I’m sure it was Merlot. It wasn’t Merlot. It was basically a rubber tire flavor. Absolutely disgusting. Not quite a black gummi, it was such a dark purple that it appeared to be black and evil. It tasted awful. I finally decided we should split the green one. What wine was going to be green. None at all, in fact. It was lime. I’m not sure how limes made it into a wine-flavored package, but one of them did. I thought perhaps maybe it was supposed to represent a margarita or something else alcoholic. It wasn’t bad, though.

And for the finisher, I had stashed an extra orange one to cleanse my palate. It was probably the smartest thing I had done since starting this odd version of adult gummi bears. I don’t think I’d recommend these gummis to anyone. They’re not terrible and they’re certainly edible, but if you’re looking for a buzz, go ahead and soak some gummi bears in vodka like a normal person.