Zotter Peanuts & Ketchup

The bizarre world of Zotter continues to evolve at an incredible pace, although I think this particular bar has been around a while. If the slightly odd choice of flavours didn’t give it away, the American flag illustration on the wrapper should make the influence here quite clear.

Most of the writing is in German, so I’m not sure if Zotter just brainstormed a list of American flavours and put them together in a bar (in which case, I fully expect to see a Coca Cola and Cheeseburger flavour variety soon), or if there was a greater reason behind this choice of flavours.

The list of ingredients is extensive. The bar contains everything from tomato pulp to raisins, grappa and birds eye chilli, all wrapped up in a thin layer of 70% dark chocolate.

As you can see, the format is exactly the same as Zotter’s other filled bars, meaning you get a lot of filling and not much chocolate.

There are two distinct layers inside the bar, with the soft peanut praline nougat on the bottom, and the ‘ketchup’ layer on top.

Taken on its own, the peanut nougat layer is actually very nice indeed. It has a delicious, slightly crunchy texture, and a flavour that takes me back to a time in my life when I thought Snickers was the height of luxury.

The ketchup layer is equally surprising. Although not a true ketchup, there’s definitely a tomato flavour going on there, but it’s nicely balanced by all the other sweet fruit. The flavour is quite sharp and very fruity, which is partly due to apple juice and lemon concentrate in the mix.

Put together, the flavours do clash a little, although it still just about works. The tangy ketchup does taste a little odd with the smooth peanut, but once you get used to it, it’s actually quite pleasant. Odd, but pleasant.

The chocolate itself doesn’t make much of an appearance, which is the thing I find a little disappointing about these filled bars. The small hint of it that you get right at the end is very pleasant, but otherwise the ‘ketchup’ flavour dominates it entirely.

You wouldn’t buy one of these crazy Zotter bars for the chocolate though. You’d buy it as a novelty gift or to share with curious friends. It’s one of those things that’s worth trying, but you probably only need to try it once.

You might also like...