Sometimes Foodie: A Moscow Mule you Can Chew

Crinkle Cut Moscow Mule Chips - Aldi

Moscow Mules are a Christmas-thing, right? I feel like I always see the copper mugs around the holidays, but I'm not 100% sure. I've never had one, no particular reason why or anything, I'm just not a big drinker. Boozy beverages taste kind of off or medicinal to me. (Which, fun fact, is why I have only ever been drunk once in my life. I just don't like the taste of anything to drink more than one of them.) I'm always open to trying new things, like the beer my friends bring to parties or fancy cocktails, so why not try it in chip form?

A few months ago Aldi released these, and a bloody Mary version, as part of a boozy brunch/happy hour line of snacks. The bloody Mary flavor made sense to me, since it contains such savory elements, but with a Moscow Mule, I wasn't so sure.

Briefly let's talk packaging. The bag is a copper foil color, which is really nice, and mimics the iconic cups I always see Moscow Mules advertised in. I really like the foiled look, and the images of the ice cold glass and chips are pretty alluring. Overall, pretty damn nice for Aldi. I think this could easily pass for a fancier store brand at a glance.

I had a general idea of what a Moscow Mule was, I knew booze, ginger and lime were involved, but I had to google it just to be sure. According to google, an official Moscow Mule is lime, ginger beer, and vodka. At first I thought it sounded like a really odd combination for a savory chip, but after giving it some thought, this probably won't be too bad. I mean, I very much doubt there will be any "vodka" notes in the chips, so after that, there is just ginger and lime. Lime is commonly found on tortilla chips, which is nice, and a while back Lay's had their wasabi ginger chips that I really enjoyed, so maybe this will work a lot better than I expected.

When opened, the chips inside smell sweet, kind of like a mixture between Trix cereal (which always seemed lime-heavy to me growing up) and salted potato chips. Better than I expected. There are still notes of potato and salt, as expected, but there's a healthy amount of sweet lime in there and a kind of flat, ginger ale.

I popped a chip into my mouth and it's weird, but not bad. I can taste sweet lime, salty potato chip, and a slight hint of ginger ale, in that order. No vodka to be found. The ginger doesn't show up until the very end, and it's very mild. For the most part, these are just sweet and salty, very lime heavy, potato chips.

This was not a case of love at first bite. Initially I thought they were a dud and I had wasted my money. Who wants lime breakfast cereal potato chips? Well, after a few more snacking sessions, apparently, I do. As we all know I hate wasting money, so I kept munching on these, and you know what? I actually like them a lot now. Thanks to their bright but sweet lime flavoring, I found that they paired nicely with seafood. I made a tuna steak the one night and these were a lovely snacky-side dish. Honestly, these would pair nicely with any meal where you would welcome a squeeze of citrus. My only complaint now is the bag I got was pretty destroyed, it was hard finding un-shattered chips for easy snacking, there was a lot of potato shrapnel, but that isn't a deal breaker. Just an annoyance.

The real test is, would I buy these again? And I think I would. I am enjoying these far more than I ever expected and my bag is almost empty already.

Do these taste like a real Moscow Mule? I wouldn't know, but common sense is telling me no. So if you're a big fan of the beverage you might be disappointed, but if you like weird potato chips, and lime, do yourself a favor and give these a try. I bought these on a whim thinking it might lead to a funny "OMG it's gross" kind of review, but I'll be damned, I like them!