Whose Big Turk? My Big Turk, Apparently

As may be known ’round these parts, LitreCola is a generous man with a particular M.O.–anything he ships to a rando ‘Murrican is accompanied by a Big Turk (or Big’R Turk in some cases). Recently, he was kind enough to ship me some Canadian Maple Whiskey along with some snaxx, including the infamous BIG TURK.  So yeah, I ate it, duh. And I am now part of an ELITE club–DFOers who have consumed a BIG TURK (or BIG’R TURK) shipped to them by LitreCola.

With that gift comes a great responsibility–sharing our stories to warn/profess love/express ambivalence to the masses. Thus this group post/collective review of THE BIG TURK.

(Author’s privilege/prerogative, BFC’s review first)

BFC:

First, here’s the pic of the haul. The Big’R Turk is under the other candy, and there was a VERY thoughtful jar of homemade jam that didn’t survive the journey/made the packages stick together like an 8th grader’s stolen Playboy.

Not gonna lie, I went right for the Crunchie as soon as I got back from that first night of drinking in Bawlmer with the DFO East crew. But that’s not important right now.  Aboot a week later, we had a friend over, and I mentioned some international snaxx and asked if she wanted to try something VERY polarizing. So we busted out the BIG’R TURK!

For those of you that don’t know, the Big’R Turk comes in two…logs. You can kind of see the bend in the packaging in the banner pic up there. But beyond the visual (and Bazooka Joe-looking branding), my assembled taste testers and I had NO idea what to expect. We didn’t know it was purportedly a variant of turkish delight. We didn’t know what the…consistency would be. All we (ok I) knew was what I heard from the DFO back office, most of which was disparaging.  So we all bit into THIS:

Official photos look similar-ish:

Lady BFC’s initial (and repeated) comment was that it “tasted wet.”  While that is…questionable language, she wasn’t wrong. It is also VERY chewy. Like work out your jaw chewy. Eventually we collectively decided our consensus was that it was like a chocolate coated Chuckle without the sugar on the outside (and maybe having aged a lot longer). The chocolate was a little softer than expected and didn’t really go with the does-not-taste-like-turkish-delight interior but was better than American chocolate and kinda tasty. Our friend that was over could only say, “you know what? I don’t hate it.”  Tellingly, no one REALLY wanted a lot more, so I tucked the other log into the pantry with the rest of the all dressed chips.

Here’s the surprise, dear readers–I went back and finished it the other night.  Literally weeks later, I decided I wanted to finish it of my own volition, and it was actually tasty (enough). Would I buy this again?  Almost certainly not.  Would I eat another bite or three if it was put in front of me?  Probably, but I’m a fatty.

But at least I’ll have that maple whiskey to wash it down.

yeah right:

BFC speaks the truth.

Check out the swag package shipped to me.

There’s our subject of conversation piece right there in the middle. I was very happy that both of my jars of jam – peach and strawberry – survived because they were INSANELY delicious. Phenomenal. I had such a rush of nostalgia eating the jams that I was almost in tears. Now that’s a gift!

I intentionally made a fresh batch-o-homemade biscuits with the sole intent of trying these jams in their pristine state.

You want this. You want every single bite of this.

I’ll be honest, I thought the BIGR-Turk would be more like a Turkish delight you know? Kind of a toffee/taffy thing with a more pronounced almond flavor. I was not expecting a gummy date-jam experience. AT ALL! Again the prominent flavor that I got from the gummy interior was date. My experience is the opposite of Mr. Balls’ experience. I kind of liked the date gummy but I thought the chocolate was cloying and was completely superfluous. I do agree that when combined? That was some fucked up shit right there. I actually took the chocolate off of the next bite and just ate the date gummy and it was pretty decent.

I did check the side of the label because this fucker and that Crispy Crunch bar up there stuck to your goddamn teeth like crazy. Think Sugar Daddy or Jujube sticky. I was looking to see if both candies were sponsored by the Canadian Dental Association. It was less than 5 minutes after taking my second – and what ended up being my last – bite that I sprinted to the bathroom to brush and floss.

Verdict? I didn’t hate it but I didn’t love it either. Would I eat it again? Fuck no. Shit was too damn sweet.

I do have to chime in on one of the other items and I very well may be in the minority on this one. Those All Dressed Ruffles had enough sodium in them to preserve an Egyptian mummy. They were a fucking salt bomb. Decent flavor at first but I was fully fucking choked out after the third chip. No thank you.

Now you can send me that wonderful BC pinot noir again any goddam time you want. It was delightful.

BALLS:

I have previously written about my experience with the Big Turk. I can’t really find the post where I expressed my opinion, but I’ll try my best to recreate it here.

First off, let me just said that Canadian chocolate is VASTLY superior to American chocolate. Specially the milk chocolate. I personally prefer dark chocolate as it’s supposed to be healthier and American chocolate is, to my taste, disgustingly sweet.

Canadian milk chocolate, on the other hand, is creamy, balanced, and delicious. It is sweet, but not overly so. It does taste like there’s actually milk in it.

Now, imagine if you will taking this amazingly delicious Canadian milk chocolate and enveloping a gummy with it. The package makes reference to a Turkish Delight, but I’ve had Turkish Delight in fucking Turkey (or Turkiye) and I’m here to say that’s not what’s inside.

The gummy, however, is not bad. It’s also not overly sweet and it has a good taste.

Now, putting the two together in one convenient bar? That may be a bridge too far. I ended up sucking/licking the chocolate off before attacking the gummy. That was the most pleasurable way, for me, to eat the Big Turk.

One bite with everything combined? Not my cup of tea.

Did I like it? Yes, but only eating it the way I described.

Would I eat it again? Yes.

Would I buy it if it was available in the US? I’d buy bags of All-Dressed chips, Ketchup chips, Ketchup Cheetos, Coffee Crisps, Hickory Sticks, and a Weekender Bag of potato chips first, but yeah I probably would just to give to someone and watch their reaction.

REVEREND MAYHEM:

It’s not often you can trace a lifelong attitude back to a single moment (unless you are an educated MAGAt, at which point it was probably when that chick with an Indigo Girls poster on her dorm wall refused to go out with you).  But gather ’round, friends, and hear the tale of Young Mayhem Learns Canadians Are Filthy Deceptive Bastards.

As you may know, I spent the first years of my life Canada Adjacent. Heady days, those were- extremely fuzzy CBC broadcasts on TV, trips to the Canadian (pretty) side of Niagara Falls and burning off several layers of leg skin on the bleachers at Exhibition Stadium watching the Blue Jays and Mariners play.

It was that on that trip that I encountered the Big Turk for the first time. We had gone to The North with our neighbors, who were natives of Toronto and had somehow infiltrated our borders.

After the game, Gary (the father of that family) obtained a can of Brio and a Big Turk bar for me. I politely refused his kind offer, because my mother would kill me and use my skin as material for curtains if I had candy AND a soda  He convinced me, however, that it was terribly impolite not to sample the local cuisine.

Five year-old Mayhem was deathly afraid of offending anyone, let alone an entire nation. So in the name of international peace and diplomacy, I ate the candy bar.

Friends, it was one of the twenty worst things I’ve ever eaten. Friendly, inviting chocolate conceals a beating heart of purple-pink goddawfulness. I did not have the words to express the flavor and texture at the time. Even now, the sense-memory is garbled to the point where I cannot match it up to such pedestrian concepts as “sweet” or “gel-like” or “fruity” as I see in some reviews. It is the taste of Betrayal made manifest.

I am told that after gamely chewing and swallowing the first nodule with a straight face (remember, this was international diplomacy), I gravely asked for a drink. I don’t recall this. I do remember taking a swig of the Brio and immediately opening my mouth to let it dribble down my shirt, as I was too young to know the proper technique for the Classic Spit-take. I also remember my mom going semi-ballistic over my lack of manners while Gary laughed his treacherous Canadian ass off. The ride home was…tense.

I have since returned to Canada many times. I have Canadian friends, both real and Internet Imaginary. I enjoy Ryan Reynolds. So I guess I learned to forgive, though not forget. It was that day that I learned the hard lesson of Northern Perfidy. And it was the Big Turk that was my teacher.

Game Time Decision
originally posted here 

So I had the bar.  There’s another candy bar that’s somewhat soft but crazy chewy and its hard to bite off a piece, called Eat More.  Nope. Wasn’t sure what to expect so had a bite. Wasn’t expecting the centre to be like a gummy bear. I don’t like the combination of chocolate and gummies but that’s me. Or just may be this bar.  To try be fair I had a few more bites and the thing that most stood out to me is the after taste. I’m not sure how to describe it, but slightly sweet, but with a hint of chocolate and something else. Want to say citrus but imitation citrus done tres badly. The after  taste wouldn’t go away so found some pretzels to cleanse the palette. I did nawt finish the bar.  I think the only way I’d willing eat more of these in the future would be if they had THC in them. Or if there’s money on the line, then sure.
I tried to have Mrs GTD and the kids try it to get other opinions but after they saw it and I told them what it was like, none of them wanted to touch it. Can’t say I blame them and they are very picky eaters, so not unexpected.

King Hippo

Have you ever thought about melting and re-forming a rubber tire, then rolling it about in goat excrement?  Too late, the makers of the Big Turk have already beaten ye to it.  I was maybe one bite into the chew when I gagged and ran for the trash can.  Good luck washing that aftertaste away, too.

It was so gruesome that I skipped that fondest of American traditions – going to my family and trying to coax them into tasting it.  We love to share what disgusts us most (see Girls 2, Cup 1).

Editor’s Note: The gift-giver himself earns/gets the final word

litre_cola – This all started with Balls sending me Mexi snaxx from LA. I wanted to reciprocate the deal so I was looking for things that you can’t purchase in the United States. I saw the Big Turk and knew it was a polarizing candy bar so I ran with it.

I believe thus far it has been sent to a dozen of you. (Thank you all for the reciprocating packages) I’ve enjoyed the reactions that these chocolate covered perfume bars have garnered and will continue to be included in booze exchanges etc. I usually include other things that are far more palatable unless you win the TWBS Memorial FF league and then you get a small, plastic bottle of shitty vodka and a Big Turk.

As for me, I can eat one but never purposely buy it. That being said when I do put these packages together I usually buy one for myself as they are kind of hard to find and not available everywhere. I wonder why?

(Last word my ass, Litre) Horatio Cornblower:  Let’s keep this short and sweet:  this is the worst thing I’ve ever put in my mouth, and I went to an all-boys Catholic high school.  It’s like someone in Canada ate one of those old-timey Charleston Chews and decided that they were being dared to make something worse.  Without first realizing that there’s a reason you can’t find Charleston Chews anymore, and that reason is that they sucked.  This “candy bar” is what you would get if an old tire fucked a mud puddle.  And they were first cousins.  And the mud puddle drank during the ensuing pregnancy.  The Big Turk has no redeeming value and little reason to exist, except perhaps being handy to have on hand if your roof springs a leak and you need to jam something impervious to water, and teeth, in there to save your house.