The new “Frozen Strawberry & Nerds” from Burger King is a cup of crunchy sugar that looks like it’s straight out of a murder scene for the Kool-Aid Man.
It’s a cup of confused ice that has the consistency of a slush-covered city sidewalk in early February. The color is the shade of red that, if you saw it in the sky, you’d know the apocalypse is nigh.
For some reason, that’s then covered in a layer of Nerds candy-branded sugar-gravel that really drives home the feeling of walking through Candyland on a 26-degree day after a blizzard.
For some reason, Burger King gave me a straw with this. Are they trying to kill me?
The process of “drinking” this felt like I was being attacked with a pixie shotgun. I had to intermittently stop drinking so I could dig out and crunch away all the sugar buckshot blasted into my cheeks.
That’s before even getting into the horrors the red dye was inflicting upon my tongue.
Burger King Frozen Strawberry & Nerds | Review
Perhaps the most unnerving thing about this misguided alchemical romance in a cup is that Burger King is being a little cagey about what it actually is.
I’ve seen it described as a “candy drink,” “frozen beverage,” and “slushy drink.” But apparently, it’s a menu item called a “Frozen Strawberry” that has Nerds sprinkled on top.
Normally when I write these reviews, I phrase it as “I ate it so you don’t have to” or even “I drank it so you don’t have to.”
I did not know the correct verb to describe how I went about taking this awry chemical romance and putting it into my body.
I went with “consumed.” But by the end, I had to ask myself, who consumed who?
It was a sort of begrudging cold osmosis, an absorption of a nutritional felony that was trying to warn me of its dangers with its very color.
What does it taste like?
It tastes like a frozen Hawaiian Punch. As for the format, it’s a bit like an upside-down bubble tea. But instead of boba, you get the gravel from outside a gingerbread house.
After taking a sip, I thought for a moment that the flavor was “cherry.” But then I remembered that this was called a “Frozen Strawberry.”
I’ve come to the conclusion that the flavor of this drink is simply “red.” You know the flavor, it’s the one that pops up in every batch of gummy worms and popsicles ever created.
I know you can’t taste colors, but I could swear I could feel this actively dying my mouth red.
Texture-wise, this thing is a mess. The one I got couldn’t decide what state of matter it wanted to be. The top was like a blood-stained iceberg while the bottom felt like fluorescent runoff from a Capri Sun factory.
Somehow, this thing was in a constant state of either being too diluted with ice or too concentrated with red sugar. I had to do a lot of my own mixing to make it worth slurping through the straw.
What I really needed was one of those straws with the scoop at the end. If they could get those from my Little League baseball games in the ’90s, then Burger King can afford them.
So is it any good?
Well, it’s sugar and it tastes like a red popsicle.
If that’s something that interests you, go for it. Just don’t blame me when it wreaks havoc on your body.
The final word
I understand this isn’t designed for me. It’s designed to provide families with a $1.79 sugar fix to appease kids in the backseat, rile them up into a sugar tornado and then have them crash in a contorted pile of red-stained lips after the sugar crash.
Was that me in the backseat as a child? Maybe. Maybe not.
What are you, the sugar police? Am I being detained!? I know my rights!
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“I ate it so you don’t have to” is a regular food column about off-beat eats, both good and bad. I picked the name years ago and now we’re sort of stuck with it.
You can send any praise/food suggestions to [email protected]. Please send all criticisms and opinions on what this “drink” qualifies as to [email protected]. You can check out the rest of the series here.
