Firefly Love Potion Passionfruit & Blueberry natural drink

Firefly Tonics are a range of drinks with all natural blends of fruit juice, botanical extracts and still water and absolutely no added sugar, preservatives or colourings. I love the bold designs covering their glass bottled drinks and this Valentine's edition is no exception.

It's fun and cute and I love the name given to this juice too; "Love Potion". Although it's unfortunately not guaranteed to put a spell on anyone (!) it does say on the side of the bottle that this drink has been "spiced up with nature's naughtiest ingredients...". The botanical extracts in this drink include; angelica, jasmine, cardamon, rosemary and even chocolate! Forget the usual flowers and chocolate boxes, buying one of these drinks for your love interest, is also a sweet and romantic gesture!

The drink itself contains a blend of fruit juices including; white grape, passionfruit, orange, blueberry and elderberry but also still water. The result is a light and refreshing drink. It's closer to a flavoured water  than a fruit juice. The fruit flavours are all very delicate and fresh, none of the individual flavours is dominant. Overall this is a great drink for a quick daytime energy boost without the need to turn to a heavy or sugar packed alternative.

Grocery Gems Verdict: Firefly Love Potion

RATING: 8 out of 10.
Buy them again?: Yes.
Nutrition (per 330ml bottle): 102 calories. 0.3g protein, 7.2g carbohydrates, <0.1g fat.
Purchased: Whole Foods Market.
Price: £1.49.

Swizzels Matlow Squashies: Love Hearts, Drumsticks and Refreshers

These Squashies by Swizzels Matlow are all based on their classic hard or chewy sweets, turning them into softer jelly sweets. There are three varieties; Love Hearts, Drumsticks and Refreshers. The packets all look bright and eye catching, and obviously aimed at fans of Haribo type sweets.

The Love Hearts Squashies are larger in size than a standard Love Heart sweet. Despite that the messages on each sweet are much harder to read and indeed, on some sweets, the message was virtually indeciperable. It's obviously a lot harder to mould a message onto a jelly sweet! It's still a nice idea and great to have an alternative to the original Love Hearts sweets, especially if you are not a fan of sherbet chalky sweets. The sweets are all fruity on one side and have a marshmallow type backing. The flavours are all fairly fruity but mainly just very sugary. Some of them also had an odd aftertaste that I didn't like at all. For that reason I would personally choose a bag of Haribo Heart Throbs over these.

The Drumstick Squashies have a lovely pick and white colouring. They are based on the classic Drumstick which is an extremely chewy lollipop sweet. These Drumstick Squashies are nicely soft and squishy, more so than the Love Hearts Squashies.

The fronts of the sweets are very neat with bands of white and pink. The backs have a more swirled effect, which I liked the look of too!

The flavour is mainly strawberry and apple but for some reason I can taste a slightly coconut flavour in them. They don't list coconut as an ingredients (it's just "flavourings" anyway) but my taste buds certainly picked it up. I much preferred the flavour and texture of these Drumstick Squashies, and they are definitely the squashiest of the bunch!

The last of the Squashies is this Refreshers version. The original Refresher sweets are a fruity flavoured chalky fizzy sweet. They often come in a tube of yellow and pink sweets, a characteristic which is echoed in this Squashies version.

The Refreshers Squashies are described as strawberry and lemon flavour. They have a sugary sherbet covering which is not sour and just adds a slightly crunchy texture. The strawberry ones were my favourite - the flavour reminded me of strawberry ice cream. The lemon ones were quite disappointing as there is no real lemon flavour to them, they just tasted bland and sugary. The flavours have obviously been pitched more at kids but I think these could have done with some extra flavour.

Overall it's a very cute selection of sweets and I like the idea behind it, but it's slightly let down by the flavours.

Grocery Gems Verdict: Swizzels Matlow Squashies

RATING: 6.5 out of 10.
Buy them again?: I would buy the Drumstick Squashies again.
Purchased: Asda.
Price (each 160g bag): £1.55.

J20 Glitter Berry Limited Edition

I first read about this drink on The Review Addict blog and I've always wanted to try it. My lovely husband put together a gorgeous Valentine's Day hamper for me earlier at the weekend (it was also our wedding anniversary earlier this week) and this was one of the treats in it. I will be posting quite a few reviews today! The J20 Glitter Berry is a grape, cherry and spice juice drink with a gorgeous edible gold glitter! It's hard to capture fully on camera but you can see from the photo above just how shimmery it is!

The drink comes in a four pack of 275ml glass bottles. Everything about the packaging feels quite sparkly and special. Even though this was released as a Christmas drink I think it makes a great drink for Valentines Day! I loved shaking the bottle and seeing the glitter swirling around, it's a very girly drink!

I had expected this drink to be quite rich and sugary, but after taking a closer look at the ingredients I saw that it's a water based drink, hence the name "juice drink" rather than "fruit juice" on the label. I found the main flavour to be of the cherry, with a light background of grape. I couldn't detect much in the way of spices, I thought there might be some cinnamon flavour in it but I certainly couldn't taste any. Overall it's a lovely refreshing cherry drink and I hope it will return next Christmas too!

Grocery Gems Verdict: J20 Glitter Berry Juice Drink

RATING: 9 out of 10.
Buy them again?: Yes.
Nutrition: 77 calories.
Purchased: Tesco.
Price: £4.29.

Angry Birds Space Comet - Orange Cola Drink (Cybercandy)

This range of Angry Birds Cola is so popular in it's native Finland, that it's even started to win the "cola wars" there, outselling the more popular brands of cola. Is this because the Angry Birds are so popular or is it because the drink just tastes better than rival colas?

I recently reviewed some Angry Birds sweets, which were also manufactured in Finland. I was really impressed by them as they were tasty and not pumped full of artificial ingredients. I picked up this Angry Birds Space Comet which is described online as an orange flavoured cola. I've had vanilla, cherry and a lime flavoured cola, so an orange flavoured cola was something I simply had to try!

The cola is the dominant taste at first, it's a very sweet and light kind of cola - not too fizzy or strong. After that first flavour of cola it becomes more of a fizzy orangeade as the citrus flavour kicks in. It's zingy and fresh without being overpowering. I enjoyed the overall flavour combination, it's very unusual but it works well.

The real winner is the packaging, which is striking and fun. As you can see from the pictures, the Grocery Gems' household contains a few gamers and gaming related toys, so I am always attracted to video game themed grocery products. I also love buying crazy drinks from all around the world at Cybercandy, and this Angry Birds cola kills two (angry) birds with one stone(!) Even better, it has the added bonus of being quite tasty! Not something I can say about all the gamer themed drinks and grocery products I've tried.

There are four drinks available in this range: tropical fruit flavoured ‘Angry Birds Tropic’, the mandarin and pineapple-flavoured ‘Angry Birds Paradise’, the apple and pear flavoured ‘Angry Birds Lagoon’, and this orange and cola flavoured ‘Angry Birds Space Comet’.

Grocery Gems Verdict: Angry Birds Space Comet

RATING: 8.5 out of 10.
Buy them again?: I'd go for the Angry Birds Lagoon drink next.
Nutrition (330ml can): 111 Calories
Purchased: Cybercandy.
Price: £1.85p.

Border Biscuits Sharing Pack Review

I'm so excited about this review because I LOVE Border Biscuits, they're simply my favourite biscuit brand. The main reason for that is their divine Viennese Whirl biscuits (more of which later!). Border Biscuits is a family owned Scottish company, whose philosophy is focused on one thing - the quality of their biscuits.

I was delighted to be asked to try out this new "Made for Sharing" pack of Border Biscuits. I mean, just look at it, it's fabulous! It's essentially a selection box of biscuits in four varieties; Butterscotch Crunch, Strawberry & Cream Shortbread, Milk Chocolate Viennese Whirls (yum!) and Toffee Apple Crumbles.

The lid opens to reveal a perfect display of upright golden biscuits. I couldn't help myself, I had to delve straight in and start with the Chocolate Viennese Whirls. The Viennese Whirl biscuit is traditionally a combination of vanilla and buttery flavours, all wrapped up in a lovely light biscuit. As I said in the intro, the Border Biscuits Viennese Whirls are undoubtedly my favourite biscuits and I'm going to to do a separate review of those soon!

Chocolate Viennese Whirls

In this sharing pack there are four Chocolate Viennese Whirls, which are just as delicious, buttery and with a perfect vanilla flavour, as my favourite biscuits, but with the added bonus of an undercoating of milk chocolate. The whole thing is just biscuit perfection.

Strawberry & Cream Shortbread

The next biscuit that really appealed to me is the Strawberry & Cream Shortbread. My husband loves shortbread biscuits and even though he usually goes for the plain buttery type, he adored this Strawberry & Cream version too. The texture of the shortbread is just amazing, like the Viennese Whirl, it melts in the mouth perfectly. There are juicy strawberry pieces in every mouthful which are just bursting with flavour. Another winner!

Butterscotch Crunch

The next two biscuits in the pack are more of a "cookie" type of biscuit, they are less buttery and more crunchy - perfect with tea! The Butterscotch Crunch is filled with little butterscotch pieces that are crunchy but with a little chewiness. As these biscuits are slightly thinner than the first two types, they have more of snap and crunch when you eat them, but, they are still wonderfully light and melt in the mouth.

Toffee Apple Crumble

The last biscuit is a new addition to the Border Biscuit family, the amazing sounding Toffee Apple Crumble, and wow, these biscuits really do live up to my high expectations. I find that most "apple" flavoured snacks are quite disappointing in their lack of appley-ness (I'm sure that's the correct technical term!). That is not the case here, these biscuits taste of apple from the first bite to the last. The background toffee flavour accompanies the apple perfectly. There is a hint of cinnamon too and lots of crunchy sugar for added texture. These are scrumptious biscuits which should be savoured and enjoyed.

As you can tell I loved all of these biscuits, they are classic biscuits with traditional homemade flavours, and are unbelievably moreish. This pack has obviously been made with a "sharing" aspect in mind, and they would make a stunning biscuit to serve up when guests come over - although if you're anything like me, you'll probably be more tempted to keep them for yourself!

 Grocery Gems Verdict: Border Biscuits Sharing Pack

RATING: 10 out of 10 (only my second ever 10 out of 10!).
Buy them again?: Absolutely.
Purchased: Sent to me by Border Biscuits for an honest review.
Price: Available at Morrisons (I will update with the price).