The Good: Good taste, Good ingredients
The Bad: Fatty, Fairly expensive
The Basics: Blue Diamond makes a reasonable foil for Salt ‘N Vinegar potato chips with their Bold Almonds!
When I was much younger, I fell in love with Salt And Vinegar potato chips. At the time, I’m not even sure if any of the major brands like Lay’s had jumped on that bandwagon or if Salt & Vinegar was still a novelty flavor produced by small brands who barely appeared on their radar. Then, in my late teens, I started truly hating all things pickled and I realized that it was the vinegar (to this day, it pains me to sit around coloring Easter eggs!). So, me giving Blue Diamond Salt ‘N Vinegar flavor Bold Almonds a try was largely a function of nostalgia and the fact I found them on post-Thanksgiving clearance locally.
The fact that I find myself pretty eagerly recommending the Blue Diamond Salt & Vinegar Bold Almonds is simply a function of how impressive they turned out to be!
Basics
Blue Diamond Salt ‘N Vinegar flavor Bold Almonds are a ready-to-eat snack that rises to the best expectations of salty snack consumers. Packaged in an 6 oz. cardboard canister, the Bold Almonds are well protected. After removing the safety seal, consumers have access to the almonds that are dusted with a powder that gives them their Salt ‘N Vinegar flavor. The Blue Diamond Salt ‘N Vinegar flavor Bold Almonds come in a resealable container that seems to work adequately to keep the smell in and other flavors out.
Outside their heavily frosted appearance, the Salt ‘N Vinegar Bold Almonds look just like ordinary almonds. Each 6 oz. container has six 1 ounce servings easily dispensed through the wide mouth of the container.
Ease Of Preparation
These are roasted nuts, so preparing them is as easy as opening the canister they come in and consuming them. There is no trick or work needed to eat Salt ‘N Vinegar flavor Bold Almonds.
Taste
The Salt ‘N Vinegar Bold Almonds smell exactly like one might expect. Opening the container, one gets hit with a whiff of vinegar that is potent and slightly off-putting. There is almost no hint of roasted almond scent lurking in the aroma that bursts out of the can of Blue Diamond Salt And Vinegar almonds!
On the tongue, the Salt & Vinegar Almonds explode with flavor. Each almond is a little different; some sharply sour, but many of them start as delightfully sweet before they turn tangy. The best comparative product is actually Sour Patch Kids (reviewed here!), for the way these nuts undergo a flavor transition. Never too much vinegar in their flavor to be unwelcome on the tongue, the Salt And Vinegar Bold Almonds reasonably season the otherwise bland nuts and keep one from ever tasting the simplistic, buttery nut that Blue Diamond has mastered adorning.
What surprised me most about the flavor (other than the fact that the vinegar was not oppressive, which the smell implied they could be), was how these nuts are not overly salty. In fact, the salt seems to act as a medium to hold the vinegar flavor to the nut without actually overwhelming the tongue at all. The result is a pretty delightful nut!
Nutrition
Blue Diamond Salt ‘N Vinegar Bold Almonds pass themselves off as a healthy snack, but the fat content in them makes it hard to get too enthusiastic about using them for “part of a healthy diet.” That said, I was surprised by how the Salt And Vinegar Almonds were comparatively low in Sodium and actually possessed some much-needed vitamins and minerals. A serving is considered 28 grams which is about an ounce (an estimated twenty-eight nuts). One serving is 170 calories, with 140 of those calories coming from fat. With the standard recommended serving size, the nuts have 15 grams (24% RDA) of fat! 6% of one’s RDA of fat comes from the one gram of saturated fat! With 8% of the RDA of calcium and six grams of protein, these nuts are full of nutrients. In addition to potassium (180 mg) and a reasonable amount of salt (only 140 mg – 6% RDA - sodium!), these nuts have iron, Vitamin E, and Magnesium in reasonable quantities.
The ingredients list for the Salt ‘N Vinegar flavor Bold Almonds is fairly short as well. Blue Diamond are made primarily of almonds, vegetable oil and salt. There is nothing unpronounceable in these nuts.
Storage/Clean-up
Just as with the preparation, Blue Diamond Salt ‘N Vinegar flavor Bold Almonds are low stress when it comes to storage and cleanup. Storage is simple when the nuts are kept in their canister at room temperature or cooler. Kept sealed in their canister, these nuts would not have expired until May 3, 2017 (though with entertaining for the holidays, they will never last that long).
Blue Diamond Bold Almonds are easy to clean up after as well. Simply wash your hands after eating to get any stray flavor dust off. There should be no other residue, but if there is, it may easily be wiped away with a damp cloth.
Overall
Blue Diamond Salt ‘N Vinegar flavor Bold Almonds are the perfect treat for those who remember liking Salt And Vinegar chips, but no longer like the salt, grease or overbearing vinegar of those chips. For a healthier option with a richer flavor, Blue Diamond hit the mark wonderfully with their Salt ‘N Vinegar Almonds!
For other Blue Diamond nut reviews, please visit my reviews of:
Strawberry Almonds
Dark Chocolate Almonds
Butter Toffee Oven Roasted Almonds
7.5/10
For other food and drink reviews, please visit my Random Food Review Index Page for an organized listing!
© 2014 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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