Editor's note: I was gonna save this for a 2017 Best of the Bay Critics' Pick, but what I've since discovered is too good to sleep on.
Unbeknownst to many of our readers, the CL editorial staff tried Bob's Pickle Pops. Once.
These Texas-born, almost-decade-old treats, the quirky brainchild of Bob's Pickle Pops founder John Howard, are exactly what you think they are: dill pickle juice served up frozen in a vessel that resembles those nostalgic plastic tubes you had to nibble on in order to eat your favorite neon-colored popsicles as a kid, chunk by chunk. You know the freeze-and-eat ice bars I speak of — the kind that required an assist from Mom with scissors. (OK, so I just looked them up on Google. Are they really called Otter Pops?)
Anyway, this food editor is particularly fond of pickles — even Bob's frozen variety. Much to my excitement, we tasted the pop purveyor's sugar-free signatures, whose packaging depicts a fun-loving pickle spear, during an unaired test run of our young podcast, The CLAP. Turns out, though, not everyone is a fan of their straightforward flavor (they're supposed to taste like dill pickles, silly), and some of my co-workers weren't shy about making their disapproval known.
But that's OK, because the geniuses at Bob's also sell bottled, unfrozen liters of their glorious juice online for those of us who take our fluids seriously. There's even a portable sport drink called Pickle Potion No. 9, which is described as "a healthier, refreshing treat" and "a fast addition to your favorite adult beverage." (The latter isn't really all that sportsy, but I can dig it. Multipurpose.)
These seem like s'more podcasty stuff worth sampling on air — for real. Right, pickle pop haters?
This article appears in Aug 10-17, 2017.