Life Savers "Black Currant Pastilles"

Darrell Lea

There are two parts of the name of this candy that do not describe the actual candy at all. First of all, these are not Life Savers as I know them. Life Savers are historically (at least where I grew up) round, often hard candies, with a hole in the middle. These are round, but there is no hole, and I would say that a hole is a crucial part of the aesthetic of a Life Saver. The other part of this candy's description that doesn't really work for me, is the word “pastilles”. I generally associate pastilles with very hard gummies that have a slight menthol aftertaste. These are gummies, but they're not that hard at all. There is also a slight minty flavour to these, but it's so subtle that it could be just my imagination wanting them to be minty, I'm not entirely sure.

I would however say that the flavour does correspond to “pastilles” a bit, as black current is a common flavour of pastille. Having said that, black current is not a flavour that I would describe as exclusive to pastilles. In fact I would say that a black current gummy, or even a black current Life Saver would not seem odd at all. So what you have here is a tube of black currrent gummies, with no hole in the middle.

The strange thing is, they're not that bad. In fact I could safely say that as a black current gummy, these are really good. The flavour is very powerful, with a slight tart aftertaste. The texture is wonderfully squishy, and I managed to eat the whole tube of them with no jaw pain at all. I would actually recommend these very much to just about anybody. The problem I have is that they're not really what's described on the package. That makes me wonder if a black current Life Saver pastille would be as good as this candy.