Trader Joe's Peanuts in a Pickle

In case you forgot to pick up a bag of plain peanuts and a shaker of Seasoning in a Pickle on your last Trader Joe's run, no worries. TJ's has your back. They've gone and mixed pickle flavors into peanuts for you. It's almost as if they tried mixing the aforementioned pickle seasoning blend with peanuts and realized it's absurdly messy. And it's not only messy, but not enough seasoning sticks to the nuts. So they went and...I honestly don't know what they did. I think they actually pickled these nuts! <reaches down inside and finds the restraint to avoid any juvenile "deez nuts" jokes>

The back of the bag gives us hints but no real answers. It's says the peanuts are "infused" with pickle flavor. Later on in the spiel, they use the word "imbued." It mentions there's no powder in the equation. It's true. There's not. And the nuts aren't oily at all, either. They might even be less oily than regular peanuts somehow. Sonia kept remarking how dry they were. But they certainly have a pickle taste to them.

At first, we both thought the pickle flavor was a little on the weak side, but then after a few handfuls, we felt the briny pickliness build up on our tongues. I might not have minded a bit more pickle taste, but Sonia was pleased with the intensity of the flavor.

They actually look identical to regular Virginia peanuts. There's no green color, no visible flecks of dill, nothing. Just like they can edit genomes and create plants that yield more fruit or be drought-resistant or whatever, I think maybe they spliced some DNA and cross-bred peanuts with pickles to make these. <Cue comments where people tell me pickles are just pickled cucumbers and that pickles don't have their own genetic code blah blah blah yadda yadda science science science>

$2.49 for the bag. Sonia likes them more than I do and would buy them again. I'm on the fence. Four stars from her. Three from me.

Bottom line: 7 out of 10.