It begins, the great Christmas binge where we all eat too much chocolate, overdose on fizzy drinks, and mop up ridiculous amounts of booze...all in the name of our Blessed Lord's birthday. Christmas biscuits are a strange phenomenon. They only come out one month a year and a simple tin box seems to inflate the price three-fold. There is one biscuit that stands head and shoulder above the rest at Xmas time though, and that's the incomparable Chocolate Kimberley.

At this juncture I must confess something. I no longer eat these because I'm a vegetarian and they contain Gelatine which is in animal derivative. Some of you may say that this would preclude me from reviewing these biscuits. I disagree. I've eaten enough of them over the years to adequately recall their taste, texture and construction.

Separated at birth? A regular Kimberley and Zippy from Rainbow.

Chocolate Kimberleys (CKs) are probably the most bourgeois biscuit in the Jacobs stable. Demand for them became so great in the early days of the Celtic Tiger that Jacobs took to selling them all year round in an individually wrapped, ostentatiously packaged six unit format. These seem to have disappeared from the shelves.

Down to business. The CK doesn't dunk well. When you dunk a biscuit, you want the hot liquid to have an effect on the whole biscuit. The fact that CKs are completely covered in chocolate prohibits any liquid access to the gooey-biscuity core. This is an utter shame as the hint of ginger in the biscuit coupled with the mallow centre would be a veritable mouth party. I've already hinted at the value for money aspect. CKs are hopelessly overpriced. The thing is, you always get them as presents so you're less troubled about the price.

Consistency is one of the CK's strong points. The chocolate nearly always covers the biscuit (see photo above). The CKs strength, however, lies in its novelty. Chocolate and mallow don't often go together and the genius in Jacobs' product development should be commended for coming up with the idea of smathering the already excellent Kimberley with chocolate.

Value for Money: 4

Consistency: 7.5

Dunkability: 6

If it were a car it would be : one of those flashy Hyundai SUVs

Overall: 7.5

Synonymous with Christmas and even though it lacks in many key areas its novelty factor makes it a champion.

tags:[Chocolate Kimberleys]

Published by El Commandant P.