Snaffling Pig 2019 Advent Calendar Review
Reviewed by Louise Totton
I was lucky enough a few weeks ago to be asked to sample one of the Snaffling Pig’s gift sets – their Hot Stuff Gift Set, which comprised of three differently flavoured spicy jars of delicious pork crackling. To say I’ve been salivating over it since I finished the last mouthful is an understatement, so it was a real treat when they then sent over one of their advent calendars for me to try out. When I was growing up, advent calendars didn’t even have a chocolate square behind the door, and we used to race downstairs just to open the door and look at the picture of the day – can you imagine kids getting excited about that these days?!? Anyway, we have progressed from picture calendars to chocolate calendars and now we’re getting even more adventurous with toy advent calendars for kids and even ones aimed specifically at adults. I’m not an awfully ‘chocolatey’ person, so the idea of having a tiny portion of savoury yumminess behind the doors every morning for a month really appealed to me.
Snaffling Pig actually have three different advent calendars this year – they have the standard calendar which has six different flavours behind the 24 doors, the Pig Of Doom on which has a little bag of their spiciest offering every day, and the Gluten Free option which is the one that I was sent. The Gluten Free advent calendar contains three different flavours, so there is obviously a lot of repetition, but I love their products so much that I wasn’t worried about that at all! The three different flavours are Perfectly Salted, Salt N Vinegar and Low & Slow BBQ, all of which are in individually sealed 8g bags behind the doors.
I really liked the image on the from of the calendar – it features a specially commissioned piece of art which perfectly depicts the craziness of Christmas in the average household, and it really does! This is an adults’ calendar, so there’s not a twee, snowy scene in sight, instead think of dad in a booze and mince pie induced coma on the couch, a random uncle sat on the toilet reading the newspaper and an underneath the mistletoe snog! It’s a bit quirky, a bit different and I loved it.
The pork crackling nestling behind each door is in a little individual bag so it stays super fresh and crackly! The bags are really very small, but if you were comparing them to a normal advent calendar that just has a square of chocolate, it would definitely compare favourably. I loved all three flavours – they really are lip smackingly tasty and I thoroughly enjoyed snaffling my way through them. For someone who is gluten free, I thought it was nice to have a product that felt mainstream. Lots of the gluten free advent calendars are in the ‘free-from’ section and are also free from dairy, egg, soya etc, so can feel a bit lacking as manufacturers try to make one single free from product that caters for all allergies.
It would have been nice to have had a few more flavours in there – the standard calendar has six flavours and I would have loved to have had the same choice in the gluten free option, but it’s one of those things and I thoroughly enjoyed the flavours that were in there. All three of the calendars are £17.50 which I think is a good price – most of the quirky and adult calendars are £15-£30, so I think this represents good value for money. I have loved trying it out and it is lovely to have something so different and unusual. I absolutely love every Snaffling Pig product that I have tried, and the advent calendar is no different.
Rating: 5/5
RRP: £17.50
For more information or to buy visit www.snafflingpig.co.uk.
