Hot Cheetos and Takis. That’s my favorite snack.

— Y.N. Rich Kids

Over 2.5 million viewers have watched “Hot Cheetos and Takis” over the past month and many have looked up at the sky and asked the god of all snacks, “Lord of snacks, what is a Taki?”

Takis are a corn chip snack from Mexican company Barcel, a division of the food conglomerate Grupo Bimbo, the same company known in the USA for selling Entenmann’s brand desserts. Takis come in five flavors: Guacamole, Salsa Brava, Crunchy Fajita, Fuego, and Nitro. The name Takis is derived from Taquitos, small rolled up tortillas with a meat or cheese filling that are fried and from which Takis derive their shape. While Takis are easy to find in the Southwest United States, in the North they are normally only found in Mexican specialty stores or bodegas that carry other imported snacks from Latin America.

I asked some neighbors who had never tried Takis to taste test each flavor. Do Takis live up to the hype?

To make this a more complete immersion immersion experience, we paired each flavor with the beverage also praised in the song, Lemonade Brisk. Between each tasting, each member of the group chewed on parsley to ensure that each Taki/Brisk pairing was judged only on its own merits.

The true names of the members of our panel have been kept anonymous to protect them from the long arm of the powerful Bimbo corporation (and also so that they can openly talk about their stoner eating habits). We’ll call them Mary, John, and Diane. What follows are the qualitative results of this tasting experiment.

Guacamole

Mary
On the nose: “I’m gonna take a whiff of the entire bag so that I can have to full sensory experience. It smells like peanut butter, and there’s something kind of stale there even though the bag was just opened.”
On the taste: Nutty. “It sort of just tastes like a Frito with a little bit of Tex-Mex flavor.”
On the Lemonade Brisk pairing: “The Brisk tastes like a Smirnoff Ice without alcohol.”

John
On the nose: “I totally smell that peanut. It smells like pad thai.”
On the taste: “I in no way taste Guacamole.”
On the Brisk pairing: “Putrid. The citrus compliments it nicely though.”

Diane
On the nose: “The bag does smell like pad thai.”
On the taste: “Kind of ranch-y. Like a ranch-y Bugle. With the shape I’d expect there to be more flavor powder in the middle.”
On the Brisk pairing: “It just takes like a Mike’s Hard lemonade without the alcohol.”

Salsa Brava

Mary
On the nose: “There’s a little bit of spice in this one. Kind of a sharp feeling in my nostrils.”
On the taste: “Because of the contrast of the spice to the inside of the cornchip, the chip almost tastes like cereal that’s been left out coated in paprika.”
On the Brisk pairing: “Nope. Nope. Very unusual mouth feel. That doesn’t work. It’s very sour.”

John
On the nose: “Smells like paprika and like my stairwell. It smells like my stairwell when I go to do laundry and it’s always raining outside and it gets this weird musty smell.”
On the taste: “It bores the shit out of me. Boring-ass Taki.”
On the Brisk pairing: “Not nearly as good a pairing [as the Guacamole]. I have no suggestions here.”

Diane
On the nose: “It’s a little bit like barbecue dust, KC Masterpiece, in there.”
On the taste: “It’s got a zing. It has a cereal bit. It’s almost a little sweet on the inside like a stale Lucky Charms marshmallow.”
On the Brisk pairing: “I think it would go better with a Zima. Doesn’t go well with the Brisk.”

Crunchy Fajita

Mary
On the nose: “If I were to choose a meat filling in this fajita, it smells like a pork or a beef. It’s definitely not shrimp.”
On the taste: “This is less awful than the Salsa Brava. There’s a sweetness to the heat of this that I find unpleasant.”
On the Brisk pairing: “Not as bad! [The Brisk makes it] genuinely not as bad! It tastes like a hot and sour soup from a really late-night Chinese food joint. It would be a lot better if I had consumed a bottle of vodka beforehand.”

John
On the nose: “There’s totally a lo mein vibe to the smell.”
On the taste: “It tastes like Kix. This is also pretty bland. I find it similar to the Salsa Not-So-Brava.”
On the Brisk pairing: “This didn’t affect it that much for me. I’m just getting more into the Brisk as this goes along. Sweet sweet beautiful Brisk.”

Diane
On the nose: “I appreciate the ‘grill marks.’ Smells a little musty.”
On the taste: “It really does taste like Kix.”
On the Brisk pairing: “It’s a lot better after the Brisk. You just want to keep having them.”

Fuego

Mary
On the nose: “I’m on the fourth Taki ever in my life, and I am not looking forward to this. I think three Takis is my limit. Maybe I just can’t smell anything or need a whiff of coffee or something.”
On the taste: “Just a comment on the shape. I don’t find the size of the Taki to be user friendly. This is definitely the best flavor so far. It’s sort of like a spicy Dorito with more artificial lime.”
On the Brisk pairing: “It’s not very good. I am not sure what would be good in this scenario. Nothing probably.”

John
On the nose: “This smells like peanuts again. You guys didn’t get that? It’s almost like concentrated chili.”
On the taste: “The flavor is the best. When I eat this, I just feel like I’m gonna be burping it up for days. But I feel like five of these and then I’m set, especially with the amount of flavor dust on here. If I was smoking weed, I would eat like 100 of these and hate myself.”
On the Brisk pairing: “It doesn’t add anything for me, but I don’t find that it detracts. Really Lemonade Brisk can’t do any wrong.”

Diane
On the nose: “The smell reminds me of this guy I know who kind of smells like balls, but also smells like this. Maybe he eats a lot of these. He’s only 12 years old.”
On the taste: “These have a nice lime flavor to them. Very 420 friendly.”
On the Brisk pairing: “The Brisk isn’t cool with it. This would be better with a milkshake.”

Nitro

Mary
On the nose: “These all smell the same to me at this point.”
On the taste: “I get a citrus on this still. It kicks later. The first flavor I get is more of an orange citrus than a lime. It’s milder. I can taste this on my lips longer than the other flavors. All in all this is my favorite flavor, but I don’t think I’ll be reaching for it on my own anytime soon.”
On the Brisk pairing: “No comment.”

John
On the nose: “It smells milder to me. I’m excited for this because Nitro was my favorite American Gladiator growing up.”
On the taste: “It tastes like Runts. It tastes like a banana Runt. It’s not really tasting spicy to me. It’s totally banana-ed out. I guess you could call that an attempt at orange.”
On the Brisk pairing: “I find that these flavors mingle more. I’m ok with that.”

Diane
On the nose: The smell reminds me of a time when my mom put Indian spices into some Chef Boyardee.”
On the taste: “The first bite is like a watermelon Sourpatch. I get the kick later. It’s like watermelon Sourpatch and pepper. This is my number one choice of what I would eat while smoking weed.”
On the Brisk pairing: “This isn’t doing anything for me.”

The Takeaway

Mary: “I think out of a lot of snack foods Takis would be the worst for making out. I lick my lips and it’s like a vomit and citrus flavor. I think it would be really unsexy.”

John: “My favorite was easily Fuego. The best pairing was the Guacamole and Brisk – it just danced around in my mouth. It definitely coats your mouth. I have Taki flavor in every part of my mouth.”

Diane: “I’m really glad I tried Takis. Fuego was my favorite, but I would love to get a bag of Fuego and Nitro and mix them together.”