Gotta Keep Those Salt & Vinegar Vibrations A-happenin': Sea Salt and Vinegar Vibes by Late July Snacks

With a few feet of snow on either side of my driveway apron, late July feels like it's aeons away rather than just five months. But anytime is a good time for the folks at Late July Snacks to appeal to all of your positive feelings about the month of July which it describes as "the sweet spot of summer…when life is simple, pure & good." These people are obviously not from Wisconsin because they appear to be blissfully unaware that late July here means hot, humid weather and skies infested with swarms of mosquitoes determined to feast on our blood and make us look carbuncular.

Local climate and fauna aside, Late July sells snacks that are made with organic ingredients so their chips cost a bit more than conventional varieties. In an ingenious marketing gambit, they package their potato chips in these (cardinal?) red bags which really makes them stand out on supermarket shelf. Red, of course, is the same color as blood, the mosquito's food of choice. Coincidence? Red is also the color of passion and desire, qualities I bring when approaching a bag of salt and vinegar chips.

Late July must be run by a bunch of hippies or California ex-pats because these chips are "Sea Salt and Vinegar Vibes". Their other chips too are given groovy descriptors. The BBQ flavored chips are "Laid Back" while the sour cream and onion ones are "Serene". Far out, man!

Any salt experts out there? Does sea salt have any noticeable difference in taste to salt obtained from rocks? Do they leave in bits of jellyfish tentacles or sea turtle poop for a little something extra? Is sea salt cheaper? It just seems to me that sea salt is or, at least, usually is a marketing gimmick. As in, it comes from water, the basis of all life, thusly it's good and pure and natural as opposed to coming from a dark, satanic mill where children labor with bare feet instead of going to school and watching TikTok videos on iPads.

The Sea Salt and Vinegar Vibes chips had a nice roasty spud aroma to them. They were thin – as in your stereotypical potato chip thickness – with a wonderful delicate crispness to them. Late July went easy on that sea salt as I found there was just enough to enhance flavor but they never tasted salty. They also went easy on the vinegar as there was only a touch of tartness to be had.

There was also a kind of smoothness to them which I attribute to other seasoning agents: dried cane syrup, molasses, and tomato powder. My hypothesis is that these ingredients dulled the zippy tang of the vinegar. It's a similar situation that you find with many hot sauces that use extremely hot peppers i.e. – habanero and deadlier. The chili is added to a base of things like carrots, tomatoes, and fruits so that the extreme burn is made more palatable. It's like these chips were made by folks from Minnesota.

And that is my lone knock on these chips. They simply need a stronger vinegar vibe. Otherwise they perfectly cromulent. If you like a milder vinegar taste on your chips, these are the way to go.