Clif Peanut Butter Pretzel Mojo Bar

I'm no stranger to the Clif granola bar line. Hell, when I was a kid, I was sitting on the bench, that one summer my dumb parents signed me up for teeball, eating those granola bars and cheering on my teammates. "Go, Jeffy! You can do it!" I'd turn to my coach and tell him gently that I probably ought to sit one out. "I think it's my lumbago, coach. It'll heal up with some TLC and another granola bar, but Jeffy looks like he's handling the field pretty well."

I was a bench warmer all summer. It was a short-lived experience, teeball, but through my teenage years and adulthood, I still enjoyed Clif bars and enjoyed pretending to be an exercising athlete even more. When I saw this new version in the store, I nearly blew a gasket. UMass had been dodgy in stocking this particular flavor, and since there's nothing more that I love than salty and sweet, it was hard to pass this up.

Peanut Butter Pretzel boasts peanut butter chips and peanut butter filled pretzels. Talk about a yo dawg. The granola bar resembles a disgruntled rice krispie treat with various chunks and pockmarks studding its exterior. It has that airy, chewy texture, too, but less thick and less gooey.

The flavor is a little strange. It’s funny because in the last bar I had, I experienced this similar weirdness which leads me to believe it wasn’t related to the batch. It had an aggressively salty flavor like unmixed natural peanut butter that didn’t settle well with the creamy peanut butter chips. The pretzels sort of faded away into the generic crispies in the bar, and left a strange tang on my tongue. This is weird and kind of gross aspect that definitely solidifies my previous fear about buying these again. If I want a peanut butter and salt fix, I’ll stick to Target’s brand of granola bars. They taste much better and are way cheaper.