I was able to choose from three available flavors or a mix of the 3. These flavors are wild cherry, natural honey, and black licorice. I chose wild cherry. I am now kicking myself for not requesting all 3 in a mix to try. I would have liked to test out the natural honey so I could compare these to my usual favorite honey throat drop from Burt's Bees. Also my husband mentioned he would have loved to try the black licorice, as he is a fan of licorice tea (it is soothing to his stomach and helps his heartburn). I told him I will look locally at our Walgreens drugstore or Kroger grocery store to check for the licorice and get him some, and if I cannot find them locally, I will purchase from Amazon.
I checked the Pine Bros website, and after watching a short but sweet video review by Martha Stewart, I checked out their product info, a brief little history, and saw a sneak peak of a new flavor called lemon citrus. This new flavor debuts in 2015. This should be a popular flavor as lemon drops always seem to help me when my throat is sore and needs soothing.
Pine Bros is not a new company, they have been around since 1870! J. Herman Pine and his brother started selling these drops, known as their "Glycerine Tablets". (info from their website) He was a German confectioner who came across the idea of combining the soothing natural qualities of glycerin with the healing properties of gum acacia. I had not heard of gum acacia, so I looked it up and found some rather interesting facts/history about it. Gum acacia has been used in the past in traditional medicines, and Egyptians used the material as a glue and as a pain-relieving base. It has properties of healing and soothing. Arabic medicine had used it for the treatment of gums, and it is thought that this was house it got the name of "gum". It has been said to help prevent some forms of mouth bacteria and periodontal disease. Even chewing gum with this ingredient can have a positive effect on preventing bacteria, plaque and gingivitis! I was truly impressed with this bit of info as I never would have thought a cough drop may have these benefits. Anyway, back to Mr. Pine and his brother...
Mr. Pine, who was very skilled in his craft, also seemed to be a great guy in personality and modesty as well. He cared more about the people he was helping, much more than making a living or profit from his ventures. He was very successful, and his lozenges were soothing and grew in popularity. In 1930 his company was acquired by Life Savers, but in 1970, it was sold and re-acquired a few times over and changes were made and shortcuts were taken. Sales waned and the product was sold over seas and failing.
But this story does not continue downhill for the product. A woman who was the creator of Airborne had a mission to bring this amazing product back to its former life and was able to get original Pine Bros recipes and recreate the packaging to be classic yet modern and attractive. These throat drops were reintroduced in 2011 in the USA, natural, and made in America finally again.
To review the product, I am pleased with the drops. They were not too sweet, but had a slight tart (not sour) flavor of cherry. I received 3 bags of these cherry drops and 3 round travel/purse/pocket size cases of the cherry. I love the plastic screw on lid cases. They seem like they would be safe to put in a purse or bag without the worry of them spilling out and perhaps melting in a corner of the bag or sticking to something. They are definitely "softish", a funny but accurate description. They start out as a hard drop, and finish almost as a hard gummy. I was not fond of chewing them, as they were hard to chew without getting stuck in my teeth. I did see the label said they are best when not chewed. However, I still wanted to try as I am fond of gummy treats.
My husband tried these as well and said he liked them a lot and found them to be pleasant tasting. He and I agreed that chewing them is not a great idea. We will be purchasing the honey and the licorice in the near future to try out.
These are available online at Walgreens.com, Amazon.com and other various places. I am hoping we luck out and find some locally as well. Check out http://www.pinebrothers.com/ for more information about this great company!
I received one or more of the products mentioned above for free using Tomoson.com. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will be good for my readers.
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