Did you know that apparently Generation Z is obsessed with pickles? It reminds me of the time when my own generation, millennials, were disproportionately in love with bacon, spawning countless bacon-centric memes and jokes. Cultural trends can be so strange!
To be honest, I understand the passion for pickles even more than the fixation on bacon. I love salty snacks and few things are saltier than pickles. For years, my choice cocktail has been a dirty martiniand although it usually gets dirty with olive brine, I have come to appreciate pickle-Brine martinis just as much, if not more. The dill flavor adds a grassy flavor that makes my little Polish Jewish heart sing! (My favorite pickles are from Ironsin case you were wondering…)
All this to say, when I recently received a press release from the lubricant company Lubricant about their latest release: a limited edition PICKLE FLAVOR LUBRICANT – I yelled at my laptop and hit ‘reply’ so fast I practically tore a muscle. (…whose pain by the way could have been relieved by eating pickles. That not able Do they do it?!)
A newspaper advertisement with the theme of pickles
About a week later, a package arrived. Inside was a pickle-shaped stress ball, a pickle-shaped pen, a pickle shaped vibrator(!), some pickle stickers (which sound like slang for tools you’d use in a CBT scene…), green socks that say “big pickle energy,” a green baseball cap adorned with pickles that says “not my first pickle,” and the piece de resistance: tea pickle flavored lubricant itself.
I put the jaunty hat on my head immediately and brought the lube to my wife so we could both try it out.
What does it taste like?
As soon as my wife and I tried the lube, we looked at each other with wide eyes, like, “Damn! That’s better than I expected!” I thought it was pretty good, but my wife (admittedly she doesn’t usually enjoy flavored lube) announced that it was probably the best flavored lube she had ever tried.
Let me be clear: you won’t like it. this lubricant if you don’t like pickles. I mean, sure. But I’m telling you, you In fact No. This lubricant is only for connoisseurs of these particular tasty flavors. Not only does it taste salty; It actually tastes like dill (both the sweeter and tastier aspects of that flavor profile), as well as some of the other ingredients often found in pickle brine, such as garlic. If you were a lube sommelier with tremendously attuned taste buds, perhaps you could pick out some more subtle flavors: mustard seeds, coriander, black peppercorns? – but my palate is more plebeian than that, so I mostly just taste the dill and garlic.
In the end, the garlic note made it hard for me to love this lube beyond that initial taste test. Just as in culinary applications, that flavor tends to linger longer than many others, including the sweetness of dill that initially appears to be the main flavor of the lubricant. I don’t love walking around with garlic flavor in my mouth, especially if I’m going to kiss or have sex, but I know some people who love garlic and would probably love this.
The martini test
My wife and I are big fans of cocktails and (as I mentioned above) one of my favorites is a dirty martini. I’ve made dozens of dirty brine and pickle martinis at home over the years, and I really enjoy the way the gin and vermouth balance the saltiness of the brine, so I thought, why not give it a try? LubeLife Pickling Lubricant In a martini, instead of the traditional brine?
My wife suggested I make a small, scaled-down drink, as she (wisely) didn’t want me to waste too much good liquor on what could turn out to be an unpleasant experiment… so I made a quarter-sized martini: half an ounce of London dry gin, a quarter ounce of Dolin dry vermouth, and a couple of splashes of pickle lube. I stirred them with an ice cube to cool and dilute them (or dill-ution, so to speak…), and then strained the mixture into a small cocktail glass and brought it to my wife to try.
“I’m not mad about it,” she said with a shrug when she tried it. We agreed that the lube’s intense flavor profile rounds out nicely in the context of a martini: the dill and garlic were definitely still noticeable, but toned down significantly, a fun garnish rather than the dominant flavor. Perhaps that’s how this lube tastes best: diluted, either with alcohol or bodily fluids. Speaking of which…
The sex test + a warning
Quite reasonably, none of my partners were willing to let me try this lube on their actual trash, because flavored lubes are somewhat risky from a genital health perspective. This pickle lubricant It contains sucralose, an artificial sweetener, as well as glycerin, both of which can irritate the vagina. As such, I would recommend only using flavored lubes externally (i.e. on/around a clitoris, labia, penis, balls, or anal opening) and switching to a more standard lube formula if you want to do some penetration. (My favorite, as always, is rich rich.)
That said, a salty lube like this probably pairs better with genital tastes than many other flavored lubes. like my friend Billy Lore He often says, “Strawberry lube on a cock won’t just taste like strawberries, it will taste like strawberries.” and cock“- and that being the case, it makes sense to choose a lube that blends harmoniously with the taste of your cock and/or pussy, rather than clashing with it. I tried a little of this lube along with a dash of my own vaginal fluids and found that the two worked well together, like prosecco and oysters; they were loosely in the same flavor family and therefore actually elevated each other. And isn’t that the ideal scenario when it comes to a flavored lubricant?
What do you think, dear readers? Would you ever try a pickle flavored lubricant? Do you think this is a terrible or great idea?
This post was NOT sponsored, I really just wanted to tell you about pickling lube. However, LubeLife sent me the product for free.