{"id":4608,"date":"2025-01-21T20:24:26","date_gmt":"2025-01-22T03:24:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.techory.com\/blog\/?p=4608"},"modified":"2025-01-21T20:31:23","modified_gmt":"2025-01-22T03:31:23","slug":"what-to-do-with-a-lifelong-mentos-collection","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.techory.com\/blog\/what-to-do-with-a-lifelong-mentos-collection\/","title":{"rendered":"What to Do With a Lifelong Mentos Collection"},"content":{"rendered":"
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I like Mentos (which I think is obvious from an entire topic category<\/a> dedicated to them on this site). I have liked Mentos for a very long time. I’m not sure exactly when my obsession<\/s> love of Mentos started. It was probably sometime in high school, or maybe a bit earlier and was tied to the kitschy ads<\/a> they were running in the 90’s. I got hooked, and never turned back.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My love of Mentos also turned into a collection over the years. I discovered that you could find unique flavors in different countries that were not available in the U.S. To feed my need for more (special) Mentos, I created a Mentos Ambassador Program<\/a> so that when friends traveled abroad they could be awarded for bringing back flavors I’ve never seen or can’t get domestically. As you can imagine this led to a lot of Mentos!<\/p>\n\n\n

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I still love Mentos, but started some much-needed cleaning of the basement storeroom recently. This involved going through boxes that I’ve moved houses with multiple times and boxes that I haven’t opened since I got married many many years ago. Well guess what I found… a lot of Mentos that I’ve collected over the years. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve thought about what to do with a (quasi-perishable) collection of candy over the past 30 years and never really came up with a good answer. I love that these Mentos are somewhat unique, and they do bring back memories of when I got them and who gave them to me, and of course, the amazing flavors. I’m not really sure what to do with them. I’ve thought about somehow finding a way to archive them by taking photos and writing up tasting notes, but never really got around to it. At one point this site is where those new\/special Mentos posts went, but I’ve fallen out of that a bit. So now I’ve got boxes(!) of old Mentos. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some of these boxes and rolls needed to go. As I pulled them out of the storage boxes, they kind of stuck to the sides. It made me a little sad, but I guess it wasn’t that surprising that a perishable food product (even though they are the candy of the gods) would eventually spoil. So I tried to take some photos as a nod to archiving photos of the ones that I had to throw away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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A collection of old Mentos<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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note the unique lemon fresh and the international apple<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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an OG Mentos display box<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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These were the worst sticky leaks, note the unique tropical flavor<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Loccorice Mentos<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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One of my favorite flavors – Grape<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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some old international rolls and some OG domestic mint<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Another package of really old rolls – note the silver foil and the OG packaging<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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One of the first packs of gum from Mentos<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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More of my favorite flavors – Grape<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Two bags of mini-Mentos party drink flavor<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Another favorite flavor from China – peach<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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OG packaging, note the lighter color blue and the silver foil<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Random old rolls<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I also have a bunch of Mentos-branded memorabilia. Obviously I don’t have the same spoilage problem with that, but thought it also had a place here. I don’t need to throw that out… but would like to find a way to display it somewhere. I will still from time to time do a random search for collectibles on ebay for Mentos.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Mentos roll radio<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Mentos clock<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Mentos coin tray and figure<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Mentos thermos<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Mentos soccer and football<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I also found the letter and folder I was sent when I won a “year’s supply” (note the quotes, they did not last a year) of Mentos from a competition they held around 1998. I think they were doing some sort of Mentos music tour<\/a> and I had to write a response to a prompt on their website and send in a certain number of wrappers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\"Mentos\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t<\/svg>\n\t\t<\/button><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"My\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t<\/svg>\n\t\t<\/button><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"Mentos\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t<\/svg>\n\t\t<\/button><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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My prize (you’ll be hard-pressed to find a more 90’s photo anywhere!)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

This was not the only Mentos contest I won. Unfortunately, my second Mentos prize did not survive. It was an inflatable Mentos hot tub (with jets!) that was thrown away sometime in the early 2000’s. I probably have a 35mm photo of it somewhere in one of the other basement boxes I haven’t opened in 20 years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As you can see… lots and lots of Mentos still live in my basement. Any ideas on what I should do with them? They have sentimental value to me, but soon they’ll just be a puddle of Mentos goo on the bottom of a box.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I like Mentos (which I think is obvious from an entire topic category dedicated to them on this site). I have liked Mentos for a very long time. I’m not sure exactly when my obsession love of Mentos started. It was probably sometime in high school, or maybe a bit earlier and was tied to… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":4,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4608","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.techory.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4608","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.techory.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.techory.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.techory.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.techory.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4608"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/www.techory.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4608\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4664,"href":"https:\/\/www.techory.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4608\/revisions\/4664"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.techory.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4608"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.techory.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4608"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.techory.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4608"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}