Solero (Exotic)

Name: Solero

Manufacturer: Wall's
Official description: "Solero Exotic is delicious soft vanilla flavour ice cream, rippled with an exotic fruit swirl, dressed in a zesty passion fruit, pineapple, mango and peach coating. With an amazing fruity aroma, Solero Exotic is even more refreshing as its coating contains real fruit pieces and 23% fruit juice per product."


The Solero always struck me as something I would like, and it was. Coming out of the wrapper, the mango-shaped pop is a combination of fruit ice and ice cream. The initial scent isn't exactly pleasant. It's a very 'mango made in the lab' kind of smell, but I held my breath and bit in.

The shell is a soft ice, with a bit of pulp to it. It has a nice flavour, but the texture is a bit strange. The entire time I ate it, I felt like I was going to have a bunch of orange shit stuck in my teeth (I didn't, in case you were worried).

The centre is a basic vanilla ice cream with a fruit swirl. It works well with the coating, and the cream to fruit ratio is pretty good.

My main criticisms of an all-around solid lolly are the weird stringy texture, the vibrant fake colour, and the rather indeterminate fruit flavour. The fruit flavour was nice, but it was a typical 'tropical' thing... not quite mango, with pictures of passion fruit on the wrapper just to confuse matters a bit.

The Solero also gets bonus points for the stick. It's the high-class sort with a nice thumb grip, and placed far enough down that it gives that momentary impression that the ice lolly will last forever.

All around, very good and an early contender for favourite UK ice lolly.

Overall rating (1-10, 10 being best): 9

Post-lolly stomach (1=actually made me sick; 10=fine): 10
Flavour: 10
Texture: 8