Does anybody know the shelf of life of altoids?

January 3, 2004 8:24 AM

Does anybody know the shelf of life of altoids? I have a container thats probably several years old, if not older.

I've checked google and their website, but nothing really useful. But maybe my skills are lacking.

posted by philcliff to Food & Drink (5 answers total)

Since they're essentially solid sugar, they won't go bad, per se. Consistency might change (old Jolly Ranchers get kind of soft and sticky, for example). The one other concern would be that they've leached metal from the tin they come in (hence the expiration dates on things like canned soups and bottled water).
posted by whatzit at 8:38 AM on January 3, 2004

Since they were made in Britain, and contain gelatin made from British beef slaughtered prior to the mad cow crisis, they will undoubtedly be infested with CJD. ;-)
/scarefilter
posted by stonerose at 8:53 AM on January 3, 2004

But the active ingredient - peppermint oil, I think - what does that decay into, over time? Help we need a chemist!
posted by troutfishing at 10:18 AM on January 3, 2004

A friend of mine found a piece of beef jerky in his pocket once that had been there for months. It had turned kind of grey-ish, and really very scary looking. He tried to put it in the ketchup at the Denny's, but we talked him out of it, on the grounds that if we know that SOMEBODY puts such horrible things in the ketchup bottles, we would never be able to trust restaraunt condiments again.

So I advise you not to put your Altoids in the restaraunt ketchup.
posted by kaibutsu at 2:11 PM on January 3, 2004

The Ketchup Advisory Board thanks you.
posted by dhartung at 5:33 PM on January 3, 2004