Wickles: The most delicious pickles. Ever.

I am not a big pickle fan. For the first 20 or so years of my life I would make every effort to remove any pickles that happened to sneak their way onto my sandwiches, or would specifically ask for them to be left off. For the last five or six years, though, I have begun to embrace pickles, even going so far as to add them to my food sometime. Still, I'm not a huge fan.

That is, until my friends in Birmingham, Abby and Jane, introduced me to Wickles pickles. Like so many other good things, Wickles are made in Alabama (Dadeville, to be specific) and while they seem innocuous at first, a closer inspection will reveal chopped garlic and two chili peppers floating in the brine. It is those chili peppers that give Wickles their kick--a nice touch of heat that comes after the initial sweetness. While they certainly add a lot to sandwiches, hamburgers, and likely to tuna salad, Wickles are good enough to eat on their own (even for non-pickle lovers like me).

While the Wickles company has a whole line of products, including pickle relish, red pepper relish, pepper strips, banana pepper strips, and pickled okra, I have only tried the pickles at this point, though I would certainly like to try the others. In fact, if the good people at Wickles would like to ship me a gift pack, or a 64 oz. jar of regular Wickles, I would certainly be obliged to give them a taste.

Although I have no looked extensively, I have so far only been able to find Wickles pickles in Birmingham. I've been to two Publixes (Publices?) in Atlanta that had some of their other products, but not the pickles. Fortunately, all of their products are available on their website, and the pickles are just $4.95 a jar. If you remotely like sweet pickles, I highly suggest giving these a try, I don't think you'll be disappointed.