Western Bacon Fries are available today at Carl's Jr. locations nationwide, and include natural cut French fries “coated in a brand-new Western seasoning that delivers all the taste of the Western Bacon Cheeseburger including BBQ sauce, charbroiled beef patties, cheese and even notes of the sesame seed bun.” Or, as Carl’s Jr. put it on Twitter, it’s like “sprinkling 1,000 tiny Western Bacon Cheeseburgers on your fries.”

Ahead of the launch of the fries, Carl’s Jr. gave me a taste of the Western Bacon Cheeseburger seasoning used on these fries by way of an entire bottle of the stuff.

As a big fan of WBCs, I was anxious to see how it measured up. I tasted the seasoning straight from the bottle and it certainly delivers on the smoky quality you’d expect from anything with bacon and barbecue sauce (perhaps overpoweringly so — I’ll assume that, when paired with fries as a delivery vehicle, the flavor mellows out a bit and blends with the carbohydrates). Considering part of what makes a WBC so delicious is the stratification of tastes and textures, it’s an odd experience to be able to pick them out from a powder. Nevertheless, they all seem to be there.