Under the wire! Jones Halloween Sodas

My friend gave me two cans of Jones Soda Co.�s limited edition Halloween sodas well over a month ago so that I could blog about them. I looked at the calendar today and was like, �WTF, it�s Halloween already!� Time is of the essence.

There are 4 flavors for this Halloween: Strawberry S�Lime, Candy Corn, Caramel Apple, and Scary Berry Lemonade. The cans are about 3 inches tall and have scary faces on them. They fit nicely into a coat pocket, which I found very convenient. The two that I have are Strawberry S�Lime and Candy Corn.

I started with the Strawberry S�Lime. I was a bit surprised to find out it was pinkish red, even though it�s strawberry flavored. I always think of slime as being green, so I thought maybe Jones was going to mess with us and forego the typical strawberry color. I�m also curious to see what they could have done by adding some thickening agent to the soda to create a more slime-like carbonated beverage.

Ultimately, the soda was quite delicious, although I was hard pressed to detect any lime in the mix. If anything, it tasted like strawberry cotton candy to me. I�m beginning to wonder if my tastebuds that detect lime are fried, as I also thought that the lime Pepsi and Coke that I was too lazy to write about were weak on the lime.

After a quick break, I ate a fortune cookie to cleanse my palette. After learning that many a false step is made by standing still and that �Duo-shao qian� will ask �How much?� in Chinese, I was ready to both drink my next soda and get into trouble in a Hong Kong massage parlor.

Now, I�ll be up front. I am not a fan of the candy corn. Ever since I was a kid, I�ve somehow equated candy corn as being the candy equivalent of a headache. I�m not sure why or what that means, but that�s what I got into my brain at a young age. Since one of the main ingredients in candy corn is corn syrup, I do give the candy props for name accuracy.

In any case, I really had to pump myself up to try this soda. Just before I went to try it, I saw that somebody had brought in cookies with candy corn on top. I grabbed one to use as a reference point.

The can is black and cool looking, so I like the presentation. And I was pleasantly surprised when I cracked the tab. A spew of yellowish green liquid spewed onto my hand. Nice!

I poured the soda into a cup and was very impressed with the color. It is unnaturally yellow, with just the faintest tinge of green, looking a lot like really concentrated urine. Which I guess is natural, in the sense that urine is part of a natural biological process, but unnatural in the sense that it�s an atypical soda color. The picture really doesn’t capture the ill color correctly.

But looks aren�t everything. I steeled myself and took a sip. It smells and tastes pretty much like watered down maple syrup, but in some way felt it was somehow missing an essence of maple that I couldn�t put my finger on. My wife took a sip and thought it tasted chemically. After comparing notes, we concluded that it tastes like watered down FAKE maple syrup.

Now for the comparison. I took a bite of the cookie. Blarf! Candy corn tastes exactly as I remember it. I washed it down with some soda and detected a distinctly different flavor. So, I�d say that the soda isn�t exactly an accurate representation of candy corn flavor, but it is as sickeningly sweet.

There was no way that I can possibly finish my cup of soda, so I tried pawning it off on whoever would drink it. One of my friend�s immediate reactions: “It tastes like Aunt Jemima.” Out of 6 testers, only 1 liked it outright, while another rated it “not bad.”

One nice aspect of the Candy Corn soda is that when you tip the cup, the yellow coloring lingers just a bit too long on the side before sliding down. I think that’s called “legs” in winetasting. So, Candy Corn soda has nice legs, and the effect adds to the unsettling feeling that there’s something just not right about the soda. Bravo!

Due to the mixed results, I’m rating this a Meh overall. At the end of the day, Strawberry S�Lime is a taste winner, Candy Corn is something to inflict upon people you want to torture (or friends who really like fake maple syrup).

Ultimately, the sodas are amusing, disgusting novelties, which is appropriate for the season. The can artwork is nice. Because of the small can size, I recommend getting a couple of six packs, shaking the cans up really good, and handing them out on Halloween. You know kids will be psyched to get soda, so they�ll crack into them right away and get a fountain of nastiness in the face. Everyone wins!