Growing up, we always had soda available in our house. I thought it was pretty normal to drink soda every night with dinner. But sometime in my early 20's, I had to stay late at work and I ate a boatload of Sweet Tarts and chugged a 24 oz Pepsi. The sickness that resulted still lives with me today. Yes, I'll have a Virgil's Root Beer or Cream Soda once in a while, but that's it. No Pepsi, no Coke, no Mountain Dew...yuck.
So where am I going with this? Well, Dinosaur Dracula, a blog I'm very fond off, posted about the Jones Soda Halloween flavors: Caramel Apple, Candy Corn, Blood Orange and Red Licorice. Matt blogs or vlogs about all kinds of cool stuff (toys, candy, you name it) from the 80's, 90's and all the way to the present. Right now he's doing a Halloween countdown, hence the Jones Sodas. I thought, "Boy, I wish Jones Sodas were Vegan," because I'm really jealous of some of the cool stuff he blogs about plus I love Halloween. How the heck do you NOT drink a soda called Candy Corn? ...Bueller? Bueller?
I know Jones Sodas are one of the more "natural" sodas out there, but I had to double check they were Vegan. After a couple emails to Jones Soda, sure enough, they're Vegan! Well, great, so the hard part is out of the way. I'm going to get my Halloween soda on! But will this soda-hating 35-year old like them?
Unfortunately, the novelty of Halloween sodas could not overcome my soda bias. All of the flavors were really one note. If I had to pick a favorite, I would go with the Candy Corn Soda. To me, it tasted Cream Soda-ish and very sweet. Not something you would want a lot of, but nice as a Halloween treat. Next favorite would be the Caramel Apple Soda. It definitely tastes like apple, not so sure about the caramel. Blood Orange is your typical orange soda, nothing special. And my least favorite was the Red Licorice Soda. Wow. It seemed like a demented bubble gum with the worst aftertaste ever.
In closing, these Jones Halloween Sodas are definitely more of a gimmick that anything else. They might be cool for a Halloween party, but that's about it. BOO.