Jones Sodas

[Jason Perlow]

Jon, I don't think there is essentially anything wrong with the concept of Holiday Soda. In fact, I think Pepsi has done a really good job in the last two xmas seasons with the Pepsi Holiday Spice. The difference though, is that Pepsi doesn't market it as some premium brand, its the same price, so people do buy it, as opposed to the Jones sodas, which are just stupid expensive.

[Ktepi]

Pepsi Holiday Spice is my favorite of the last few years of flavored colas, easily. Did they actually make it last Christmas? I didn't have any luck finding it, but we have that problem here sometimes.

Jones' Halloween sodas were pretty decent too. Like I say every time I talk about Jones, I think their sodas are too sweet across the board -- or maybe there isn't enough tartness to offset it, or whatever -- but the Strawberry-Lime ("S'lime," I think) was a soda I'd buy any time of year, and I reduced the Candy Corn soda into a syrup for a few desserts. (It was fine as a soda on those rare occasions when you want to drink candy corn.)

I think the Thanksgiving sodas fail not because of a flaw in the potential of holiday sodas -- or even Thanksgiving sodas -- but because they aren't MEANT to be good. They're the Old Shoe and Dead Skunk of this scratch-n-sniff sticker album, the Garbage Pail Kids of the aisle.

[Jason Perlow]

Pepsi Holiday Spice is my favorite of the last few years of flavored colas, easily. Did they actually make it last Christmas? I didn't have any luck finding it, but we have that problem here sometimes.

They did make it this last christmas, yeah.

[jkonick]

Jon, I don't think there is essentially anything wrong with the concept of Holiday Soda. In fact, I think Pepsi has done a really good job in the last two xmas seasons with the Pepsi Holiday Spice. The difference though, is that Pepsi doesn't market it as some premium brand, its the same price, so people do buy it, as opposed to the Jones sodas, which are just stupid expensive.

←

I think one reason they're so expensive is that they're not necessarily for drinking - a lot of people actually collect the different Jones Soda special packs and keep them - some people even sell them on eBay for a lot of money. Though the Valentine's sodas did taste good, they also looked nice in their box, and if you're in to... well, soda collecting, they'd make a nice addition to your collection.

It is too bad they're so expensive, because I could make a habit of drinking the Valentine's flavor.

[Toliver]

I was in Target this weekend and saw that Jones Soda has three new flavors out for Halloween 2006. They are "Lemon Drop Dead", "Creepy Cranberry" and "Monster Mojito". I'm sorry to say I didn't buy them (couldn't get near the soda aisle...why does light rain make everyone go shopping? ).

Has anyone tried them, yet?

edited to add that I couldn't even find them listed on the Jones Soda web site! I found a review, of sorts, on this site....scroll down towards the bottom for pictures of the new flavors:

Review of the 2006 Halloween flavors

Edited October 2, 2006 by Toliver (log)

[jesskidden]

Stopped into my local Target (East Windsor, NJ) to look for these sodas, even tho' I've never had any luck with Jones sodas at a Target- the shelf is always empty, save for a "shelf-worn" 12 pack or two of a weird diet flavor or two.

The shelf this time around was a bit fuller, but still no Halloween flavors. Walked around looking for mark-down bargains and came upon a huge Halloween display (6 or so aisles worth) and found the canned Halloween sodas. None of the 8 oz. cans interested me- I was specifically looking for Cranberry soda (a New York state/New England regional specialty, I suppose- at times I can find Wegman's store brand, but even they don't seem to re-stock it often and then it's only in 2 liter bottles).

Found the bottled Jones' flavors on yet another shelf, with more Cranberry than any other flavor. Marked "On Sale" for $3.49 (reg. $3.99), I almost bought a case worth, but settled on 4 4-packs. After I got to my truck and checked the receipt, I found that they rang up at $1.49 each and toyed with going back for the rest but those stores give me a headache. Don't know if it was a different sale price OR, perhaps, they rang up at the 8 oz. cans price due to some barcode programming screw-up.

Surprised to see that Jones uses corn syrup- I thought all "gourmet" (i.e., expensive) pops had switched back to real cane sugar.

I also see that Target sells their own brands of soda- some interesting flavors (sassparilla, ginger beer) and a line of their own "Italian" sodas (couldn't find a bottler listed on the label, so couldn't tell if they were really from Italy) with some other fruit flavors, including some odd combos like pomegranate blueberry (made with cranberry, go figure).

Edited October 3, 2006 by jesskidden (log)

[KatieLoeb]

There are Cranberry sodas?? Excellent! I'll see if my local Wegman's has it on my next trip. I'm already hooked on the Wegman's Wedge (grapefruit) and Cherry Wedge flavors and they're great mixers with rum and tequila too.

[jesskidden]

There are Cranberry sodas??  Excellent!  I'll see if my local Wegman's has it on my next trip.  I'm already hooked on the Wegman's Wedge (grapefruit) ...

←

Yeah, I think the most common brand is Polar's Cape Cod Cranberry (out of Mass.)

http://www.polarbev.com/products_ccd_cran.html

and I've seen it from their other brand, Adirondack, too, but it doesn't show up on their website. Supposedly, Canada Dry also makes a Cranberry soda.

I didn't realize Wegman's Wedge was Grapefruit- the name always sounded like a "Slice-7 Up" lemon-lime clone. I've been having a difficult time finding any Grapefruit soda since the Genuardi's by me closed up (they carried Safeway's , the parent company, store brand). Even the Mexican Jarritos Grapefruit was sold out last time I checked my Shop Rite with the big Mexican section.

Haven't seen Squirt in many years, but it's still listed as brand marketed by Cadbury Sweppes (7-Up/Dr. Pepper/Canada Dry).