by Matty Boy Anderson 12.24.07

Let's face facts everybody-- in this furtive age of whizzing computer gizmos and exploding iPods, new holiday traditions are taking shape on the Intanets. Look at Google or other sites you frequent and you'll notice "decorations" added to mastheads and buttons, here and there, adding a holiday sheen. (Not this site, however... I'm far too busy tongue-kissing shotgun barrels come Xmas time to spruce up this dump.) Camwhores add candy canes and gingerbread men to the list of "penetrative objects" their hairy-palmed subscribers can select from. And comedy websites, even Z-graders like this one, put a handful of poor bastards through the latest pack of mystery brews that Jones Soda blesses the world with each year.

So it was that I abused the company business account to purchase Jones' resplendent 2007 holiday offerings, the Chanukah and Christmas Packs, and forced myself, my fiancee, and my friends Brian ("Old Man On Bench", from John's Arm: Armageddon) and Dr. Phillip Exacto to swig 'em down. We started with the Chanukah Pack, which you can read about below, then moved onto the Christmas Pack, which you can read about tomorrow, as our Christmas gift to all of you, for putting up with all our crap. Happy Holladaze! Don't forget Joewalshmas!!!

The Jones Soda 2007 Chanukah Pack

As someone who grew up in a very Jew-populated area before moving to Georgia (read: Goy-gia), I must confess to craving aspects of Jewish culture now and again. I dated a couple Jewesses here and there, and there's a part of town with a Kroger I like where the deli guys have hair nets on their big beards and you can get sixes of Dr. Brown's Cel-Ray Soda, but nothing seemed to scratch the ol' Yid-itch. Well, if anything can absolve the scorching offensiveness of this paragraph, it's the concentration of festive Jewish spirit I felt from this package My God I DESERVE DEATH.

The pack comes with an dreidel inside, and the rules for play are helpfully printed on the side. We promptly ignored these as we decided that we would entrust the dreidel with our fates; each side of the dreidel indicated a particular soda, and thus we decided the order of our taste test, ensuring fairness in our notations. You will, as you read these accounts, begin to understand the power of the dreidel. As you'll see tomorrow, it saved the very worst for absolutely last.

Also on the box is a pictorial of the tribes of Israel, plus menorahs and a yarmulke you can cut out, should you wish to fake the Jew-funk. The overall package looks great and keeps a light sense of humor. The flavors are: Chocolate Coins, Latke (potato pancake), Apple Sauce, and Jelly Doughnut.

The tasters were Me, Brian, Phillip, and Kiki. Kiki took the pictures while we tasted ours, then she tasted hers. Unabridged notes follow.

1. CHOCOLATE COINS

INITIAL THOUGHTS
M: Excited! Unless foil taste included. Bottle foamed up when I opened it.
P: Not sure if I want to drink carbonated chocolate
K: Sounds yummy. Didn't seem too bad from their faces.

SMELL
M: Like it should
B: Like Tootsie Rolls taste
P: Hot cocoa
K: Tootsie roll

TASTE

M: Pretty good chocolate soda. Really good actually.

B: Carbonated Tootsie Roll water.

P: Carbonated chocolate syrup, creamy beginning- exactly like its name

K: faint tootsie roll taste, not quite chocolatey enough

OTHER COMMENTS
B: More carob-y/Tootsie-Rolly than chocolatey
P: Surprisingly tasty
K: Maybe its like those chocolate-flavored sodas

2. LATKE

INITIAL THOUGHTS
M: Grossest?
B: Probably gross
P: What the fuck? Liquid potato cakes?
K: Sounds like Andy Kaufman's character in Taxi

SMELL
M: Very slight-- corn syrup maybe?
B: Kind of like Ju Ju Bees w/ light Potato
P: Reminiscent of its name-- looks like urine though
K: Orangey potato-juicelike

TASTE

M: Like seltzer, not much else.

B: like seltzer water w/ a light Jujubes after smell

P: swamp water and orange Tang mixed in a blender

K: Awful greasy + oily.

OTHER COMMENTS
B: Gross, almost no flavor outside of the carbonation
P: jesus fucking christ

3. APPLE SAUCE

INITIAL THOUGHTS
M: Excited. How could this be bad?
P: Well I like apple sauce, so-- hopes are high
K: I love cinnamon applesauce [red hots!]

SMELL
M: DEAD-ON 100%
B: Not much smell, light apple?
P: apple juice-- just as advertised
K: Like apple juice

TASTE

M: Really sweet, but otherwise accurate.

B: Tastes completely unlike applesauce, tastes like cotton-candy.

P: Strong sugary beginning that fades into what amounts to carbonated apple sauce.

K: Very good! Exactly like liquid applesauce should taste

OTHER COMMENTS
M: Dig it. A lot.
B: Lacks the slight tartness of applesauce; too sweet
P: Impressed

4. JELLY DOUGHNUT

INITIAL THOUGHTS
M: HELL YES
B: Wonder if it tastes like blood + shit
P: Hell yeah, this better be awesome
K: Going to be very sugary-- maybe taste the powder?

SMELL
M: Wow! Jelly and powder!
B: Very much like strawberry jelly or melted Red Icee
P: Strawberry Pop-Tart filling
K: My Little Pony hair

TASTE

M: Just tastes like super-sweet soda. Sharkleberry Fin soda?

B: Meh. Watered-down carbonated Icee melt.

P: Not as strong as I was expecting, an almost subtle taste of jelly donut filling

K: Now this is like cotton candy!

OTHER COMMENTS
M: SUGAR RUSH!!!
B: Cream soda meets melted Icee.
P: Intriguing-- not sure if I like it
K: So far so good... but Xmas tree?

That's all for Christmas Eve and our tardy Chanukah celebration-- tune in tomorrow after you've porked out on turkey and such, when we taste-test the 2007 JONES SODA CHRISTMAS PACK: Christmas Tree, Sugar Plum, Egg Nog, and... Christmas Holy Shit Ham. Don't miss it!

Happy Hobgoblins!
-MBA