Happy Chanuka … Soda?
Happy Chanuka everybody! I hope you’re enjoying your holiday. Remember to pace yourself – there’s seven more days to go. Let’s start things off with the Jones Soda Happy Chanuka Pack, 2007 edition.
First, a little history. I was “lucky” enough to get my hands on the Jones Soda Thanksgiving Pack in 2005. Turkey with Gravy soda may have sounded interesting (or, maybe not), but I had a hard time keeping it down. Cranberry Sauce was the best of them, but mixing Cranberry Juice and Sprite would have been better. Wild Rice Herb Stuffing – Oy. Brussels Sprout with Prosciutto – Oy vey. I had high hopes for Pumpkin Pie soda, but even that one disappointed.
Bad experiences notwithstanding, I have a reputation to uphold. When I heard that Jones Soda was making a Chanuka specific flavor pack, I placed my order. I shared them with my kids last night and here are our impressions:
Latke – While we were prepared for the possibility of it being awful, it was just bland. I didn’t taste any onion at all. Mostly potato. I guess they need some work on their latke recipe. Maybe we could send them the Kosher Blog Potato Latke Master Recipe.
Applesauce – Surprisingly, this one got the highest marks overall. It was tasty and authentic. There might have been a hint of cinnamon. And mixing it with Latke soda made it better. Not good, but better.
Chocolate Coins – I don’t have many chocoholics at home, but this one was very good, too. But chocolate soda has been done before, so there was nothing new here.
Jelly Doughnut – This got mixed reviews. Some of the kids loved it and some thought it was just OK. It tasted mostly of strawberry, in my opinion. Maybe a faint taste of fried dough.
So there you have it. The clear winner was Applesauce soda. All Jones Sodas are Star-K certified Kosher Pareve – even Turkey with Gravy flavor. I’m sorry for not cooking anything yet – that will be coming soon. The kids don’t have off from school yet, so there isn’t much time to cook. We even had tater-tots with our dinner, in lieu of latkes.
While it’s probably too late to get it for this year, here’s a recommendation for a great Chanuka gift for the food-obsessives in your household. (I know, because I bought it for myself.) Celebrity Chef the Game. Build your celebrity status by answering food-trivia questions and competing head-to head with your fellow chefs, collecting fans and successes as you go. I haven’t played a full game yet, but it looks like great fun.
Have a Happy Chanuka, and see you in my next post. Something will be fried, I promise.
I have no idea what you were thinking about in regards to the sodas.
The Latke soda was horrible, what would one expect from something w/ the 2nd ingredient beng salt! It was like drinking salt water
The Jelly doughnut soda tasted like medicine (not bad tasting medicine, but the artificial fruity taste you expect w/ flavored medicine)
the chocolate soda was the best, but nothing special
the applesauce soda was basically carbonated apple juice!
I’m obviously not the only one who tried them. Most people who try these sodas are doing so for shock value. No one expects Turkey and Gravy soda (for example) to be good – they just want to be able to say they tried it. So, now I’ve tried potato latke soda – hooray for me.
Another vote for the latke soda being actively horrendous — and I actually kind of liked the jelly-doughnut flavor. But, yes, shock value. Or, in my case, a fun thing to do at my family Hanukkah party — we bought one pack of the sodas and a bag of tiny plastic tasting cups.
I stumbled across this blog trying to see if anyone else shared my experience with these sodas.
My friends and I were going to try this on Chanukah for the entertainment value, but Jones Soda was already sold out. I stumbled across a couple of packs at a local grocery store the other day and so far I have tried a few sips of the latke, applesauce and jelly doughnut. I haven’t gotten to the chocolate yet; I was saving what I assumed would be the best for last.
Usually, I like Jones Sodas a lot, and I didn’t expect a taste sensation from these novelty items, but these were… bland. Horribly, horribly bland. Perhaps the ones I had were going flat; Jones Sodas usually run to the lightly carbonated, but these were hardly carbonated at all. They had a thick, syrupy texture, but they weren’t particularly sweet (except the jelly doughnut). Jones has a great green apple soda, so I expected good things from the applesauce flavor; it was just sort of blah. The latke… I didn’t particularly taste any potato notes, but I thought I detected an egg note, like swallowing lightly carbonated egg whites. The jelly one was the most drinkable so far, but still rather bland. It tasted more like bubble gum to me.