Chrismas Countdown!
Happy Hump Day! As December 12th dawns on us, things are heating up in the race towards Christmas. Airline tickets are going up, wind chill factors are going down, retailers are discounting more stuff, epic movies are hitting theaters...it's a whirlwind of commerce out there! Make sure you go out and experience some of it while you can. I don't think yesterday's entry about Pete and Pete was as big a hit as I was hoping for, so let's bring things back to the basics today. Some of you have been waiting for this, so buckle up! It's Jones Soda Review #2! Christmas Cocoa!
That's right, 'Christmas Cocoa' soda from the fines folks up at Jones HQ in Seattle, WA. Once again, the bottle looks great with a holiday color scheme and some festive photography, submitted by people like you. My bottle has some tree ornaments dangling amongst lights. This appears to be a dark soda, so one would expect it to have a rich, full flavor and a satisfying body that sticks around for a while. I guess that's what I'd expect out of a chocolate soda, not that I've ever had one before. Let's open this sucker up and run the sniff check.
As soon as I crack the lid, I smell chocolate. Well, it smells chocolaty at first. And then it reminds me of pencils. Chocolate-scented pencils. Did you ever have a store in your elementary school where you could go buy pencils or folders or paper or other things you might need during the day? I did. And they used to sell scented pencils that were supposed to smell like candy bars. They sold all different types...Hershey's, Mr. Goodbar, Snickers, etc...but they all smelled the same. And this soda smells like they did. I'm reminded of doing simple division in 3rd Grade with a Mr. Goodbar pencil. This is bizarre. I guess the only way to get rid of these memories is to taste it!
Yeah, this doesn't taste so ba-wait a minute! What the...mint?! This soda tastes like mint! It definitely smells like chocolate...but the taste is mint. Maybe a little chocolate...kind of like an Andes Mint...but the mint, it's overpowering. Mint soda? Is that what I'm getting into here? Is that what makes it 'Christmas' Cocoa? I never would have expected this. Let's go back for another hit of this...
Blugh! This soda is not very good. The taste isn't getting any better and the smell is getting worse. Maybe it's supposed to simulate putting a candy cane into your cocoa? Or some sort of minty booze? I can't quite figure it out, and I think I'd much rather have a chocolate-flavored soda than whatever this is supposed to be. Now I'm pretty leery about the Candy Cane soda that's waiting in my fridge. As you can see from the last photo there, I'm not giving this one a thumbs-up. Try it out if you'd like, but don't say I didn't warn ya. I've ingested a lot of strange sodas in my day, and this one just isn't floating my boat. Discuss?
Here we go again, headlong into fast-food territory...and Back...to the Future!
Click to viewPizza Hut, Makin' it Great! Now that's a jingle I miss hearing. The pizza business has changed a lot since this commercial was on the air and Back to the Future 2 was in theaters. You'll never see a pizza chain advertising their plain old pie these days. If they're not stuffing cheese in someplace it doesn't belong, they're trying to hide a shoddy pizza behind a free order of Ultimate Extreme Jalapeno Cinnamon Shooter Pockets. Or something to that effect. This commercial tells you what's what. Hey! We're Pizza Hut! Merry Christmas! Come have a pizza! Go see Back to the Future 2! And get these sweet-ass sunglasses while you're at it! Wear 'em with your friends! A lot of people out there traditionally eat pizza on Christmas Eve. Are you one of those families? I play Risk with my brothers on Christmas Eve. And we watch National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation. What are your Christmas Eve traditions? Let's hear 'em! Happy Wednesday, everybody!
Paul