This time I've gone too far...

To my beloved reader,
Prepare yourself for the most impure tale ever to spring from the mind of man…

Geoffrey Rush as The Marquis de Sade, Quills

I’m a whore for comedy, I’ll admit it. To know me is to know my eternal quest for mirth. A laugh. A giggle. A chortle. Hell, I’ll even settle for a guffaw. The merriment of others makes me happy. And until this weekend, I thought my addiction was harmless. I’d never stoop to hurting others (physically, at least) just for a laugh. And I’ve never put myself at risk (old friend corrects me in 3,2,1…) just for a chuckle. Until this weekend…

Full of the pioneering American Spirit which has kept this country going, and motivated by a need for new blog material, I made one of the best and worst decisions of my life. Call it brilliant. Call it foolish. Call it what you will. I simply call it Carbonated Manifest Destiny. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you:

The Jones Soda Holiday Pack

The curiosity had been eating away at me for weeks (much like the soda will be eating away at my digestive tract for weeks). I had to know – is it as bad as it sounds? Is it as bad as others have said? Is it as bad as Battlefield Earth? The answer to those questions, and many more, is yes. A resounding, ear-splitting, earth shattering yes.

For those of you not “in the know,” The Jones Soda Holiday Pack is a special selection of soda flavors released by Jones Soda towards the end of the year (for those of you further “out of the loop,” Jones Soda is the best 0 calorie soda company ever). This years selection includes the following 5 flavors: Turkey & Gravy, Wild Herb Stuffing, Brussels Sprout with Prosciutto, Cranberry Sauce and Pumpkin Pie.

The last two flavors sound good (but aren’t…wait, I’m getting ahead of myself), but the first three sound repellant. Terrible. Ghastly. So bad that I needs to combine several insufficient words: vomitulsivauseating. But dumbass Montgomery needed to know for sure. Legal Counsel tried to dissuade me, and maybe I should have listened. And maybe I should have. She’s smarter than me and always knows what’s best. But on 12 November 2005, I decided to purchase it. So that I might share with many a friend. Here is Legal Counsel’s response:

So we cracked open a few cold ones and passed them around. It was all voluntary. Nobody was coerced. Speaking of which – this stuff would be a powerful weapon in Abu Ghraib, although it is technically a crime against humanity. I suppose the unofficial rules would have been as follows:

1. Only drink the flavors you want
2. Drink as much as you want, as long as there’s enough left for everybody else (this is more of an unofficial formality – there was no risk of running out)
3. Mean people suck, nice people swallow
4. If you’re gonna spew, spew in this

Without further ado, I give the commentary:

Actually, here’s a little more ado. Think about this as you read: this is the best they could come up with. Flavor scientists worked hard to create these abominations, and the results of their endeavors were horrible at best. This is the second place Holy Grail of assignments for a chemist (first is, of course, invisibility potion). And they really dropped the ball. Dr. Jekyll would look at them and say, “You guys made a mistake.”

And think of the poor taste testers – they had to choke down vile after vile (no pun intended) of this rancid witches’ brew and they were never rewarded with some uber-delicious philter at the end. The samples went from suicide-inducing to murder-inducing, never once reaching “meh.” I imagine their comment cards to be filled with drawing of people covered in scorpions and unicorn skeletons.

Anyway, here’s my commentary:

Turkey & Gravy
It tastes like carbonated gravy. Really awful carbonated gravy. Upon first swig, I tasted a hint of candy corn, which was really bizarre. After it made its way around the table, I gve it a second try. This time I swirled it in my mouth like some pretentious wine snob with a 1961 Cheval Blanc, or a wannabe with Pinot Noir. My first thought after that was, “I hate myself.” Then I thought, “No candy corn this time, just pure bicarbonate gravy.”

It was awful. After that second taste I capped it and put it on the counter, never to be tasted again. In retrospect, however, it wasn’t that bad. Compared to the next two, it was a Starbucks Chai Eggnog Latte. Uh oh…I hope referencing that delicious drink in the same paragraph as Turkey & Gravy soda doesn’t ruin it forever.

Wild Herb Stuffing
I don’t know how to describe this one. I really don’t. It didn’t taste like stuffing. It just tasted awful. Even worse than the first. I again gave it the “second taste swirl” and thought “What the fuck is wrong with me?” The best description I can give is, “the sweat which collects inside a prosthetic leg.” Unfortunately, my memory of this flavor is overshadowed by the horror that came next. I’ll add more here later if I remember anything.

Brussels Sprouts with Prosciutto
This is it. This is the one. The stomach-churning money shot of the Jones Soda Holiday Pack. Just smelling it was as bad as drinking the first two. I suppose it did smell like Brussels sprouts. Brussels sprouts left sitting in Horatio Sans’ crotch for a month. The pungent aroma almost dissuaded me from drinking it – and it actually did dissuade some others. But I bit the veggie-soda bullet and drank it.

It was dreadful. Easily the worst thing I’ve ever put in my mouth – which is saying a lot, since I put myself through college by working the City of Industry. The title was previously held by a pig’s ear consumed in my World History class, sophomore year of high school. And that was more about texture than flavor. I could feel the cartilage grinding between my teeth. Jibbly…

I’m getting distracted. Back to the Brussel Sprout and Prosciutto soda. It did sort of taste like Brussels sprouts, which I hate. And I faintly tasted prosciutto, which is okay. Mixed together, those two things would be gross. But this soda goes far beyond that. I’d say brussels sprout and prosciutto are only the underlying flavors. On top of that was a godawful tang which still causes my tongue to shrivel. Just plain horrible. My best guess is that it tastes like the liquid which collects in the big green garbage bin of a vegan. The result of all these flavors was an experience which caused me to dry heave no less than three times – if I wasn’t a guest in somebody else’s house, I would have juss let it fly.

One of the worst parts was how it offends the palette. Initially, you get the horrible flavors. But as you swallow, it assaults you during the whole trip. It clings to the posterior of your tongue and throat and refuses to let go – I imagine it to be the perfect cranial nerve IX toxin. The concoction settles in the back of your mouth like mustard gas in a World War I trench. And no amount of eating or drinking would speed its dissipation. This drink is not fucking around.

This is Fear Factor soda.

Cranberry Sauce
We quickly moved on to cranberry sauce in a vain effort to combat the BS&P soda residue in our mouths. By comparison, this stuff was ambrosia. This stuff was the panacea which results from the combination of sweat in a Brad Pitt/Angelina Jolie love-making session. It was a cool Coke Zero in the middle of the Sahara.

Unfortunately, it exploded as a carbonated fountain upon opening. None of the other flavors did, thank god. If the BS&E soda had fizzed out, the house would have to be exorcised and burned down. The prevailing theory regarding the fizz explosion is that my hand was too shaky from my recent near-death experience. And this new brew was loaded with enough red dye 40 to literally paint a town red. It definitely stained my skin, and might have stained the table of our gracious hosts. But it was an Ikea table, so I can buy them a new one for $40.

The amazing thing is, it tastes more like a cranberry garnish than just cranberry sauce/juice. It probably would have been easy to carbonate cranberry juice, but they went the extra mile and made it taste like a cranberry dressing. A horrible, horrible cranberry dressing. After my head cleared from the Brussels Sprout Experience ( a good band name), I realized that this stuff was bad. It was not as tasty as initially thought.

Pumpkin Pie
The final flavor, and the one I had the most hope for. It was bad, of course. Like the others, it had an underlying pumpkin pie taste. But beyond that, it was awful. No good. Avoid it.

What was incredible is the series of flavors. There is a distinct initial offering of pumpkin pie filling (it actually tasted more like just regular pumpkin, though), followed by the taste of pie crust. It was unusual. The flavors were distinct and separate. C&C Music Factory made the frighteningly accurate comparison to the Violet Beauregarde gum from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. You go through a sequence of flavors: pie filling to pie crust to vomit to tears.

And that was that. Here is the aftermath:

5 partially consumed bottles (of course, Brussels Sprout was still the most full) and J-Bone’s J-bone. The whole experience gave us a plethora of emotions: laughter, tears, curiosity, tears, relief, vomit, tears. It was a bonding experience. My advice: try it with a group of friends. If you try it alone, you’ll be locked away with some guy who is locked in an eternal conversation with an imaginary Garret A. Hobart. When will you ever again have the opportunity to try those wonderful flavors? Besides, it’s for charity.

Random facial responses:




The recommended wine list (seriously) and included moist towlette:

(not pictured: the included spork)

Abandoned ideas:

1. Making somebody chug Brussels sprout soda – that’s just too much. You’d probably die.
2. Mixing all the flavors and trying them all together – bad Montgomery, bad!
3. Trying the regional (as opposed to our national) pack – flavors are: broccoli casserole, smoked salmon pate, turkey & gravy, corn on the cob and pecan pie. Maybe some other day…
4. Better living through chemistry – Jelly Bellies have always given me such hope. Tear…