Friday, May 11, 2007

Jones Soda Carbonated Candy

Jones Soda CandyJones Soda added three new carbonated candy flavors this year—M.F. Grape, Orange & Cream, and Cream Soda. They taste like fizzy SweeTarts (or SweeTart Fizzies), and come in cool flip top tins that make you want to empty out the contents and put more stuff in. There are short customer non sequiturs written under each lid ("you are a skilled metal worker," --Jamie in Satsuma).
The Jones Soda website calls the lively little candies "flavor boosters," suggesting they be dropped in Jones sodas. I tried this with a warm Diet 7Up over ice, and don't recommend it. (It tasted like a piece of Orange & Cream candy dropped out of someone's mouth and into my drink.)
Let me add that along with tempting pure cane soda choices such as Crushed Melon, Jones is known for some disturbing holiday flavors: Broccoli Casserole, Turkey & Gravy, Corn on the Cob, and Wild Herb Stuffing, et—blehhh—cetera.
The Jones candies are as "tongue-tingling," as the tin claims, but I'd forget the whole flavor booster thing.
Not like the Pop Rocks I expected, they are instead crunchy and effervescent, with a quick pucker, and sweet aftertaste. They don't taste much like soda, but are almost as fun as Fizzies, without the fear of something bubbling on your tongue until it burns straight through.
The Orange & Cream is oddly softer than the other two, and reminds me of Children's Bayer Aspirin. Of the three, I'd choose M.F. Grape, if for no other reason than to wonder aloud what the M.F. stands for.

4 comments:

  1. Great pic!

    I'm just curious if they use sugar in these or some sort of artificial sweetener.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hi Cybele,

    Yes, they use sugar. Jones Soda switched to pure cane sugar this year, so makes sense. See ingredient list below.
    This excerpt from seattle.pi.com (http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/
    business/293972_jonessoda29.html)

    Wednesday, November 29, 2006
    By Craig Harris

    "Seattle-based Jones, which makes root beer, cream soda and quirky drinks with flavors such as turkey and gravy, will sell 12-ounce canned sodas with pure cane sugar after Jan. 1. All of the company's products will make the switch by mid-2007, van Stolk said."

    Jones Soda Co. Carbonated Candy Ingredients: sugar, dextrose, citric acid, sodium bicarbonate, malic acid, natural and artificial flavors, maltodextrin, calcium stearate, colors (Yellow, Blue, and Red Lake)
    Do we want to eat anything made from Red Lake?

    ReplyDelete
  3. Wow...I love you M.F. blog! Excellent! I will be back fo' sho'. I'm in Dairyland, too.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Hi Ms. Mamma,

    Willie St. or Brady St.? I just saw Volver and forgot how much I like Pedro A. You sound like a child of the 80s from your musical references. Rosalind Russell, eh?

    ReplyDelete

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