New product Wednesday, at Dallas-area stores: Jones Soda Limited-Edition Halloween flavors

by Teresa Gubbins

Candy corn is back, but otherwise this year's flavors seem less kitschy and more adulty.

Jones Soda, the culty Seattle soda company probably best known for the gross-out "turkey and gravy" flavored soda it released on Thanksgiving 2003, has been releasing Limited-Edition Halloween flavored sodas since 2005. Some of the flavors are staples; they bring back the candy corn soda every year. But they've also added and subtracted flavors. Last year, the lineup included strawberry, grape, "monster mojito", and licorice.

This year, candy corn returns, as does monster mojito and lemon (AKA "lemon drop dead"). But 2008 has several flavors not previously seen, including "dread apple", "blood orange", "buried pomegranate", and "spoookiwi". Most are reminiscent of (if not identical to) regular non-seasonal flavors Jones already makes (such as green apple, blueberry pomegranate, and kiwi).

Still, some people collect these things and the packaging/design is cool, with ghoulish characters such as Dracula, The Mummy, Wolfman, and Frankenstein. The 8-ounce format is a plus, not only for those who don't drink a lot of soda but also because with some of these flavors, you may be in it just to sample and not for full-scale consumption.

That said, Jones took the step in 2007 of cutting out HFCS and began using cane sugar -- a big deal for soda purists. (Most of these are about 130 calories per can with 32g sugar.) The sugar gives the sodas extra body and an almost syrupy mouthfeel that's appealing, assuming you like sweet. The perky tang of the blood orange and pomegranate flavors offsets the sweetness, making those two flavors come off as the most "adult" of the lot.

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