Saturday, June 6, 2009

Jones Berry Lemonade

Jones Berry Lemonade




There's one of those fancy metal
water flasks in the background. See? I'm hip.




I knew this stuff was trouble the minute me wife took off the cap. A thick roiling blue cloud of berry/bubblegum/champagn horror billowed out and flowed knee deep around the living room, I half expected to see some stupid blue Disney djinni appear. My first wish would've been that I hadn't let my wife buy the Jones Pure Cane Berry Lemonade Soda. The second wish would be for the paradox to go away.

This is a real loser. It's like an American soda tried to imitate the cheap Central American champagne sodas. It did it just about perfectly, which means they copied the "suck" part just as well. Bah. It's slightly lemonadey, which tempers the horrible champagne berry crap. It also helps to take a drink, recoil in horror, put the cap back on and let it sit overnight. Drinking some more the next day you'll find that foamy foam foam aspect of the drink has calmed down.

It's sweet and potent, filling my mouth with a skim coat of sugar scum that makes my teeth vibrate and my gums go numb. I'm wondering if this some side effect of the diabolical "inverted cane sugar". This "inverted" sugar is that same stuff that gave St. Peter all his martyr cavities. (Is it St. Peter? I think he was the guy who was crucified on an upside down cross, right?)

All my complaining aside, the stuff is bearable after it airs out. The berry perfume drops off and the lemonade is allowed to come through. The ingredients are all pretty good, you know things are comparatively healthy when "Natural Flavors" shows up fourth on the list.

I'm embarrassed to say that this is my first Jones drink that I can remember. They aren't terribly common, and are usually sold in four packs, not the sort of thing I buy - I'm a low commitment kind of guy. A few years ago they had that Thanksgiving stunt, where they made sodas that were turkey flavored and the like, sadly I didn't get to try any of those.

So overall, I dunno. I think this is probably a crap flavor from a pretty good company. It's certainly a better "champagne" than most, and certainly healthier. The best part, though, is that it's something I can hold over my wife for a few days, "Honey, I let me pick what we watch on the television because that soda you bought was total crap."

Note: I did the tasting about ago, two full bottles still sit in the refrigerator, waiting for some sucker guest to come and drink them.

Note note: It's been three months and I think there are still two bottles in the refrigerator.

Note note note: Four months, still two bottles in there. That's a horribly long lag between writing and posting this article.

7 comments :

  1. I'm assuming your older than 26? It's a pretty sweet drink for us older folks... However, it does make for the BEST mixer with Vodka. So for your next bottle have it over ice with a shot of vodka and I think you'll agree that it is fantastic!!!

    Report your findings and I'll check it out!

    From a big fan of Jones.

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  2. Sadly, I'm not an alchohol drinker. I suspect everything goes better with alchohol. I think my equivalent would be to mix more sugar, salt and fat into it.

    That sounds pretty good, actually.

    I'm generally a fan of Jones stuff, though I haven't had any but the Berry Lemonade since starting this blog. It's not normally this overpoweringly sweet...

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  3. We've reviewed several of the Jones Sugar Free Sodas and find them to be just as enjoyable as the other flavors. We encourage you to give them a try. Black Cherry is our favorite.

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  4. It's funny that black cherry flavoring translates so well into "diet". Sugar Free Black Cherry Torani syrup is my favorite of all the Torani syrups, sugary ones included.

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  5. I bought the Jones Soda complete Thanksgiving dinner in bottle form, and believe me, you didn't miss anything. Firstly, it was sweetened with artificial sweeteners, every flavor. The odd flavors could have worked if they hadn't made all of the bottles diet.
    So most of the non-dessert ones tasted of salt and aspartame. (or whatever nightmare substitute they chose)
    Thanks for mentioning the black cherry syrup, I haven't tried any of the diet Torani syrups aside from vanilla. I was rather dissapointed that black cherry was only diet, but now will be willing to try it.

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  6. I'm glad to hear a reasonable explanation of why the Thanksgiving bottles tasted bad, most of what I heard was "Yuk! Turkee in a bottle is Gr000SS!" Thanks.

    and

    I've never had diet Jones dark cherry. I meant that as a generalization, that dark cherry seems to hold up well as a diet flavor. Haven't tried the Jones diet ark cherry.

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