Jones Soda Review

Trying Jones Soda in high school was possibly my first experience drinking flavors my brain hadn’t conceived on its own. Faygo is another heavy hitter in the experimental soda range, but I’ll leave that discussion for another time. I’ve always been impressed with Jones Soda’s offerings, and was excited with the opportunity to try some rare flavors from the brand to see how much further their experimentation reaches.

Sour Patch Kids Soda

I’m nearly never satisfied with a drink that claims to be sour. There’s a tartness that’s usually lacking, and it’s usually overpowered by a sickly, sugary sweetness that plows through my taste buds and just sits there, with no pucker to it. This was not like that. It’s watermelon sour patch kids, and I was expecting it to be more like the watermelon sour patch candies--the inferior ones that are shaped like little melon slices and are more sweet than anything else. In a whole bag of those, you’re lucky if you even taste a semblance of sour as an aftertaste, and eating melon after sugary melon feels like chasing a flavor that will never come. With this, the initial sip is melony, as expected, and then there’s a zap to the glands as a sort of aftershock that tingles a little in a satisfying way. It wasn’t a delayed reaction, it was immediately chasing the soda’s sweetness. This was done perfectly, very impressive and a fun soda to drink.

10/10

Quantum Nuka Cola

It wasn’t until well after I finished this soda that I noticed it said “Berry Lemonade” flavor in small print underneath the name, but that’s a little bit of a departure from what I think this tastes like. I had guessed it was more of a blue raspberry flavor, because the tartness factor is high, which I loved. It doesn’t taste particularly lemony or lemonade-y though, which is surprising with the tartness factor I mentioned. It mainly tastes like a strong, tart berry. On the back of the bottle though, it says this soda contains 17 fruit flavors and the “signature Nuka Cola taste” to make “the most refreshing soda in the U.S.A”. I don’t know about all that. I’d like them to cite some sources, but based on the research I did, this soda is based on something from a video game, so sources don’t actually exist, and what I found was pretty unclear. I think I have to already be a nerd in order to understand the search results, and I’m not. As a whole, though, this is a quality soda with a unique flavor that I haven’t experienced before, and though I think calling it a berry lemonade eclipses the full range of flavor, it was a great soda.

10/10

Melon Soda

This was a different type of melon flavor. I’m not sure what kind of melon they were trying to nail here. It tasted like a very vague combination of maybe a few melon inspirations, with a hint of vanilla. I don’t think it was bad--it was a big contrast in comparison to the Sour Patch Kids one above, which I appreciated. I was a little thrown off by the smooth vanilla in this, because it was so unexpected, but I think it made a beautiful twist on a melon soda. There aren’t a ton of different varieties of melon represented well in drinks, and a lot of artificial melon flavors can verge on tasting like a melon rind rather than a slightly sweet actual melon. This was great. I respect this soda. It had a mature nod to it in flavor, it wasn’t like a childish novelty soda. It was genuinely good and crafted carefully.

10/10