The Chef

Here at Chainsaw Buffet, we try to bring you the finest in holiday dining. Among the finest dining in the world is the yearly Jones Soda Holiday Pack, featuring exotic flavors like Turkey and Gravy or Brussels Sprout. This year, the demented folks at Jones have gone to the extra effort of putting out not one, but two holiday packs, one for Christmas and the other for Chaunnukah. Sadly, neither of them has the Dark Lord of the Carbonated Holidays himself, Mr. Turkey and Gravy.

Before we get into this even-more-insanely-massive-than-usual tasting, let me relate a little story about finding these two special holiday packs. The Maitre d' and myself hit every Target, Kroger, and every other store even marginally likely to have the Jones holiday flavors within a 30-mile radius, and we found absolutely nothing. We finally found the Holiday Dessert Pack, which has various pie-like flavors, but none of the "normal" (using that term even more loosely than I usually do) sets. In the end, the Maitre d' resorted to ordering the Christmas and Chaunnukah packs online. Not only was he charged $11 in shipping, but two of the bottles got their tops knocked off by some fool at UPS. Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately), the two damaged bottles were the Christmas Ham and Latke flavors. When it was opened, the package smelled like ham and vomit.

In case you haven't figured it out, the Jones holiday sets aren't intended to be good like the company's normal flavors. They're exceedingly true-to-life, which makes it very disturbing when you're drinking a soda flavored like egg nog or wild herb stuffing. This is the kind of disgusting thing that you dare your friends to try. In fact, a couple of years ago, we tried the 2005 Holiday Pack for TVGA. This year, we decided to ramp things up a bit.

Twelve Days of Christmas, Twelve Flavors of Horror

Sadly, our Jones-fest was going to be without soda of the meat and/or potato-flavored variety. The loss was felt even more because the 2007 holiday packs lack stuffing and veggie flavors (Christmas Tree is debatable, since a tree isn't really a vegetable.). However, we made up for this lack by adding in not two, but six new flavors. Four came from the aforementioned dessert pack. The last two were the seasonal mass-release flavors. From left to right, they are:

• Gingerbread Man: One of the two "regular" Jones seasonal flavors, and possibly one of the more feared.
• Christmas Cocoa: The other mass-release flavor (as in, one sold in the usual four-packs instead of the multipacks with one bottle per flavor).
• Chocolate Coins: From the Chaunnukah pack; everyone had a bit of trepidation about the chocolate flavors, because they could be good...or really, really bad.
• Jelly Doughnut: Another from the Chaunnukah pack. Not one I had any real expectations about, but nothing as fearsome as some of the others.
• Applesauce: I'm not Jewish, so I'm not sure exactly what the connection this or Jelly Doughnut has to do with Chaunnukah. At least even a stupid goy like me knows why the Chocolate Coins flavor is in here.
• Egg Nog: With its neon yellow color, this Christmas pack special looked like radioactive Mountain Dew. I love eggnog, and the mere thought of eggnog-flavored soda turned my stomach.
• Christmas Tree: Next to the destroyed Christmas Ham flavor, this was the most feared by everyone involved. What would it taste like? Since no one participating had eaten a Christmas tree (the Maitre d's housemates have artificial trees specifically to prevent this from happening), we had no clue how bad (or good) it would be.
• Sugar Plum: This one didn't sound bad, probably because none of us had a clue what the hell a sugar plum is, much less what one's supposed to taste like. But hey, it sounds like some kind of candy, so a soda flavor based on it can't be too bad, right?
• Apple Pie: From the Dessert Pack, soda that tastes like apple pie sounds rather good. Of course, the pumpkin pie-based flavor from a couple of years ago sounded good, too...and it wasn't.
• Blueberry Pie: Again, the fruit-based desserts don't sound like they'd make bad sodas. At least this had a pretty blue color.
• Lemon Meringue Pie: Another Dessert Pack special, and one of the least offensive-sounding. Hey, they put lemon flavor into sodas all the time. It can't be that bad...can it?
• Cherry Pie: Like the Lemon Meringue, a soda like this doesn't sound awful...until you taste it.

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