Facilitating the tasting was one of the Chef's best Christmas presents ever (aside from that gift card to "Bed, Bath, and Bondage"): a Serenity shot glass set from Good Guy Comics (the same folks I bought my Decepticon shot glass from at AWA). I have the greatest goddamned friends in the 'Verse.

The real question was, which of these carbonated horrors should we start with? Should we open with the more palatable flavors, or go ahead and get the nastier kinds over with at the beginning? Decisions, decisions...

We decided to begin at the bottom of the barrel, so to speak. Or the top, if you look at it correctly. Let's face it - the most fun from the Jones holiday-themed sets is the disgustingly inappropriate flavors, so why not start with the most utterly wrong flavor in the set? By consensus this was Christmas Tree, all festooned in a bright and cheery green that belied the taste sensations that lay underneath its silver cap. Surely something this Christmasy-looking couldn't taste that bad, could it?

Christmas Tree

The first thing we always do for "Will Dylan Eat It?" is what we call the "sniff test". Namely, you stick your nose about an inch from the food being tested and see what kind of damage it does to your sinuses. Don't try this at home, kids - we're trained professional stunt men and women. We're also just a little bit bonkers, so you probably don't want us to be your role models. Stay in school and don't drink the Jones Soda seasonal flavors, 'cause they'll kill ya.

The scent of it isn't that hard to describe. It smells like a fir tree. This didn't exactly put us at ease about its drinkability. The scent of conifer may be cheery and pleasant, but it's not something normally associated with beverages. But it wasn't exactly fir or spruce that some people thought of...

Jen: "It smells like my dad's cough syrup."

Cough syrup or not, it was time to ante up and take a drink. In unison, everyone partook of the Christmasy green horror.

Reactions were mixed at best.

Dylan: "Like a tree smells. Not like Pine Sol."

Jen: "Tastes like Pine Sol, dirt, and sugar."

Geoffrey: "Tastes like water with dirt. Some cream soda flavor."

Geoffrey wasn't the only one who thought "cream soda". Is it really fair to quote myself here?

The Chef: "Smells like a fir tree. Tastes like cream soda mixed with Pine Sol."

Others still thought "cough syrup"...

Crystal: "Tastes like cough syrup."

John: "Tastes like cream soda and cough syrup."

It could have been worse. At least no one tasted bark in it.

Egg Nog

With the (apparently) worst over, we debated which to try next. One of the possibly-almost-good flavors, to sort of cleanse our palates, or another of the more horrific ones?

We settled on somewhere in between, with Egg Nog. No, I'm not sure why Jones parsed it like that, either - as far as I know, it's supposed to be "eggnog" as one word. Maybe this was a hint that it wasn't really eggnog.

With a color like that, it wasn't likely to be eggnog, either. Check it out - radioactive neon yellow of a kind not normally seen in the natural world. This, folks, is a marvel of modern science. The only natural thing in it is the cane sugar specified by the label.

While the color was really disturbing, the thought of the soda itself was merely mildly unsettling. At least eggnog was something you drink, so an eggnog-flavored soda doesn't have the wrongness of, say, liquefied and carbonated Christmas tree or ham. And at least two of us (John and myself) have a passion for eggnog.

When we opened the bottle, the first thing that struck us was the smell of egg. It really does smell like eggnog...disturbingly so. This was not a good sign. As we poured the stuff into the shot glasses (Crystal more or less grabbed the role of unofficial shot-pourer), we began to wonder if we shouldn't have started with the egg nog, because on aroma alone, it was shaping up to be worse than the previous one.

We really weren't wrong. The taste was about what you'd expect out of something that disgusting-sounding. When the people at Jones put a name like "Egg Nog" on the label, they ain't kidding.

Nathan: "It tastes kinda like Key Lime Stewart's."

Geoffrey: "I hate eggnog...smells like carbonated eggnog. Tastes like carbonated eggnog."

Dylan: "I didn't know soda could smell like eggs."

Jen: "I hate eggnog. Smells gross. Not bad. I could drink this. Texture passes whereas regular eggnog doesn't."

With two down and one to go, we moved on to...

Jelly Doughnut

I'm not exactly sure what jelly doughnuts have to do with Chaunnukah. For all I know, it could be really important. But what the hell, we're going to run with it. After all, a soda flavor based on a dessert can't be that terrible, can it? (This seemingly rhetorical question would be disproved several times before the evening was over with.)

At least it had a pretty pink color. One thing was for certain: it sure wasn't natural. The color made me think of those nasty pink-frosted doughnuts from The Simpsons. You know, the ones that jackass Homer is always trading his soul for or somesuch nonsense.

The Jelly Doughnut did, however, pass the sniff test with relatively flying colors.

Dylan: "Smells like jellybeans."

The Maitre d' spoke for us all. That was the consensus - jellybeans. Not the most promising start, but not necessarily a bad thing. Jellybeans are good, right?

It turned out we were wrong.

The taste didn't live up to the pleasant smell. When Jones makes a soda based on something, they include all parts of it. In the case of pastries and pies, this includes the crust.

The flavor was simply indescribable. A mixture of fruit, frosting, pastry, and carbonization, it was a carnival of sugary horror. I was tempted to check my teeth in the mirror to make sure the shit hadn't instantly dissolved one or two of them. You really could taste the doughnut itself in the soda. Like Christmas Tree before it, this was truly something Man Was Not Meant To Drink.

Here, the reactions were somewhat more mixed. We really didn't reach a consensus. Some people reported no doughnut flavor, while others (like myself) thought it really was pastry-like.

Geoffrey: "Tastes a lot like strawberry. No doughnut."

Crystal: "Smells like jellybeans and tastes like a doughnut."

Nathan: "A lot of strawberry, no doughnut."

Dylan: "Smells like jellybeans, tastes like cotton candy. If you pay attention, you can taste the icing."

Jen: "No good! I can taste the doughnut grease."

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