Jones Soda Christmas Pack: Egg Nog

Fabulous news! Well, for me, anyway. Indifferent news for everyone else. I may not need a root canal. The constant, throbbing pain in my teeth may just be an infection. My dentist started me on antibiotics and said I should be feeling relief within a day or so. Hooray! Because for the last four days (the weekend and the two-day holiday while the dentist's office was closed) I've been having near constant fantasies about ripping those two teeth out of my jaw with pliers. Yes, I realize that in the short term, that probably would have hurt rather significantly more, but I was imagining the long term payoff of those aching teeth just being gone.

Anyway . . . who cares but me, right? Onward to something more interesting, the first bottle from this year's Jones Soda Christmas Pack. I'm going to start off with a flavor I actually expect to be pretty good: Egg Nog. To stay in the Christmas spirit, I'm still listing to carols. Right now, I'm listing to "Joy to the World" in Japanese ("Morobito Kozorite" sung by a chorus featuring Iwao Junko).

The Egg Nog soda is very yellow, much more so than real egg nog. And of course, being soda, it is clear. In other words, it looks not so much like egg nog as a substance one hands to one's physician in a tiny plastic cup. I'm going to do my best to keep the visual out of my head, instead focusing on the cute snowman picture on the label.

The message under the cap says, "Encourage tranquility if you are feeling agitated." Can't argue with that sound advice.

The scent is just a little eggy and just a little noggy. With my eyes closed, I can easily deceive myself into imagining that it's the real thing.

With the first sip, the dominant flavor I noticed was actually the cane sugar. Now, I love cane sugar sodas, however, it really works to the disadvantage of the egg nog effect. The sweet should not overwhelm the other flavors, but here, it really does. But of course, the biggest detriment to the egg nog effect is, of course, texture. Soda can not mimic the creamy, mouth-coating thickness of real egg nog. This ends up being rather more like cream soda with a hint of nutmeg.

It is, at least, very tasty and enjoyable.