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Ham Soda Anyone?

by Jeff Yoskowitz · November 11th, 2007
Holidays, New Products, On The Web

It seems that Jews have made it. Bizarre, strange American holiday rituals (read: butter turkeys for Thanksgiving, fruit cakes for Christmas) have extended out a hand to American Jews. New for the holiday season is a special soda that tastes like latkes and a Christmas Ham soda that happens to be kosher.

Jones Soda co., a Seattle based soda-maker, announced new soda flavors for the holiday season. See the story in The Olympian. Jones is known for bizarre and “offbeat” flavors. New to the holiday line–in addition to the turkey and gravy soda flavors for Thanksgiving–are Chanukkah and Christmas flavors. The Hanukkah pack features Jelly Doughnut, Apple Sauce, Chocolate Coins and latkes soda flavors. “As always, both packs are kosher,” a Jones statement read.

I don’t know why this bothers me so much but it does. It just combines so many ridiculous food trends that characterize how sick we as a country are. First off, major chemical research was needed to make chocolate coin or ham flavored soda, without any trace of chocolate or ham, which means the sodas are all artificial flavoring and sugar. Secondly, was there a demand for this? It’s not that cute. It’s sort of funny, I guess, but far from appealing. It’s nice that Jones agreed that some of its proceeds will go to charity, but isn’t that just a typical PR ploy to get more people to buy the holiday sodas. Lastly, I hate when holidays are reduced to the foods we use to celebrate them, and in this case, only the idea and flavors of the food we use to celebrate Christmas and Hanukkah are being recognized.

All that said, this is a good opportunity for those who don’t eat pork, or kosher processed fake soy pork treats, to taste the flavors of ham. Let me know how it is.

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4 Responses to “Ham Soda Anyone?”

  1. Eric Says:
    November 11th, 2007 at 10:40 pm

    I admit it, I bought both Jones holiday packs last year. What a disappointment! The dessert pack sodas were all sickly sweet, and the Thanksgiving dinner ones? Truly awful. It would have been at least interesting if they hadn’t pulled any punches and actually made the sodas taste like the items on the bottles (gravy, string beans, etc). But instead, they just tasted like someone had dropped their mashed potatoes into a bottle of Sprite. Yech!

    So, don’t expect any miracle from the Ham soda. (Never thought I’d be writing that sentence in relation to Chanukkah…)

  2. Gersh Says:
    November 12th, 2007 at 8:43 am

    Wow, Jeff, you’re really bitter and humorless. How about just taking a minute to chill out and laugh at ham soda? Ham soda doesn’t “characterize how sick we as a country are”. Ham soda isn’t even in the list of the top ten food-related problems in America.

  3. Jeffrey Yoskowitz Says:
    November 12th, 2007 at 10:27 am

    Gersh, thanks for calling me on the cynicism. I actually posted this because at first I found it to be so humorous, and by bringing attention to it I was also trying to point out its humor. As I was posting, however, this cynical tone just came out. I’ve found that so many humorous things like ham soda are put up on this site and just laughed at without being criticized properly for what they represent and felt the need to take on that role.

    While it may not be the top-ten food problems in this country, beverages that wholly consist of chemicals, sugar and water are a major problem in the world today and many of our top-ten are traced back to these beverages. There’s also a heady symbolic component about ham-flavored soda and hanukkah flavoring about which I’m already writing for the next post.

  4. Rabbi Shmuel Says:
    November 14th, 2007 at 9:32 am

    When I saw “ham soda” I just silently rolled my eyes, looked up to the heavens and asked “why?” As I see it it’s merely food as theater. (OK so we get the joke and we’ll buy a bottle for our frum friends or put it away and hope it will be worth as much as a can of Billy Beer one day) What about the oxymoronic “organic soda”? Now there’s a product I have problems with. Will it stop the obesity problem or the environmental impact of the packaging and shipping just because Pedro got a fair wage for the sugar? Gimme a break! That’s greenwashing at its finest.

    Ironically, one of the Torah’s teachings about pork is that the pig lays on its side with its cloven hooves out for all to see as if to exclaim “look at me – I’m kosher”. That’s organic soda for ya!

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