Sure, there are traditional Thanksgiving dishes, such as turkey, mashed potatoes and pumpkin pie. And some of us have family specialties —my family always made my grandmother’s vinegary cucumber salad, and my dad liked sour cream raisin pie. But this year, you can add a novelty dish to your family feast: Turkey & Gravy soda.
Who Makes Turkey & Gravy Soda?
This treat comes from Seattle-based Jones Soda, a popular regional soda brand. Jones is known for its wacky flavors, including candy corn soda, candy cane soda and eggnog soda, and, best or worst of all, its Thanksgiving drinks. In the past, Jones has offered an entire meal in soda form, with (separate) flavors representing green bean casserole, fruitcake, dinner rolls and wild herb stuffing.
But the original Thanksgiving Jones soda, the greatest of the gobbles, is Turkey & Gravy soda. The variety debuted in 2003 and was a seasonal soda for years, but has been absent for more than a decade.
Now it’s back for 2021, apparently because there is nothing that can scare or shake us after the last two years we’ve endured. The limited-edition Jones soda. run has just 35,000 bottles, and each bottle is individually numbered for collectability. Look for a number on your labels—mine were in the 8500s.
How Does Turkey & Gravy Soda Taste?
First, the smell. It smells exactly like a gravy boat you’re about to wash after the big meal—where there’s just enough residue to remind you what was in it, but it’s been diluted with water and you have to really sniff the air to smell it. But the realism of the gravy smell, however light it was, is unnerving—these Jones Soda chemists are mad geniuses in the lab.
How did it taste? Not, thankfully, like what you’d get if you ran a blender full of turkey and gravy on puree. It’s definitely a sweetish soda, not meat-flavored. Kind of like an organic ginger ale with maybe half of an Alka-Seltzer tablet dissolved in it. I didn’t love it, but I didn’t hate it, either.
If the label didn’t say Jones Turkey & Gravy Soda, but some kind of off-brand cola instead, I’d have believed it. I wouldn’t stock up on the stuff, but I can absolutely see buying a six-pack as your contribution to the Thanksgiving feast. The family members who have a sense of fun are going to love taste-testing it, and Grandma already thinks you’re strange, right?
Where to Get Jones Thanksgiving Soda
It’s being sold at Kroger stores in the U.S. and at select stores in Canada. If you’re not able to find it in stores, check Amazon and eBay! Don’t forget to look for Brach’s Turkey Dinner candy corn, too.
The post You Can Now Buy Jones Thanksgiving Soda That Tastes Like Turkey & Gravy appeared first on Taste of Home.
Gael Fashingbauer Cooper