If you've seen sodas inspired by things like fresh-cut grass or bacon, you'll be familiar with the mix of deep trepidation and adventurous curiosity I felt when I ordered the weirdest soda flavors I could find on Amazon. We're certainly living in a unique and interesting time, where with a few clicks of the mouse or taps on your phone screen, you can bring a strange array of fizzy flavors to your doorstep.
While there may be many good reasons to give bizarre soda pop a try, I was motivated by a need to improve my 10-year-old son's social standing. Between the pandemic and some inherited social anxiety, Zane hadn't had a party in years. When he asked to invite all the boys in his class to a summer shindig, I knew I had to pull out all the stops to earn my mom-of-the-year mug. Enter the blind taste test of seven weird soda flavors with a dozen elementary boys. These were some of the best and worst soda flavors we tried.
If you're looking to try this at home (and we think you should), you'll need Lester's Fixin's Soda Pop Sampler. We got multiple six-packs, plus some single bottles of Rocket Fizz's Grass Soda because I honestly just wanted to try that. You'll also need some plain paper cups and pencil and paper so people can write down their rankings or guess the flavors.
Bacon Soda
Like most of us, my kid loves bacon. Most kids do, so I thought he and the other kids would think bacon-flavored pop was the best soda flavor. Thing is, it got kind of mixed reviews. No one hated it, and no one actually gagged. But none of the kids were asking for more.
When we opened it, the soda definitely had that bacon smell, which the kids loved. That didn't mean they could identify it, though. "Honestly, these are really unpredictable, because bacon did not taste like bacon," Zane said. "It sort of tasted like very cold bacon or maybe burned bacon."
Buffalo Wing Soda
All meat-flavored sodas aren't created equal, it turns out. I brought out a tray of the buffalo wing flavor in unmarked paper cups and passed them around to all the kids. At this point, they were into the game and took the time to smell it first. Many recoiled, but that didn't stop them from sipping it. One kid made a terrible groaning noise at the first taste, but most were pretty polite.
"The buffalo tasted a bit like spicy chicken," Zane said. He is not a fan of spicy chicken, so I don't think this was a compliment.
Peanut Butter and Jelly Soda
You might think the kids would love the soda flavor inspired by everyone's favorite sandwich of childhood, but if you did, you'd think wrong. I definitely didn't expect such a negative reaction from this one. No one seemed to finish all the soda in their cup, and there were definitely some comparisons to vomit. At least three kids spit it out (I'm not a parenting newb, so this party was held outdoors).
"All I remember of the peanut butter and jelly was that it tasted really, really gross," Zane recalled.
Grass Soda
I have to admit I actually really like the grass-flavored jelly bean from Jelly Belly, so I had high hopes for this flavor. I tossed it in my Amazon cart because I actually did want to try it and not just as a way to torture and entertain a bunch of kids. I took a sip before carrying the tray out to the kids, and I have to say I was a little disappointed. It didn't have much of a grass taste at all (whatever that really means since it's not like I go around grazing).
It was the kids' favorite, though. Kids were asking for more, and I had to disappoint them by telling them we still had several other weird flavors to taste. "Grass tastes like green apple," Zane said. "Everyone loved it."
Pumpkin Pie Soda
Because pumpkin pie is already sweet, it lends itself pretty well to a weird soda flavor. When I sipped this, I felt that I might not want a second taste, but it also wasn't horrible. Think of it as a pumpkin spice-flavored cold drink — kind of strange but not terrible.
This was another where there were some requests to have seconds. Most of the kids actually liked this one, but Zane did not. "Pumpkin pie wasn't the best," he said. "It was honestly not all that memorable, but I don't even like real pumpkin pie."
Sweet Corn Soda
Who doesn't love sweet corn? Turns out most kids prefer to chew it rather than drink it. This was one of those flavors that seemed like a good idea and just turned out not to be, according to most of the boys at the party.
"Sweet corn was maybe my least favorite," Zane said. "It was actually overwhelming and just too sweet for me. It does taste like sweet corn, but it really tastes like sweet corn, like it's overpowering."
I do have to admit that this one was my favorite. I love sweet corn, and it definitely had a sweet corn vibe going on. At the same time, "favorite" is a low bar here, and it's not the kind of thing I'd ever buy just to drink it.
Ranch Dressing Soda
I've saved the worst for last here. I live in the Midwest, where ranch is basically a food group. You might think that a ranch-flavored soda would be a hit at a kids' party in Minnesota, but a dozen 10-year-olds would beg to differ.
When I opened the bottles to pour the samples into the cups, this one was just terrible and overpowering. You could compare the odor to dirty feet. Sure, there was something ranch-adjacent to it, but... just no. I actually couldn't bring myself to sip this one before I carried it out to the kids.
By this time in the experiment, a few of the kids had already spit out the grossest sodas. They may have been kind of overwhelmed because no one would even drink this. I'm not sure we can even say it was the worst soda flavor, since people didn't really let it pass their lips after smelling it.
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The Worst Soda Flavors Are the Best Party Game
All in all, we got so much entertainment out of a few bottles of weird soda flavors. I'd have to say that while I wouldn't drink these things again, this was basically the ideal party game for kids (and adults would love it, too). The boys in Zane's class were talking about it when they got back from summer break, and I think the shared adversity of gagging over the scent of the ranch-flavored soda really helped them bond.
