Hudson Valley Store Selling Pumpkin Spice Soda, is it Any Good?

A new, pumpkin spice soda is hitting shelves in the Hudson Valley. We tried it out ourselves to see if it really tasted as terrible as it sounds.

Over the past few years, the pumpkin spice craze has truly gotten out of hand. From September to November, food items that have no reason to be flavored with cinnamon, cloves and nutmeg are being released in "pumpkin spice" flavors. We've seen pumpkin spice hummus, Twinkies, chewing gum and even Spam.

While all of these foods were terribly disgusting (except the Twinkies, of course) they did not prepare us for what we found on the shelves at Stop and Shop this month. The grocery store chain with locations in Pougkeepsie, Washingtonville, Newburgh, Hyde Park and Hopewell Junction is offerg up a "limited time" pumpkin spice flavored craft soda.

We just had to try it for ourselves, but after tasting it we really wish we left it on the shelf.

The first thing we noticed was the pungent smell. The soda didn't smell much like a pumpkin pie. Instead, it had a medicine-like aroma that reminded me of something you'd rinse with at the dentist.

After smelling the soda I was less excited about tasting it, but we all dove right in anyway. The first thing we all noticed was a huge hit of sugar. According to the label, there are 35 grams of sugar in the soda; almost 10 grams more than an average cola. Although one of our taste-testers claimed to make out flavors of clove and cinnamon, the rest of us were left scratching our heads over why this was even called pumpkin spice. The best way to describe the flavor was a liquid Necco wafer. There was an aftertaste of what I guess could pass as imitation clove that lasted for quite a bit longer than expected.

We all unanimously gave this drink a failing grade. Not only does it taste terrible, it really doesn't seem to serve any purpose. While some pumpkin spice mash-ups like pastries and coffees make sense, I'm not sure there's a huge market for a soda that tastes like pumpkin spice, even if it was delicious.

So do yourself a favor, if you see this on the shelves just keep walking. And if you're really in the mood for something pumpkin spice, grab a box of those Twinkies. You'll wind up much happier.