HEB Pumpkin Creme

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Below is the Original Written Review from October 25, 2017

‘Tis the season to drink pumpkin… fa la la la la, la la la laaaaa.  Now that I’ve rendered you all “festive” with my song you’re ready to read this HEB Pumpkin Creme soda review.  I’m not really big into liquid pumpkin to be honest with you.  You won’t find me at the local coffee joint sipping on Pum-Spi Lattes or whatever the shorthand is.  You will find me downing multiple handfuls of pumpkin seeds though.  Good gracious those are delicious and far superior to sunflower seeds.  So I don’t dislike pumpkin products, I just normally prefer not to drink them.  That is, until the day Jeff Boo-itsky (get it, it’s a spooky pun on an already established character within the Soda Jerks lore), gave me a can of HEB Pumpkin Creme.

It was a perfectly good shot of a can on a chair until the iguana appeared

It was a perfectly good shot of a can on a chair until the iguana appeared

This can of Pumpkin Creme soda is sweetened with pure cane sugar and actually has pumpkin juice in the ingredients.  Granted the soda is less than 1% juice, but it’s still there as ingredient number three.

The smell is that of spiced pumpkin, with more emphasis on the spice than on the pumpkin.  I don’t know what’s causing me to believe this, but the aroma is leading me to believe it will have a fairly clean aftertaste to it.  Enough ponderin’, let’s get to drinkin’.

Well ok.  Ever smell a pumpkin spice candle?  Take that smell and reduce how pungent it is by about 75%.  Then liquify it the smell using the aroma-liquefier the government sends you at the beginning of the year.  Now add a little marshmallow fluff to it and mix it all together.  Congratulations!  You’ve poisoned yourself!  If you’d have bought HEB Pumpkin Creme instead you’d enjoy the same taste without the gut tearing poison.

So the pumpkin taste is by far the easiest to identify.  It’s similar to pumpkin pie, but not quite there.  There’s also a roasted marshmallow flavor going on in the background, which I supposed would qualify as the “creme” portion of this soda.  Aside from those two flavors there’s a bit of a sickly sweet after-taste that isn’t too appealing to me.  The mouth-feel starts off ok, but eventually gets a little thick for my liking.

I really enjoy that HEB makes flavors like this, but I really wished you could just buy one can or one bottle of their seasonal sodas.  As far as I’m aware you have to buy a reasonably priced 12 pack if you want to try it.  That’s a pretty big commitment to expect someone to buy 12 Pumpkin Creme sodas.  Take it from the guy that currently has 11 HEB Peach sodas in his pantry right now.

~A

This was given to me by Jeff Boo-itsky