Chocolate-Covered Maple Smoked Bacon Soda

I’m looking at the title of this article and sighing.  Chocolate-Covered Maple Smoked Bacon Soda will henceforth be known as Choc-Bacon Soda.  Now I’ve had bacon soda and I’ve had chocolate soda, but if my records are correct I’ve never had the c-c-c-combo.  Part of me thinks that this is trying a bit too hard to be “fun”.  On the flip side, another part of me is saying “that’s what soda is all about, fun!”  The fact that it’s specifically “Maple Smoked” makes me happy.  They could have made chocolate bacon flavored soda and called it a day, but they did not.  This is specifically flavored to taste like it was smoked with maple.  A quick look at the ingredients tells me that the flavor created is purely by chemicals, with the sweetening agent being cane sugar.  Oh wait… there’s also salt listed.  Goody.

Putting my nose to the mouth of the bottle I’m happy to experience a mostly chocolate aroma.  There is hardly a scent of bacon to be found.  In fact if I were to take a blind scent test I would believe chocolate was running solo with this delicious smell.

Twist abhors chocolate covered anything

Well I’m happy to say that the taste mirrors the aroma.  It seems the makers of Choc-Bacon Soda knew they might have more repeat buyers if the soda inside was tasty and not just “wacky”.  The immediate taste is that of chocolate syrup mixed with cola.  A sensation you must try if you haven’t already.  Next in line to the ride known as my taste buds is the maple.  Maple merely whispers to my taste buds, adding more of a syrup taste that I feel on the back end of each sip.  Next up would naturally be the bacon, but I honestly can’t taste it.  Perhaps the bacon flavor is breaking up what would be an overload of sugar given off by the chocolate and maple.  Maybe that’s the function, to make this beverage palatable.

The carbonation levels are excellent with enough fizz to make each sip seem lively.  So there you have it, this is a pretty tasty concoction, but I’m put at an odd place.  Do I rank this highly because it tastes good or do I knock off points because the label tells me I’d be tasting a Choc-Bacon Soda.  I’m thrilled to find another delicious soda on the market, but I do not taste the premier flavor on the label.  In this case I feel it still deserves a good ranking, but not what its potential could have driven it to.  What’s interesting is that if the bacon flavor were more powerful I’d probably rank this on the sad end of our scale.  Curious soda, this Choc-Bacon Soda.

~A