Jelly Belly: Soda Pop Shoppe

We’re heading back to the jolly land of Jelly Belly for this review, taking a look at their collection of soda-inspired flavors. We’ll probably be reviewing Jelly Belly packages with increasing frequency, given how prolific they are compared to most brands.

Jelly Belly puts out a lot of interesting and unusual flavors. This is a fun little bundle of beans that are actually inspired by real-life soda flavors like Dr. Pepper (one of my all-time favorites) and 7 Up.

I’m going to refer you to the Jelly Belly Snapple and Sours reviews for details on the first three categories. Jelly Belly is just so consistent, they’re not worth rehashing here.

Size and shape

4 out of 5 beans

Chewability

2 out of 5 beans

Texture

5 out of 5 beans

Taste and flavor

Now the fun begins! Jelly Belly truly does an incredible job capturing the essence of the original soda flavors.

• Orange and Grape Crush could easily reuse existing Jelly Belly orange and grape flavors, but no. They clearly put an effort into making them taste like the specific orange and grape flavors of Crush.
• Maybe it’s psychosomatic, but it seems like there’s an effervescence to the 7 Up flavor, which emulates the lemon/lime combo of the soda very well.
• A&W Root Beer and Cream Soda taste like they should, and Dr. Pepper is one of my favorite flavors since I first discovered Jelly Belly, going back well over a decade.

This is a delightful diversion from the typical rainbow of fruit flavors comprising the lineup of most jelly bean packages.

9 out of 10 beans

The one-of-each test

Perhaps the ultimate test of a bag of jelly beans is how enjoyable it is to take one of each flavor and eat them all at the same time.¹

If you’re familiar with the standard disclaimer from the above footnote, you might be wondering how I’m going to approach this. Do Dr. Pepper, Root Beer, and Cream Soda get disqualified for not being fruit flavors?

In the spirit of the classic “suicide” sodas of my youth, I will indeed include all of the flavors in this test.

And… it’s not bad! Each of the flavors is distinctly present in the resulting mixture, though I would say that Root Beer and Dr. Pepper come through most clearly. 7 Up and Orange Crush add brightness, Grape Crush adds depth. Cream Soda is probably the one least pulling its weight.

Standard caveat about the ding this category takes due to Jelly Belly’s chewability applies.

5 out of 10 beans

Conclusion

Jelly Belly continues to put up solid numbers!

Next up in the Jelly Belly family will be their take on organic jelly beans, so stay tuned for that.