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AWESOME-tober-fest 2013 starts tomorrow!

Posted in Halloween, holiday, Jones Soda, soda with tags AWESOME-tober-fest, AWESOME-tober-fest 2013, Halloween, holiday, Jones Soda, retail, snacks, soda on September 30, 2013 by Paxton

Well, AWESOME-tober-fest 2013: ZOMBIES!! officially begins tomorrow. You can expect an article every weekday throughout the month of October. I’m excited for Halloween this year, I think I have a lot of good, fun articles for you so I hope you enjoy it. As you can see, I’ve already decorated for the season!

Today, as sort of a pre-game show, I thought I’d look at a few of the Halloween retail items I’ve found lurking in the local store. Some interesting stuff.

First and foremost, Jones has returned this year after an absence with more Halloween sodas. The flavors this year are Blood Orange, Red Licorice, Caramel Apple and Candy Corn. Two of these flavors I’ve already had in the past. If we look back at AWESOME-tober-fest 2008 I reviewed the Candy Corn flavor. I don’t think I liked it. I believe I said it tasted like “…spoiled maple syrup poured through a dirty sweat sock…” I tasted the Caramel Apple the year before in an article about oddly flavored sodas like Dr Brown’s Cel-Ray and Canfield’s Diet Chocolate Fudge. I believe I said that flavor tasted like “…sun tan lotion mixed with burnt maple syrup…” So, Jones isn’t necessarily hitting it out of the park with these so far. Blood Orange is a tangier orange flavored soda and red licorice is way too sweet and thick to be described as anything but “sugar coma inducing”. So while I love the effort and the packaging, Jones, I’m not loving the execution.

Big League Chew is one of my childhood favorites. And I love this Halloween themed packaging. Howlin’ Original and Gruesome Grape flavors aren’t new or formulated for the holiday, but I like the Halloweeny makeover. I believe there’s another one with a vampire/Dracula character, but I couldn’t find it.

Ghoul-Aid has been around since the 80s. Usually only offered in certain markets and usually only around Halloween. I have some of the original mixes but it seems the flavor is making a resurgence. You can find single packets on shelves again and now Kool-Aid Jammers have their own Scary Blackberry flavor. I was so excited to finally find this. I’ll be sucking these things down all month.

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AWESOME-tober-fest 2009: Supermarket Halloween Goodies from years ago

Posted in Halloween, holiday, Pepsi, retail, soda, Supermarket with tags AWESOME-tober-fest, AWESOME-tober-fest 2009, Halloween, holiday, Pepsi, retail, soda, sodapalooza, Supermarket on October 2, 2009 by Paxton

**Start shameless self-promotion** Recently, a humor/nostalgia site called Monkey Goggles has asked me to write some articles for them. Unlike on Cracked.com, I got my first article posted on Thursday. It’s a repost of my Glorious Glass article about ’70s and ’80s collectors glasses. If you don’t mind, click on over to my article on Monkey Goggles and take a look if you haven’t already (or even if you have). Get some friends and family to click on over and check it out, too. Let’s let MG know they need to feature more Pax articles. **End shameless self-promotion**

Okay, back to business…

As you can tell, this week has been the “Supermarket Goodies” week of AWESOME-tober-fest. I’m continuing this theme today but I’m firing up the Flux Capacitor and taking us back in time. Let’s have a look at a few products from Halloweens past. It seemed like items back then were just more FUN. Starting with…

Ghoul-Aid — Kool-Aid’s entry into the Halloween product parade back in the late ’90s. There was also a Scary Black Cherry flavor, but this Scary Blackberry was a brand new flavor not seen before or since. It has reached almost mythical status amongst the Kool-Aid enthusiast crowd. How awesome is it that Kool-Aid man is dressed as a bat-winged “ghoul”. I would say he’s a vampire but I don’t see any fangs. Maybe he’s a Twilight “vampire” (notice the quotes, yes that was on purpose).

Halloween Rice Krispies — Snap, Crackle and Pop dress it up for All Hallow’s Eve (click the image to make it BIGGER). Love the graphics on this box. The three elves flying in on a witch’s broom. So cool. It’s funny, this is a box of the cereal, yet they are showing pictures of the Rice Krispies bars all over the front and back. Hope you weren’t expecting that you were buying the bars instead of the cereal.

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AWESOME-tober-fest 2009: More Supermarket Halloween Goodies

Posted in Halloween, holiday, retail, Supermarket with tags AWESOME-tober-fest, AWESOME-tober-fest 2009, Halloween, holiday, retail, soda, Supermarket on October 1, 2009 by Paxton

Day 2 of AWESOME-tober-fest!! Did you miss Day 1? Check it here.

It seems like fewer things are getting branded with the Halloween graphics. Sometimes companies will cop out and brand something “Fall” or “Autumn” instead of a cool Halloween theme. I’m totally not on board with that. Bring out the bat and demon fueled monster graphics.

Here are some more retail products that celebrate All Hallow’s Eve like the rest of us.

Blue Bird Snowballs — I’m not a huge fan of Snowballs, but Blue Bird really dresses them up for the holidays. For Halloween they turn orange. For Xmas they are usually red (or white). I may not like them, but I fully support their celebration of the Halloween season.

Gourmet Candy Corn — Gourmet candy corn? Gourmet? Should I drink red or white wine with these? Calling candy corn “gourmet” is like calling McDonalds a “fancy restaurant”. First, it’s not true, and second, well, the first one pretty much covers it. I can understand you wanting to change the flavor of candy corn, but blackberry cobbler flavored candy corn is no longer, technically, candy corn. Unless it’s just a hint of blackberry cobbler, then I’m worried they are just making the flavors worse. Up next? Strawberry shortcake flavored peanut butter cups.

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AWESOME-tober-fest 2009: Early Halloween finds at the local supermarket

Posted in breakfast cereal, Cap'n Crunch, food, Halloween, holiday, retail, Supermarket with tags AWESOME-tober-fest, AWESOME-tober-fest 2009, breakfast cereal, Cap'n Crunch, Halloween, holiday, retail, Supermarket on September 30, 2009 by Paxton

October 1st is tomorrow. However, I’m pumped and excited to kick off AWESOME-tober-fest so I’m doing something unprecedented. I’m going to post this little entry a WHOLE DAY EARLY. WHAT-WHAT?! That’s right, AWESOME-tober-fest is starting a day earlier this year. Have I completely blown your mind? Don’t worry, you can thank me by sending envelopes of cash and/or blank checks from your checkbook. I’ll accept either.

So, this year, AWESOME-tober-fest has a theme. What is that theme? Well, if you look at the new blog header above you can see the theme of this year is Frankenstein. It’s a loose theme, mind you, as I’ll be looking at a other stuff besides just Frankenstein, but I have a lot of Frankenstein themed articles coming. So prepare yourself.

Anyway, like I said, Week 1 of this little yearly dance known as AWESOME-tober-fest is now officially under way. What am I looking at today? Well, even though the overall theme this year is Frankenstein, the mini-theme of this week will be “Supermarket Goodies”. I’ll be looking at cool Halloween items you can find at your local grocer. I did an early scouring of my Targets, Wal-Marts, Walgreen’s, etc in order to find out what Halloween related items are out there already. Most stores have their Halloween sections up and ready, so let’s see some of the cooler items I found.

Halloween Crunch — I found it this year! Wa-Hoo-HA!! If you remember, I couldn’t find this little slice of Heaven last Halloween OR the year before. And I wanted it. BAD. It had become my personal Moby Dick. I had to find this cereal, if only to prove it existed. I could find Christmas Crunch every year but this one kept eluding me. It was like trying to nail Jello to the wall. However, this year, the God of all things spooky and Halloween-y decided to grace my local Wal-Mart with Cap’n Crunch’s annual scary monster cereal. And all was right with the world. The only thing I wish was that the Cap’n himself was dressed as Frankenstein’s monster instead of the mummy, but mostly because my general theme this year is Frankenstein. Not to take anything away from the awesome Mummy Cap’n artwork on the box. I’m just sayin’.