Jolly Rancher soda has been out for around a year now, so I'm far from the first to report on it. However, I do not care!
The world, or at least, the small fraction of the world personally affected by upstart sodas, got all up in arms last year when Jolly Rancher: The Candy became Jolly Rancher: The Soda. It seemed like a disgusting notion to most, and if you read some of the reviews, it was also a disgusting notion in practice.
The soda brand kicked off with the several typical flavors found in a pack of Jolly Ranchers, and that might've been the problem. If you're basing a soda on straight-up cherry Jolly Ranchers, it's going to be one sour pool of liquid hell. But the newer flavor I have here -- "Cinnamon Cherry Fire" -- seems like an admission from the company that you can't make a good tasting straight-up Jolly Rancher soda. "Cinnamon Cherry Fire" is a strange flavor for a soda, but it's far from a Jolly Rancher.
I'm happy to report that the revised lineup of Jolly Rancher soda flavors are a lot better than the old ones were said to have been. "Cinnamon Cherry Fire" isn't something I'm ever going to drink again, but when you dive into a soda expecting to write a review filled with "cherry vomit!!" hyperbole and whatnot, it's pretty refreshing to just think it's not very good.
Then again, I've never been a fan of fruity sodas. They're fun to look at, and if I ever want to film a spoof on the Star Wars cantina scene, they'd be nice to have around for legit-looking prop cocktails. Drinking them is another matter, and I'm admittedly biased.
All in all, discard whatever vision of the flavor you may have, and settle on this one: "Cinnamon Cherry Fire" tastes exactly like Big Red juice. You know, the gum. Smells like it, kinda looks like it, and definitely tastes like it. Still, despite the fact that the human jaw contains the only muscles in the human body that do not require exercise, I'd rather chew Big Red than drink it.
And that's the scoop! This is Matt, signing off live from the field, using a soda bottle in place of a microphone.
Posted by Matt on 07/12/2007. E-mail me!
Chestnuts roasted by 
Congrats early or belated depending on how you look at it Manimal.
As far as how I found X-E, I typed 80′s ads on google and X-E popped up. I knew I had found my new favorite website. Like the rest of you it is nice to find others who can recall useless knowledge in an instant.
For example at work a friend of mine asked me what the name of battlecat was before he turned into battlecat. I said “uhhhhh Cringer” to which the person who asked me replied “I should hit you for knowing that.”