Reed's Harvest Spiced Apple Cider

Reed's began business back in 1987 and is mostly focused on ginger-based drinks, such as ginger ale and ginger beer. It makes sense then that this Harvest Spiced Apple Cider contains ginger as well.

With a quick look, you can clearly observe fruit or ginger pulp in the drink. It's labeled as containing 60% juice, which is far more than your usual sodas in America. I find that it's quite heavily carbonated but whereas I was expecting the scent of crisp apple cider, instead it smells heavily of pumpkin. Imagine opening a can of Libby's pumpkin puree to make a pumpkin pie and getting a good whiff of it and you'll be able to experience what this smells like. To be honest, it's so full of spices that I really don't get an apple cider taste profile. What I pick up is more akin to pumpkin, nutmeg, cloves, and a very tiny touch of cinnamon which leads me to argue that this is much more like a drinkable pumpkin pie than any apple cider I've known. It's not bad but it's quite unique. It would be interesting to try tasting this warmed up, but that may have to wait until I find a new bottle next autumn. 

Lester's Fixins Pumpkin Pie Soda

Lester's Fixins is a line of very un-soda like foods in soda flavors. Their Peanut Butter & Jelly and their Bacon flavored sodas are pretty widely known for their novelty. Rocket Fizz produces the Lester's Fixins flavor line. 

I can't be sure, but the reason Pete's Pumpkin Patch may no longer exist is that they are both made by Rocket Fizz. These seem to taste nearly identical. The only difference might be a touch more of the nutmeg/all spice seasoning in the flavor. It wouldn't make sense for Rocket Fizz to make two pumpkin flavored sodas so they most likely re-branded Pete's into the Lester's Fixins lineup.

Pete's Pumpkin Patch Soda

Strangely, the website listed right on the front of the bottle is no longer active. There's not much information online on any history of this soda, but it is currently produced by Rocket Fizz. 

Opening this bottle is like heaven. I love pumpkin pie and all the beautiful spices that go in it. Taking a nice whiff off this bottle it smells like I'm inhaling lines of pure nutmeg grounds. It's oddly missing much flavor. I was expecting a bright flash of flavor across my tongue but there really isn't any. The spot on the tongue you want to wash it over to get any sense of flavor is on the sides of the back of your tongue. It dos have a nice amount of carbonation. All in all, it's a lot lighter than I expected but a nice fall drink.