Limited Edition Foods

Whether you are spending the next week with family and friends, by yourself on a tropical isle, or serving your country in a combat zone, may you have some laughter and good memories on your plate this holiday season.

Whether your holiday meal is an elegant meat with seafood bisque, or a classic turkey with cornbread stuffing, or a Tofurky feast with no stuffing at all, may your meal be filled with great tastes and even better company.

Whether your table is decorated with a winter theme and you drink your wine from crystal glasses, or your buffet is a Southern feast served in your grandmother’s Fiestaware and eaten on holiday paper plates, or your meal is pizza from the local parlor and a beer in front of A Christmas Story marathon, may your day be just what you need and want for a perfect holiday.

This next week will be a peaceful one at Limited Edition Foods, as I will not be posting any updates in hopes of having some relaxing moments with my family, my friends, and my dogs.  If you see a great limited edition food or spirit while you are out browsing the after Christmas sales please let me know, otherwise enjoy your week and I will see you in 2008. 

Hopefully your New Year’s Eve will be safe, your party will be wonderful, your drinks will be tasty, your champagne will be from a fabulous vintage, and your New Year’s Day will be cozy and comfortable and spent however you choose.

Happy Holidays everyone!

Starting in January a new limited edition soda will be available in Japan. Grapefruit Fanta will celebrate Fanta’s fiftieth anniversary in the Japanese market, and will go on sale on January 14th.

The grapefruit flavor has been available in Spanish markets in the past, where it is sold as Fanta Toronja. It was also available as a limited edition in 2005 in the United Kingdom.

The Japanese market is rabid for limited edition food products, with limited edition sodas such as Pepsi’s Iced Cucumber sometimes selling out in less than two weeks. Companies often introduce products into the Japanese market anticipating they will sell out quickly in order to increase market awareness for the parent product and buzz about the brand. Whether the grapefruit flavor will do great things for Fanta remains to be seen, but given the fervor the flavor has created in other markets it seems likely this will be a popular drink.

For those of you who can’t get enough candy cane treats this time of year, FunkyChunky Popcorn has introduced limited edition candy cane popcorn for the holiday season.

The snack consists of clusters of buttery caramel popcorn with glazed Macadamia nuts, white peppermint chocolate and candy cane pieces fused together. FunkyChunky sells its candy cane popcorn on its website, where customers can buy it in small “grab and go” packs, gift arrangements, or in eight ounce and twenty ounce gift cylinders like the one that is shown here.

If you want to go all out you can buy a cylinder three pack featuring the candy cane popcorn and FunkyChunky’s two signature flavors, the classic FunkyChunky popcorn and the company’s pretzel popcorn. The company’s classic flavor consists of caramel popcorn, whole glazed almonds, cashews and pecans drizzled with white, milk and dark chocolate. The pretzel flavor is even more complicated, featuring thick pretzels with milk, dark and white chocolates, caramel corn, and roasted pecans. Last but not least the company also sells a chocolate popcorn, which is made with Oreo cookies, graham crackers, pecans, crispy rice and dried berries. Perfect for the popcorn lover on your holiday gift list.

Everybody seems to be selling a limited edition food centered around peppermint this holiday season, and San Francisco chocolate maker Ghirardelli is no exception. The company is selling its limited edition peppermint bark, featuring white chocolate and flavors that remind the taster of a high quality candy cane, for the 2007 holiday season. The candy can be purchased in small squares or in larger bars from stores around most cities and from various places on the Internet.

The peppermint bark is by far the company’s most famous holiday limited edition, but Ghirardelli also sells its holiday chocolate in a three pack of holiday squares. The package, shown here, features the company’s two other limited edition chocolate squares which are flavored like eggnog and cinnamon spiced almond respectively.

People get very creative with Ghirardelli squares, which are known for being excellent additions to recipes. One couple is even selling a pancake recipe that features the peppermint bark on E-bay.

Intrigued by Jones Soda’s Chanukah Soda pack, but worried it may clash with the Christmas tree in your living room?  No worries, Jones Soda is an equal opportunity limited edition soda source. 

Their 2007 Christmas Pack includes four flavors: sugar plum soda, egg nog soda, Christmas Tree soda, and Christmas Ham soda.  Like the Chanukah sodas, all four flavors are certified kosher, even the Christmas ham version.

The Christmas Pack comes with a "very cool stocking stuffer" and like its Jewish counterpart is caffeine free.  At least $10,000 from the sales of the Christmas Packs will be donated to Toys for Tots which strives to provide hope and happiness to needy children.

You can purchase the Christmas Pack for $12.99 at jonessoda.com, or as a combo with the Chanukah Pack for $21.98 for both flavors.  The combo is the perfect host gift for that nice interfaith gay couple down the street, who always throws the best holiday party!

Each holiday the Jones Soda Company releases its unique holiday flavor packs, filled with limited edition sodas like no other.

The 2007 Chanukah pack comes with four flavors, all designed to imitate the taste of traditional Jewish Chanukah foods: chocolate coin soda, apple sauce soda, latke soda, and jelly doughnut soda.  Well, the last one may not be quite as traditional as the others but it sounds interesting nonetheless.

The packs also come with a "fully functional dreidel" and are "certified kosher."  The sodas are all caffeine free, and a portion of the sales of the packs will be donated to Vitamin Angels.  The company promises the charity will receive a minimum of $10,000 from the Chanukah pack sales, which will help fight malnutrition and childhood blindness worldwide by providing nutritional supplements and health education to communities that are medically underserved or at risk.

The packs can be purchased for $12.99 each at jonessoda.com.

Last year was the one hundred year anniversary of Kellogg’s Corn Flakes, a breakfast table staple that hit the mass market in 1906.  Still popular one hundred years later, Corn Flakes are a great example of the kinds of foods we like to feature on Classic Food Fridays.

Created by the Kellogg brothers at their health spa in the nineteenth century, Corn Flakes are one of the most famous and profitable accidents in modern food history.  Over one hundred and fifty years ago, the Kellogg brothers were advocating a diet that is often advocated today:  more fiber, no meat, no tobacco, no caffeine, and no alcohol.  The tasteless breakfast grains dish offered at the spa at the time was popular for its health benefits, but not for its taste.  Various experiments to improve the taste unexpectedly lead to corn flakes, and later sugar was added to help the cereal sell to consumers who wanted to be health conscious but were not quite as committed as those at the spa. 

The bizarre history of the Kellogg brothers has been documented in various places, including the book The Road to Wellville and the related motion picture which came out in 1988.

Georgio Armani has partnered with Grey Goose vodka and high end retailer Harvey Nichols to sell a limited edition bottle to benefit the Elton John AIDS Foundation. 

Only 250 of the pearl colored leather cases were created, which makes them a coup for the liquor cabinet of fashion and socially conscious sippers.  They are sold only at Harvey Nichols, which means they are available only in the United Kingdom, and the retail price is approximately one hundred pounds per limited edition bottle.

Grey Goose was introduced into the United States market ten years ago, and since then it has won numerous awards and earned its place as one of the best tasting and most exclusive vodkas available today.  This is not the first time that Grey Goose has partnered with the Elton John AIDS Foundation, as the company has partnered with the foundation on many other high profile projects in the past.

Dr. Pepper has issued a new sweet limited edition version of its classic diet soda, which hit store shelves in late November. The beverage is called Cherry Chocolate Diet Dr. Pepper, and several consumers have reported that it tastes just like the chocolate covered cherries that are popular in homes during the holiday season.

“Cherry Chocolate Diet Dr Pepper is the perfect indulgence for the holidays … zero calories, zero carbs, zero guilt, and all the flavor of Dr Pepper,” said Andrew Springate, vice president of marketing for Cadbury Schwepps American Beverages which is responsible for the drink. “Based on consumer response, we expect Cherry Chocolate Diet Dr Pepper will have a strong and devoted following.”

Cherry Chocolate Diet Dr. Pepper is being promoted by a You Tube video and viral marketing campaign that has spawned some controversy. Inspiring hope for everybody who has ever put something out on You Tube hoping it will lead to an endorsement deal, Tay Zonday’s viral video sensation from last Spring has been reworked into an ad for Dr. Pepper’s new limited edition flavor. The inevitable claims of selling out predictably followed, as well as a spike in the ongoing debate about the divide between commerce and entertainment on the Internet.

If you have tried Cherry Chocolate Diet Dr. Pepper, let us know what you think. If you liked it, here is some good news: Trendhunter Magazine is predicting this is the first of several chocolate-flavored sodas which are set to be introduced into the market in the coming year.

Of the many holiday products on the market this holiday season, one of the most portable is the limited edition gingerbread PopTart from Kelloggs.  Made "soft and chewy" and filled with white icing, these new PopTarts are coming to a grocery store near you in boxes of 12 count tarts.

Reviewers report that these limited edition Pop Tarts smell amazing when placed in a toaster, and the icing inside reminds them of the icing found on cinnamon rolls.  The front of each tart features one of a large variety of winter gingerbread images, which Kellogg claims are of fifty in number … a claim made easier by the lack of clarity of the image on the average tart. 

The whole concept of gingerbread PopTarts seems to have inspired purchasing excitement from a variety of folks, including people who don’t usually like PopTarts.  While not everyone is a fan, there is no doubt that gingerbread is popular in December … it even made an appearance as an aphrodisiac on last night’s episode of October Road.