Hot Dog Water Soda? Yes indeed

Grandpa Joe’s Candy Shop has launched a new soda flavor: Hot Dog Water.

Christopher Beers, founder and owner of Grandpa Joe’s Candy Shop, said Hot Dog Water Soda is number 19 in a line of weird flavored sodas from the shop. Other flavors include toothpaste, coffee and banana.

“We’re known for always being different than everybody else,” Beers said. “I tried to create a candy store experience unlike any other.”

In 2017, Grandpa Joe’s launched Pickle Soda, and in 2020, it launched Ketchup Soda. Both became famous, he said.

Hot Dog Water is lightly carbonated, and it will be available on the Fourth of July. The new creation can be purchased online or at any of Grandpa Joe’s 17 retail locations nationwide, Beers said. Grandpa Joe’s locations span Pennsylvania, Ohio, Florida, West Virginia and Minnesota. Its four Pittsburgh area locations are in the Strip District, Beaver, Mt. Lebanon and Canonsburg.

All four will be open on the Fourth of July, with Hot Dog Water Soda available.

He said the weird soda flavors have garnered a following similar to social media challenges, where people will attempt to try the new flavors for fun with their families.

Moving forward, Grandpa Joe’s fans should expect more wacky soda flavors, he said, as the Hot Dog Water flavor was the first created at Beers’ new soda bottling facility in Minnesota, which he said he bought six months ago.

Hot Dog Water Soda, he said, was partially inspired by the question of what people do with the water after boiling hot dogs.

“Hot Dog Water has been a long-running joke, and … we’ve brought it to life and put it in a bottle with our name on it, proudly,” Beers said.