The season's absolute best ... in the category of WORST IDEA

Ah, America. Home of the free, the brave ... the terminally tacky ... Where else could this story take place? It's not even a joke!

Burger King is hoping to be known as more than “The Home of the Whopper.”

This weekend, the fast food chain rolled out “Flame,” a new men’s body spray billed as “the scent of seduction with a hint of flame-broiled meat.”

And an informal survey by the Boston Herald found that there are men out there who’d wear it - even one who seemed to be named after a meat.

“It’s very nice,” said Salami Caushi, 55 and a South Boston resident, who was sipping hot coffee at the Burger King on Broadway yesterday.

As his companion grimaced, Caushi sprayed the scent on his wrist, and then took a long sniff of Flame for men.

“Yes, nice,” he said.

Tony Rama, who was sitting downwind of Caushi, strongly disagreed. “It’s much too heavy,” he said.

A few tables away, Reno Hoxhallari, 29 and from Medford, was taken aback by the burger joint’s new product.

“It’s got to be a joke,” he said, as he scrutinized a photo of the chain’s cartoonish King, languishing by the fire, wearing his crown and little else.

Two days ago - just in time for the holidays - the fast food chain began selling the body spray, for $4 a bottle, at Rickey’s, a New York City retailer, and on the Web site, http://www.firemeetsdesire.com/.

Yesterday, after the company distributed samples to various news organizations, the Herald took it on a trial run.

“It smells like cinnamon,” said Alyse Hawco, 14, of Dorchester. She was at Burger King enjoying a post-school snack with some friends.

“I’d buy it for my brother,” she said.

Up the street, at a crowded corner on Broadway, a group of men in their 20s were initially skeptical about the fragrance.

“Flame??” one man said. “I think they should change the name.”

Another guy wondered if it would “make me break out.”

But after their female companion said she liked it, their opinions appeared to shift.

“Yeah, I’d think about it,” said Jaime, a native Cape Codder.

“Do you think it’ll make girls swarm?” he asked his friends.

"Swarm"??? Uh ... no. Not so much.