Parents, do you think your child would be able to survive if they were transported back to the ’70s or ’80s? Could they live at a time before the digital revolution put a huge chunk of our lives online?
These days, everyone has a phone in their pocket, but before then, if you were in public and needed to call someone, you used a pay phone. Can you remember the last time you stuck 50 cents into one and grabbed the grubby handset?
According to the U.S. Federal Communications Commission, roughly 100,000 pay phones remain in the U.S., down from 2 million in 1999.
Do you think a 10-year-old kid would have any idea how to use a payphone in 2022? Would they be able to use a Thomas Guide map to find out how to get somewhere? If they stepped into a time warp and wound up in 1975, could they throw a Led Zeppelin album on the record player at a party?
Another big difference between now and life in the ’70s and ’80s has been public attitudes toward smoking cigarettes. In 1965, 42.4% of Americans smoked and now, it’s just 12.5%. This sea change in public opinion about smoking means there are fewer places where smoking is deemed acceptable.
But in the early ’80s, you could smoke on a bus, on a plane, in a movie theater, in restaurants, in the classroom and even in hospitals. How would a child of today react if their third grade teacher lit up a heater in the middle of math class?
Dan Wuori, senior director of early learning at the Hunt Institute, tweeted that his high school had a smoking area “for the kids.” He then asked his followers to share “something you experienced as a kid that would blow your children’s minds.”
A lot of folks responded with stories of how ubiquitous smoking was when they were in school. While others explained that life was perilous for a kid, whether it was the school playground equipment or questionable car seats.
Here are a few responses that’ll show today’s kids just how crazy life used to be in the ’70s and ’80s.
First of all, let’s talk about smoking.
u201cMy high school had a smoking area. For the kids. Whatu2019s something you experienced as a kid that would blow your childrenu2019s minds?u201d
Mine too. Up until my senior year. Also, my biology teacher smoked in the classroom. We used to tell time by how many cigarettes she had in her ashtray.
We had a smoking room IN our high school. We also had cadet training and a shooting range in the basement of the school. We had Latin as an option and could drop math in Grade 10! Also in the « good old days »: we could smoke in class at Carleton, at the movies and on airplanes.
I grew up in a rural area. It wasn’t unheard of for guys to have a shotgun in a gun rack in their trucks, parked at school. Could also carry large knives and openly chew tobacco in school. They don’t allow any of this now, which is good.
Using a pay phone that was outside the school gym to call my parents for a ride home from practice. But calling collect and saying “pick me up” and hanging up before getting charged. 😂
I have heard stories of country schools in the 50s (which are now urban schools) having boys swim naked in PE (that’s just how they did it in the country). Van Horn High School in Independence MO.
I use this example any time people lament the changes from the “good ole days”.
Also, in Driver’s Ed. We warched this film, “Blood on the Highways.” 45 minutes of unedited film of fatal highway accidents. This was mostly before mandatory seatbelts. 45 years later, I remember the rear view mirror that split a guy’s skull, imbedded in his brain.
— some call me Tim 🇺🇦 🌻 MAT Elem. Educ. (@realtimaier) April 24, 2022
Large fry as your entire meal in middle school. It was the most popular item too. Literally as it sounds. Just a large basket of French fries for lunch.
I wrote letters regularly to a penpal from a different country and then saved them all in a shoebox. Then in college I flew to “meet” her for the 1st time to participate in her wedding ❤️ But now we connect on FB 😂
A lot of people bemoan the fact that the children of today aren’t as tough as they were a few decades back. But that’s probably because the parents of today are better attuned to their kids’ needs so they don’t have to cheat death to make it through the day.
But just imagine how easy parenting would be if all you had to do was throw your kids a bag of Doritos and a Coke for lunch and you never worried about strapping them into a car seat?
Nicolas Cage once almost played Superman. Back in the late aughts and early teens — before comic book movies all but took over the multiplexes — he played the anti-heroic superhero Ghost Rider. And yet he’s managed to resist the current trend, in which almost every actor in Hollywood at least plays a villain or a sidekick in the MCU or the DCEU, if not one of the main stars. He ain’t changing his mind anytime soon.
“I’ve gotta be nice about Marvel movies, because I named myself after a Stan Lee character named Luke Cage. What am I going to do, put Marvel movies down? Stan Lee is my surrealistic father. He named me,” he said while receiving an award at the Miami Film Festival over the weekend, as per Variety. “I understand what the frustration is. I get it. But I think there’s plenty of room for everybody. I’m seeing movies like Tár. I’m seeing all kinds of artistic and independently driven movies. I think there’s plenty of room for everybody.”
But would he still do Marvel? Apparently not. When asked, he replied, “I don’t need to be in the MCU, I’m Nic Cage.”
He sure is. Cage did regret that his stint as Supes never came to be:
“They wanted Renny Harlin to do the movie. I sat down with Renny. I was doing another picture, he came to the trailer and we talked. I liked Renny… but I thought if I’m going to do this, it’s such a bullseye to hit,” Cage explained. “I said, this has to be Tim Burton. I called Tim and said, ‘Would you do this?’ Tim didn’t cast me, I cast Tim, and Tim said yes. I loved what he did with Michael [Keaton] and Batman, and I was a big fan.”
He continued, “I love ‘Mars Attacks.’ I thought ‘Mars Attacks’ was just a fantastic, groundbreaking movie. He’s a groundbreaker! But they were scared at the studio because of ‘Mars Attacks.’ Warner Brothers had lost a lot of money on the movie. These movies that are really weird, that challenge and break ground, they piss a lot of people off. I think they got cold feet. They’d spent a lot of money already building the sets and the costume and what have you. But you never know. I don’t mean to be cryptic Cage, but you never know!”
The actor really enjoyed the character they were building, he explained: “It was more of a 1980s Superman with like, the samurai black long hair. I thought it was gonna be a really different, sort of emo Superman, but we never got there.”
But hey, at least he still has time to do movies like Pig.
It looks like pop superstar Rihanna isn’t the only musician to find love in a hopeless place. “Ay Caramba” rapper Tyga and indie rock legend Avril Lavigne have reportedly also found the same type of love deep within one another. Late last month, the pair first sparked dating rumors after being spotted out hugging in the parking lot of the famous restaurant Nobu in Los Angeles.
Now, according to TMZ has shared that the musicians are, in fact, a couple (we’re coining them, Tygav). While attending the Mugler X Hunter Schafer Party, earlier today (March 6) as part of Paris Fashion Week, the duo wasn’t shy about putting on a full show of affection in front of the paparazzi.
After the rumors first hit social media, users raised several questions. Firstly, when did Lavigne and Mod Sun call off their engagement? Sun quickly took to his Instagram page to confirm not only did he and Lavigne split, but it had only happened a week ago (at the time), making the news of her new budding romance with the rapper even more difficult to stomach.
Secondly, why? Lavigne and Tyga have both been linked to different members of Jenner/Kardashian family. Tyga has dated Kylie Jenner, and Lavigne’s ex is Jenner’s brother Rob. The same Rob that has a daughter with Blac Chyna, with whom Tyga also shares a son.
Now that the rumors have been seemingly confirmed by social media, users are sounding off yet again. Check out their responses below.
When FIFA 23 was first announced it came with a huge change for the EA Sports soccer franchise. Not only was it going to feature many of the usual fan favorite men’s clubs like Manchester City, Liverpool, and Chelsea, but it was now going to feature many of their women’s side counterparts as well. Chelsea’s Sam Kerr even got a spot on the cover to acknowledge how big a deal this was going to be. Unfortunately for stateside fans, it initially seemed like the announcement was going to leave their own local clubs, the NWSL (National Women’s Soccer League) out of the big announcement.
On Monday, that was changed when EA revealed that the NWSL and its players would be joining FIFA 23. With the upcoming season slated to kickoff on March 25 the timing for this announcement could be any better. The trailer itself is pretty fun too featuring a lot of the creative ways NWSL players choose to celebrate goals.
While likely not as well known internationally, the NWSL has been working to break through into common knowledge among fans in the United States. It’s considered the top league in the country and has featured many stars including Alex Morgan, Megan Rapinoe, Carson Pickett, Sophia Smith, and Lo’eau LaBonta. The NWSL began in 2013 and will be kicking off its 11th season this year. It’s still growing but becoming a part of the most popular soccer game in the world has the potential to help with that.
The jury’s still out on who will succeed Daniel Craig as the new James Bond. Maybe, despite calls to make the decades-old franchise more diverse, he’ll be played by another white guy, Aaron Taylor-Johnson. One person who won’t be playing him is Idris Elba, who’s had to endure years and years of people demanding he be made 007, despite him not appearing to be so into the idea. (The same thing’s happening with Theo James.) It’s gotten so bad that a cheeky Bond nod was slipped into Elba’s latest film.
As per Deadline, Luther: The Fallen Sun — which finds Elba returning to the detective character he’s been playing since 2010 — features a part in which our hero pointedly refuses a martini. If you thought that was a dig at 007’s drink of choice, you weren’t far off. In an interview with Radio Times, Luther creator Neil Cross even called it “an extended middle finger and a wink” to the series Elba doesn’t want to be involved with.
Elba spoke about it, too, admitting it wasn’t his idea. “The martini line is a bit cheeky, isn’t it? I was like, ‘Neil, are you sure you want to put that in?’” he said.
He also once again — for the thousandth time — expressed his thoughts on being Ian Fleming’s formerly problematic spy. “My Bond audition? Oh my God, no! I’ve been saying for years, no,” he exclaimed.
Elba also spoke about the differences between Luther, a detective, and James Bond, a spy. “Luther’s equally engaging, equally sexy and great to see visually. But Bond is from a universe where espionage was the way to capture,” he said. “Luther is from the world where you bang on the door, ‘Are you in there? I’m coming in.’”
Anyway, maybe give the guy a rest and never even bring up Moonraker in his presence again.
Karol G’s fourth studio album, Mañana Será Bonito, is making history yet again. Just weeks after breaking streaming records on Spotify, the project featuring Sean Paul, Romeo Santos, Quevedo, Justin Quiles, and more was the biggest debut for a Latin woman on the platform.
Now, the album is continuing its record-breaking streak. According to Billboard, Mañana Será Bonito is the first all-Spanish-language by a woman to secure the top spot on the Billboard 200 charts. In the past, only two other all-Spanish-language albums have occupied the No. 1 spot. Those albums below to Bad Bunny (Un Verano Sin Ti in 2022 and El Ultimo Tour del Mundo in 2020).
In addition to securing the coveted position, nine of her song rest comfortably on the Billboard Hot 100 charts, including “TQG” featuring Shakira at number 7, “Mientras Me Curo del Cora” at number 68, “Gucci Los Paños” at 71, “Tus Gafitas” at 73, “Cairo” featuring Ovy On The Drums at number 82, “Pero Tú” featuring at Quevedo number 86, “Ojos Ferrari” at number 95, “Besties” at number 96, and “Mañana Será Bonita” at number 98.
When asked by our contributing writer Lucas Villa, Karol shared that the album was birthed because as she revealed, “I had a very dark moment in my life where the only thing I could do was turn to my family and my friends. I understood after that life wanted to show me that what I should value the most is having my family and my friends by my side. That was a very hard and difficult process to go through. I was disappointed by what was happening to me. It was a blow in many ways to my personal life.”
.@karolg debuts nine songs on this week’s #Hot100 (1/2):
#7, TQG w/ @shakira #68, Mientras Me Curo del Cora #71, Gucci Los Paños #73, Tus Gafitas #82, Cairo w/ @OvyOnTheDrums
For the Elvis soundtrack, Kacey Musgraves unveiled a cover of “Can’t Help Falling In Love” in June last year. Now, Baz Luhrmann’s label House of Iona/RCA Records has shared a version with Mark Ronson from the forthcoming Elvis soundtrack deluxe edition.
While Musgraves’s rendition in 2022 was piano-driven, retaining the emotional vulnerability of the song, Mark Ronson gave it an exuberant twist. Her vocals are accentuated by a pulsating, catchy beat, transforming the classic song into a hopeful, exuberant anthem.
Musgraves’ last record was 2021’s critically acclaimed Star-Crossed. A highlight was “Breadwinner,” which grappled with sexism in interpersonal relationships.
“I’m not the only one who’s experienced that, and I’m not going to be the last,” Musgraves explained about the 2021 track. “It always makes it easier to put vulnerable thoughts out there when you know they’re going to be met with connection. As more women have moved into power, it’s been interesting to see the effects. It’s important for men to know there are so many things you can bring to the table other than money. If you’re with a woman who earns more than you, maybe look at what you can bring emotionally, mentally, or around the house.”
Listen to the remix of the “Can’t Help Falling In Love” cover above.
While trying to pass enthusiastic little girl scout cookie vendors with your head down, more often than not, social pressure combined with a sweet “hello!” will only lead to one result — extraction of funds. And at the end of the day, their cookies are so damn tasty, how can you resist? Besides teaching girls essential face to face business strategies, the Girl Scout program also aspires to keep Scouts up with the times.
While the intention was to help girls develop e-commerce skills, they unknowingly produced a 101 crash course in the cruelty of e-commerce. First priced at $6, the cookie was a hit and sold out instantly. Wholesale scalpers are now dealing this rare product on eBay like black market moonshine in the 1920s. Third-party vendors are making profits (from $30-$100) off the Girl Scout name, and HQ is not happy.
A Girl Scouts spokesperson told CNN, “When cookies are purchased through a third-party seller, Girl Scout troops are deprived of proceeds that fund critical programming throughout the year.”
That’s not technically true. If all the Raspberry Rally inventory was bought out, how does that deprive proceeds? Doesn’t that mean they made the most money possible? On the surface, yes, and legally speaking, this doesn’t hurt the Girl Scouts. In fact, eBay doesn’t plan on taking the product off their website, stating to CNN, “We strongly support the entrepreneurial spirit of hardworking local Girl Scout troops and encourage cookie-seekers to also support their local Girl Scouts. However, the sale of Girl Scout cookies does not violate eBay policies.”
Despite being technically legal, this hurts the Scouts for a few reasons. First, it attacks the integrity of the brand. In an article from Today.com, a Girl Scout Spokesperson mentioned, “Girl Scouts of the USA and our licensed cookie bakers cannot guarantee the freshness or integrity of cookies bought through unauthorized sites.” Third-party sellers might offer cookies that not only tarnish the quality of the product, but also the message behind it.
Additionally, the Scout PR team reasoned,”If you’re buying these cookies at a huge markup, you could and should instead be using that money to support girls by buying other varieties or supporting the program in other ways.” It’s a good point, if you’re willing to spend that much on a cookie, it might as well go to an organization that promotes goal setting, people skills, business ethics, and making lifelong friends. Sadly, this whole fiasco might demonstrate that some people care more about the cookie than the message behind it.
Ultimately, this can and should be a learning experience for not just individual Girl Scouts, but the organization as a whole. For one, it illustrates the nature of E-commerce; how products can be acquired at a lower price and then sold higher. Remember, this all happened because of scarcity and a huge demand for this new cookie. These girls can reason “perhaps we should sell more and maybe even raise the price.” For the organization, it could try fixing its scalper problem by putting a limit on the amount a single customer can purchase. This would prevent “re-sellers” from acquiring all the cookies in bulk.
Despite the concerns of The Girl Scouts, the fact remains that people are obsessed with their cookies. With that knowledge and the lessons learned from this first attempt at an online exclusive product, expect the Scouts to rally back more business savvy in the online space.
Donald Trump is a wizard with childish nicknames for his many enemies, but for some reason he’s been shooting blanks when it comes to Ron DeSantis. His first taunt — “Ron DeSanctimonious” — was a bomb, though he’s stubbornly continued to use it anyway. The former president has been reportedly beta testing some new ones, but they’re not so hot either. (Okay, “Tiny D” is kind of good.) He allegedly had a good, albeit legitimately mean, one before: “Meatball Ron.” Alas, Trump has sworn he’ll never use it. Too bad because it has fans even on the left.
John Oliver devoted the most recent episode of Last Week Tonight almost entirely to DeSantis, who he painted as a petty autocrat who wants to tell Floridians — and maybe one day the entire nation — how to comport themselves. He spent part of the segment on Trump’s attempts to goad him, unsuccessfully, into one of his schoolyard fights.
“While Trump initially struggled to coin a damaging nickname for DeSantis, with his first attempt being the embarrassingly weak Ron DeSanctimonious, he later unveiled something with a lot more punch,” Oliver said.
He then brought up “Meatball Ron,” which Trump has denied he ever came up with. That’s a tragedy, according to Oliver.
“I hate to say it, but Trump’s still got it,” Oliver said. “It’s perfectly stupid, childish, and hurtful in a way that’s genuinely difficult to articulate. Also, it’s a pretty good name on its own.”
Oliver spent the majority of his DeSantis segment not discussing Trump, preferring instead to look at him as his own, darker clone of the 45th president, whom he once relied on for support. Trump’s a weird guy, but did he ever have a bizarre dating habit involving mispronouncing a Southeast Asian ethnicity? Because Meatball Ron sure did.
You can watch Oliver’s DeSantis segment above. The bit about Trump’s immature nicknames begins around the three-minute mark.
From colas to root beers to just plain old the bubbles, there isn’t a soda flavor out there that I don’t love. While I generally reach for the dark stuff when I’m sipping on the Devil’s nectar (what I call soda — will it stick?), I love clear fruit-flavored sodas too. Which is why I set out to blind taste test all the best brands in search of the tastiest.
I’ve wanted to do this for some time but wasn’t sure how I should break it up — Focus on citrus? Strawberry only? What about cherry? Fruit sodas are a wide umbrella, but rather than create separate articles for lemon-lime, orange, strawberry, and everything in between, I decided to just throw them all together into one super article. Does that mean something is inevitably going to be left out? Yes, but we’re focusing on the most market-present here — meaning you’ve definitely seen all of these flavors before.
Here are the 15 most popular fruit sodas blind taste tested and ranked.
PART I — Methodology
For this blind taste test, I went to four different convenience stores (Mobile, Chevron, 7-11, and a local donut shop) and rounded up every single fruit soda I could find. In my search, I discovered a few things: 1) Sierra Mist doesn’t exist anymore. 2) Welch’s soda is exclusive to the Dollar Tree and doesn’t exist outside of that store. 3) Apple soda is a thing. 4) I couldn’t find a single Grape soda at four different stores, leading me to believe grape soda isn’t nearly as popular as I thought.
I also couldn’t find cherry Sprite or 7-Up, but we covered that in our cherry soda ranking so I didn’t feel too bad about leaving those out. Cherry soda is a big enough category that it deserves its own article, which we gave it already.
Our class of sodas for this article includes:
7-Up — Lemon Lime
Cactus Cooler — Orange Pineapple Blast
Crush — Orange
Crush — Strawberry
Fanta — Orange
Fanta — Strawberry
Jarritos — Mandarin
Jarritos — Lime
Manzanita Sol — Apple
Mountain Dew
Mountain Dew — Code Red
Sunkist — Orange
Sprite — Lemon Lime
Starry — Lemon Lime
Squirt — Grapefruit Soda
Once the 15 sodas were acquired, I chilled them at home overnight and had my girlfriend serve me each one at random the next morning while I wore a blindfold. Considering just about every flavor had a double I don’t think the blindfold was completely necessary but I wanted to see if I could pick out the flavors with my senses alone. It turns out this was way easier than I thought but about a third of the flavors legitimately stumped me. Most fruit sodas do taste like the fruit they’re marketed as, but a lot of them don’t taste like fruit at all. I also discovered that most fruit sodas have considerably more sugar than cola, which surprised me. My teeth felt absolutely insane after I was done with the 15.
On to the tasting!
Part II — The Blind Taste Test
Taste 1:
Ashley Garcia
Incredibly refreshing with a strong fizz and a biting aftertaste. There is a nice balance between juicy lemon and zesty lime flavors that soak into the tongue in the best way. This is a great start, simply one of the best fruit sodas I’ve ever tasted.
Taste 2:
Ashley Garcia
An orange soda with an initial creamsicle flavor that settles into blank overly carbonated territory. The orange flavor here hovers just above the fizz but it doesn’t really connect. I found myself constantly trying to taste more orange, but it just wouldn’t deliver.
Taste 3:
Ashley Garcia
Very orange-forward, and incredibly natural tasting. This tastes eerily similar to orange juice with a hint of fizz injected into it. Has a sort of navel orange sweetness to it, very delicate and refreshing.
Taste 4:
Ashley Garcia
Amazing sizzling burn! This one has a great citrusy zest to it that bounced around my taste buds. There is a sour almost wince-inducing aftertaste. I really like this one, it has the sort of bite I look for in a soda.
Taste 5:
Ashley Garcia
Awful. The worst soda I’ve ever tasted. It tastes like some sort of overly candied cider with a weak amount of fizz. Imagine if Kool-Aid made an Apple cider flavor, and then let it sit out in the sun for a year.
Taste 6:
Ashley Garcia
Another fruit soda that’s weak on the fizz, this one tastes like straight-up candy. I’m getting the slightest hint of cherry or strawberry but that’s a real struggle to pull out, it tastes like someone melted down a Tootsie Pop and then carbonated it just a little bit.
Taste 7:
Ashley Garcia
Very sweet and round character. It has a noticeable citrus flavor to it but it’s not at all zesty or tart. I’m getting the slightest hint of lime, but it’s a bit hard to pin down. Very delicious and unique.
Taste 8:
Ashley Garcia
This one has a weird powdery texture to it and I can’t really pin down what flavor it’s supposed to be. It tastes unlike any fruit soda I’ve ever had, it’s very juicy but doesn’t really taste like orange or lemon-lime, yet it has a tart citrus quality to it. It gives a bit of a burn on the back of the throat and a good aftertaste but that powdery quality is really strange. Soda isn’t supposed to have a textural mouthfeel, but somehow this does.
Taste 9:
Ashley Garcia
Very strawberry candy forward and artificial. There is a nice fizz and bite here, but it’s off-puttingly sweet.
Taste 10:
Ashley Garcia
Another strawberry soda but a lot less sweet than Taste 9. This one is highly carbonated and juicy without tasting like straight-up candy.
Taste 11:
Ashley Garcia
I have no idea what this flavor is. It doesn’t even taste like fruit. It’s dangerously sweet and it has a unique aftertaste but it comes across as a bit flat tasting and lifeless. There is no bite here whatsoever.
Taste 12:
Ashley Garcia
Delicious, this soda has a sort of shifting flavor to it. I can tell it’s lemon-lime, but it presents itself across the palate in a really interesting way. It starts off very lime-forward and settles into juicy lemon territory with a nice crispy snap. Great level of fizz here.
Taste 13:
Ashley Garcia
Another lemon-lime, this one is much more carbonated than Taste 12 but doesn’t have the same complexity to it. I’m getting more of a blank carbonated flavor than I am citrus notes. It’s good, but not great.
Taste 14:
Ashley Garcia
Very natural mandarin orange flavor. Very round character, not very fizzy but the juicy orange notes are really pleasant. I can see this one working as a great mix for a cocktail. It provides a nice burn on the throat.
Taste 15:
Ashley Garcia
Ending it on an orange soda, this one has a really delicious natural orange flavor but almost no fizz. Unlike Taste 14, this one doesn’t have that nice round character, making it come across as incredibly flat and lifeless. A sorry close to a delicious round of drinks.
So it turns out apple soda is a thing! Manzanita Sol was located at all four locations I picked up drinks from which means not only is apple soda a thing, but people really seem to like it. Why I’ll never know. This was by far the worst-tasting soda I’ve ever had, it tasted like fermented apple juice.
The brand is owned by PepsiCo and its primary audience is in Mexico. Mexico makes some great sodas, but Manzanita Sol is not one of them. I blame PepsiCo for that!
The Bottom Line:
Avoid this soda at all costs. Did Apple flavor soda? Get out of here with that shit.
At the start of this article, I said I had never tasted a flavor of soda I didn’t like, but I was wrong, I don’t like Mountain Dew. Even a little bit. I always assumed this was a lemon-lime soda but after tasting it blind I started to have some doubts. Does Mountain Dew taste like lemon-lime? Not at all. So I looked it up and Mountain Dew is apparently a “citrus-flavored” soda. What sort of citrus? They don’t specify.
Mountain Dew doesn’t have the zest of any sort of citrus, instead, it just tastes like melted candy in the worst way.
The Bottom Line:
I can’t believe Mountain Dew has fans, this is the worst citrus soda I’ve ever tasted.
Fanta has a long and very interesting history. Currently, the brand is an American-owned German soda that started as a Coca-Cola alternative in the 1940s due to an American trade embargo. Despite the brand’s Nazi roots, the formulation of the soda we know today is actually the result of Italian influence, after Italy reformulated the brand in the mid-50s. Today the brand produces over 200 flavors worldwide.
I’m not a fan of this orange soda, it just tastes a bit too natural, which seems like a weird complaint to have but this is soda we’re talking about, it’s not supposed to taste natural. If I wanted that, I’d be drinking orange juice.
The Bottom Line:
Of the many brands of orange soda we tried, this one was by far the weakest.
I’m ashamed to admit that at one point in my life when I was a tween, this was my favorite soda. Maybe it was the super bright red color, maybe I thought the words “code red” sounded cool — look I can’t really explain why I liked this other than saying it’s because I must’ve been stupid.
Code Red calls itself a “cherry-flavored” soda but it doesn’t taste anything like cherry, which is a shame because of the four stores I visited, it was the only clear cherry soda available. What happened to Cherry 7-Up and Cherry Sprite? Why does this dominate so much shelf space? It’s better than regular Mountain Dew but it’s still an awful tasting overly-sweet soda that you’d best avoid.
The Bottom Line:
All soda is bad for you, but Code Red truly tastes like it’s trying to kill you.
While I thought Fanta’s Orange soda tasted a bit too natural, the Strawberry had the opposite problem. Now, I don’t expect anything that is artificially strawberry flavored to ever taste like actual strawberry, this one tastes a bit too much like candy.
With its overly juicy flavor and its lack of fizz, this soda really failed to deliver and served as a reminder of just how much I miss Welch’s strawberry soda, which if my memory serves correctly, was delicious.
Sunkist was PepsiCo’s answer to Coca-Cola’s Fanta brand. When the brand launched in the 70s, orange sodas were the third most popular soft drink flavor, which is wild to think about. Today, I doubt orange even cracks the top five.
Today the brand is owned and produced by Keurig Dr. Pepper and has burned through several different slogans including “good vibrations,” “feel all orange inside,” “drinkin’ in the sun,” “head for the sun,” “taste the sun,” “drink the sun,” and my personal favorite, “run into the sun,” which is the current slogan — and would make an interesting invocation for a suicidal cult leader. I can’t for the life of me figure out why Sunkist hasn’t gone with the obvious slogan of “kissed by the sun,” but hey I don’t own a soda brand. Yet.
And the award for weirdest soda of all time is Cactus Cooler. Part of Keurig Dr. Pepper’s portfolio, this soda is apparently orange-pineapple flavored, but it couldn’t taste less like either of those ingredients. The drink was originally inspired by the Flintstones (Fred’s favorite drink is Cactus Cooler) and is a Southwestern United States exclusive flavor.
If you live on the east coast and this soda strikes you as incredibly exotic, don’t worry, you’re not missing out on much. Still, it’s an interesting alternative to the other orange soda brands out there — we just wish it tasted even a little bit like what it’s advertised as.
The Bottom Line:
A southwestern exclusive, Cactus Cooler truly tastes unlike any soda you’ve ever had. We’re still not sure if that’s a good or bad thing.
Crush is a brand that has been around since 1911 and was originally marketed as Ward’s Orange Crush, named for Neil C. Ward, the partner of the company’s founder and president Clayton J. Howel. That means it predates most of the soda brands on this list!
In the ‘80s the brand was purchased by Procter and Gamble, then acquired by Cadbury Schweppes, and is now owned by Keurig Dr. Pepper. Even though it didn’t rank highly for me, I’m glad it exists! Few soda brands can say they’ve been around for 100 years, but Crush can — it must be doing something right.
The Bottom Line:
A fine orange soda, but it tastes more like carbonation than like orange. This soda just might be too fizzy.
Crush may have started as an orange soda brand but strawberry is the better flavor. There is a nice balance between sweet strawberry flavors and nice strong fizz here, making this so addictive we couldn’t put it down.
The Bottom Line:
It’ll never be as good as Welch’s but as of now, this is the best strawberry soda on the market.
I’m a big Jarritos fan and that comes down to the fact that like most Mexican soda brands, this stuff uses real cane sugar as its sweetener, rather than high fructose corn syrup. Cane sugar just gives soda this delicious round character that I love! Yes, it feels like murder on your teeth, but it’s worth it.
Jarritos is one of the few brands that isn’t owned by PepsiCo (though they are a distributor), Coca-Cola, or Keurig Dr. Pepper. It is instead a Mexican import that makes 15 different fruity flavors, all of which are delicious.
Jarritos Lime tastes unlike any of the other citrus-based sodas out there, if you’ve never had one it’s definitely worth tracking down. But just because it’s different doesn’t mean it’s the best.
If you asked me to guess without tasting which of these brands would top the list, I would’ve guessed Sprite would take the number one spot. Until this blind taste test, I thought I was team Sprite. It turns out, it’s one of the weaker lemon-lime sodas out there. Now granted, that’s not saying much considering lemon-lime sodas are by far the best fruit-flavored sodas on the market, but that also means there is a lot of competition out there and unfortunately for Sprite, I don’t think they’ve got what it takes to compete at the highest level of the genre.
Don’t get me wrong, Sprite is delicious, but its lemon-lime flavor is kind of weak. All it really has going for it is that delicious fizz.
The Bottom Line:
A great soda, but there are better lemon-lime flavors out there.
This is a new soda brand, which is exciting because it’s not every day that a new soda brand launches that actually tastes good. Starry is owned by PepsiCo and first hit the scene in January of this year, coincidentally at the same time that Sierra Mist, which is also owned by PepsiCo, was discontinued. So is Starry just a re-branded Sierra Mist?
The answer is yes, in that they’re both lemon-lime sodas distributed by PepsiCo. But as far as flavor goes, this tastes significantly better than Sierra Mist. My guess is that Pepsi reformulated Sierra Mist and the flavor was so different (and better) that they felt like the best move was to re-brand and start from scratch. I think that pays off, if this was merely New Sierra Mist it may not have gone over as well.
The Bottom Line:
A brand new lemon-lime soda. It’s crispy, refreshing, and delicious. If you’re curious about the new brand, it’s definitely worth exploring that curiosity.
Jarritos Mandarin puts all other orange-flavored sodas to shame. There is a reason this is the flagship Jarritos flavor, it’s incredibly delicious with a juicy fruit-forward flavor that has an addictive round character to it. I’m not entirely sure what makes this taste so much better than all the other orange sodas on the market but I’m willing to bet it’s that cane sugar.
The Bottom Line:
The current best orange soda on the market by a significant margin.
7-Up is the ultimate lemon-lime soda. I always wondered why In-N-Out, one of my favorite burger chains, had 7-Up in its Coca-Cola-branded soda machines rather than Sprite, which is owned by Coca-Cola, and now I know why. It’s better than Sprite in every way. It has a crisper texture, more carbonation, and a refreshing lemon-lime flavor that is unlike anything else on the market.
The brand is owned by Keurig Dr. Pepper but was initially distributed by PepsiCo and was first released in 1929 under the name “Bib-Label Lithiated Lemon-Lime Soda,” before being rebranded to “7 Up Lithiated Lemon Soda” and finally “7-Up” in 1936. The original recipe contained lithium citrate, a mood-stabilizing drug used to treat mania, hypomania, depression, and bipolar disorders, back in the days when soda was being weirdly marketed as some sort of medicinal product.
The lithium citrate was removed in 1948.
The Bottom Line:
The best lemon-lime soda on the market. Every other citrus soda is trying to capture a little bit of 7-Up’s magic, whether they want to admit it or not.
Maybe it’s controversial to give Squirt the number one spot over 7-Up but there is just something so satisfying about this soda, I can’t deny that it was far and above the best from this taste test. The brand’s current manufacturer is Keurig Dr. Pepper but this grapefruit soda first started back in 1938 in Phoenix Arizona as a competitor to Coca-Cola’s Fresca. I don’t know what it is about the southwestern United States, but they make the best fruit-flavored soda.
Unlike most fruit-flavored sodas, this one actually contains fruit juice, approximately 2% grapefruit juice. Is that enough to taste? Who knows, but Squirt has this sharp bite and burn that makes each sip incredibly delicious.
The Bottom Line:
It just edges out 7-Up for having more bite and a more novel flavor. Squirt is the best fruit-flavored soda on the market and the only thing that can truly compete with something as good as Coca-Cola or root beer. It single-handedly justifies the category of fruit-flavored sodas.
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