27 min read
Soda has a long history of innovation and risk-taking. Take, for example, the translucent Crystal Pepsi, the controversial New Coke, and Orbitz, a drink suspended with gelatinous balls.
While many of these soft drinks/sodas were discontinued quickly—their legacies live on as cult favorites and nostalgic snapshots.
The full graveyard below spans from an 1881 New England ginger ale empire to a soda Coca-Cola promised was “permanent” in 2024 — and killed seven months later. And because every other list online recycles the same fifteen corpses, this one starts with the sodas nobody else writes about at all.
THE DISCONTINUED SODAS NOBODY ELSE REMEMBERS
Every discontinued-soda list on the internet recycles the same corpses — Crystal Pepsi, Surge, Tab, New Coke. They’re all further down, given their due. But start with the ones nobody else remembers: sodas killed by court order, by hotel construction, by their own success — a few so forgotten that the surviving cans are the only written record they ever existed.
| Soda | Maker | Launched | Gone | Came back? |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Quirst | Seven-Up Co. | 1978 | 1980 | No |
| Patio Diet Cola | PepsiCo | 1963 | 1964 | As Diet Pepsi, permanently |
| Cherry Smash | John E. Fowler | 1901 | 1960s | No |
| Grapette | Grapette Co. | 1939 | 1977 (US) | 2000s, as Sam’s Choice |
| Clicquot Club | Clicquot Club Co. | 1881 | Plant closed 1980 | No |
| Simba | Coca-Cola | 1969 | 1972 | No |
| Delaware Punch | Coca-Cola (latterly) | 1913 | 2020 (US) | Still sold in Mexico |
| Teem | PepsiCo | 1959 | 1984 (US) | Still sold abroad |
| Rondo | Cadbury Schweppes | 1978 | Early 1980s | No |
| Elf | Preferred Products | ~1970s | Unknown | No |
| Cima Red | CC Bottling Co. of the Southwest | 1987 | ~Early 1990s | No |
QUIRST
Quirst is the only soda here that was killed by a federal court. The Seven-Up Company adopted the name for its new noncarbonated lemonade drink in February 1978 — and the makers of Squirt sued that April, before Quirst had even reached shelves, arguing the name was confusingly close to their own.
They won. The Eighth Circuit upheld a permanent injunction against Seven-Up on August 20, 1980, and Quirst has never been advertised since. Most sodas die of bad sales or bad taste; Quirst died by court order, which at least makes for better paperwork.
PATIO DIET COLA
Patio Diet Cola is the only soda on this list that died by succeeding. Pepsi launched it in 1963 to chase Royal Crown’s Diet Rite, marketing it almost entirely to women with TV fitness star Debbie Drake fronting the ads. It sold well enough that a year later Pepsi gave it the family name — and Patio Diet Cola became Diet Pepsi in 1964.
If the campaign feels familiar, you’ve seen Mad Men: the season-three Patio storyline — the ad agency pitching a Bye Bye Birdie knockoff commercial — was built around the real product. The non-cola Patio flavors soldiered into the 1970s, and one ghost outlived them all: Patio Red Cherry survived as a Bojangles fountain exclusive until June 2024.
CHERRY SMASH
Cherry Smash was created in 1901 by John E. Fowler of Richmond, Virginia, as a drugstore fountain syrup — and at its peak it was reportedly the second-largest soda brand in America, behind only Coca-Cola. Around 1920, Fowler bought a defunct brewery across the Potomac in Arlington for $125,000 and turned it into his bottling plant.
The ending is pure American real estate. In 1958, J. Willard Marriott — whose first Hot Shoppe restaurant sat next door — demolished the Cherry Smash plant to build his first hotel, the Marriott Motor Hotel. The soda limped on at a smaller site into the 1960s, then vanished. The hotel empire that flattened it is still standing.
GRAPETTE
Grapette was born in Camden, Arkansas in 1939, after founder Benjamin “Tyndle” Fooks spent two years taste-testing grape concentrates — and bought the name from a Chicago flavor salesman for $500. At its peak the little purple bottle sold through 300 bottlers across 38 states.
Then came one of the great botched acquisitions in soda history. Rheingold bought the company in the early 1970s and renamed the drink — Grapette, a household name — “Flavette.” Sales cratered, PepsiCo swallowed Rheingold, regulators forced a sale, and by 1977 the brand landed with the maker of rival NuGrape, which simply shelved it.
It took a fellow Arkansan to dig it back up. Sam Walton — “long a Grapette fan,” by the accounts of the men he said it to — told the brand’s owner, “I want Grapette in my stores.” It returned in the 2000s as Walmart’s Sam’s Choice Grapette, which it remains today.
CLICQUOT CLUB
Before Coca-Cola ruled anything, Clicquot Club of Millis, Massachusetts was the biggest ginger ale maker on Earth. Founded in 1881, it put its parka-wearing mascot Kleek-O on billboards and its banjo orchestra — the Clicquot Club Eskimos — on national radio through the 1920s and ’30s.
In 1938 it became one of the first companies ever to can soda, shipping roughly 100,000 cases of ginger ale in cone-top cans. The acid and carbonation promptly ate through the metal; cans leaked and burst, and the company retreated. First mover, first casualty.
Cott bought the brand in the late 1960s and the Millis plant closed for good in 1980. The cans it couldn’t keep sealed now sell to collectors for serious money — one bidder offered $1,800 for a 1954 cone-top quart and still lost the auction.
SIMBA
Simba was Coca-Cola’s attempt to sell a citrus soda on safari mystique. Test-marketed in 1968 and rolled out nationally in April 1969, it wore a lion logo with a red sun dotting the “i” and told America to “conquer the African thirst.” Coca-Cola shot the commercials on actual African game preserves and paid actor Richard Boone $75,000 to narrate them.
The campaign drew criticism for trading in racial stereotypes, the sales never came, and Coca-Cola put Simba down in 1972 — three years, one lion, no legacy.
DELAWARE PUNCH
Delaware Punch has nothing to do with the state. Created in San Antonio in 1913 by chemist Thomas E. Lyons, it was named for the Delaware grape it was flavored with — and it wasn’t even carbonated. A grape “soda” with no fizz, it survived Prohibition, two world wars, and 107 years of fashion.
What it couldn’t survive was 2020. Coca-Cola, which had long since acquired the brand, swept it out of U.S. retail in the same pandemic purge that killed Tab. It’s still bottled in Mexico and Guatemala — and in the United States, the last legal pour is a novelty tap at the World of Coca-Cola museum in Atlanta.
TEEM
Teem was Pepsi’s lemon-lime soldier for a quarter century — launched in April 1959 to fight 7UP, and quietly relieved of duty in 1984 when Slice took its shelf space. Twenty-five years of service, no farewell tour.
Except Teem never actually died everywhere. It’s still sold today in Pakistan, Brazil, Nigeria, Honduras, and a handful of other countries — a discontinued American soda living out a comfortable retirement abroad.
RONDO
Rondo was “The Thirst Crusher” — Cadbury Schweppes’ 1978 citrus soda whose entire identity was TV ads of manly men crushing the can one-handed, because it was “lightly carbonated, so you can slam it down fast.” In some Kansas markets it reportedly outsold Coca-Cola for a moment.
The moment passed. Rondo faded from shelves in the early 1980s, remembered today almost entirely for the crushing — which, in fairness, is more than most sodas get.
ELF
Elf is the purest ghost on this list. It was a budget soda line canned by Preferred Products, Inc. of Hopkins, Minnesota, sometime around the 1970s — root beer, creme soda, black cherry, cola, grape, and a few others, all in cheap steel pull-tab cans.
And that’s it. That’s everything anyone knows. No launch date, no discontinuation date, no ads, no news coverage — the company left no obituary. The entire written record of Elf soda is the surviving cans in collectors’ hands, which is exactly why it belongs here: some sodas don’t die famous, they just stop.
CIMA RED
Cima Red may be the most obscure soda on this page — no newspaper ever wrote it up, and this may be the only history of it on the internet. The federal trademark record is the skeleton: a red cream-style soda from the Coca-Cola Bottling Company of the Southwest in San Antonio, first sold May 27, 1987, its trademark abandoned by August 1989.
The can itself kept the pitch to three words: “Red Sparkling Soda.” The flesh comes from the people who drank it: Texans remember it as violently fizzy, dirt cheap — around a dollar for a 3-liter — and on shelves into the early 1990s. One fan swears the fizz, on opening, “shot out and killed a bug that was flying around in the kitchen.” That anecdote is the closest thing Cima Red has to a press archive.
THE FAMOUS FAILURES
Now for the household names — the flops big enough to earn obituaries, cult followings, and the occasional resurrection, starting with the two freshest graves.
| Soda | Maker | Launched | Gone | Came back? |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sierra Mist | PepsiCo | 1999 | 2023 | No — replaced by Starry |
| Coca-Cola Spiced | Coca-Cola | 2024 | 2024 | No |
| Pepsi Blue | PepsiCo | 2002 | 2004 | 2021, briefly |
| Whistle | Orange Whistle Co. | 1916 | Faded mid-century | No |
| Surge | Coca-Cola | 1996 | 2003 | 2014 revival; spotty since |
| OK Soda | Coca-Cola | 1993 | 1995 | No |
| Tab | Coca-Cola | 1963 | 2020 | No |
| Sprite Remix | Coca-Cola | 2003 | 2005 | No |
| Coca-Cola C2 | Coca-Cola | 2004 | 2007 | No |
| Josta | PepsiCo | 1995 | 1999 | No |
| Coca-Cola BlāK | Coca-Cola | 2006 | 2008 | No |
| Dr Pepper Red Fusion | Dr Pepper | 2002 | 2004 | No |
| Vault | Coca-Cola | 2005 | 2011 | No |
| Life Savers Soda | Life Savers | 1981 | 1982 | No |
| New Coke | Coca-Cola | 1985 | After 79 days | 2019, briefly |
| Crystal Pepsi | PepsiCo | 1992 | 1994 | 2016–2017 re-releases |
| Pepsi Kona | PepsiCo | 1996 | 1997 | No |
| Slice | PepsiCo | 1984 | 2000 | 2025, reformulated |
| Koca Nola | Koca Nola Co. | 1904 | Early 1920s | No |
| Coca-Cola Life | Coca-Cola | 2014 (US) | 2020 (US) | No |
| 7UP Gold | 7UP | 1988 | 1989 | No |
| Coca-Cola Lime | Coca-Cola | 2005 | ~2007 | As Diet Coke Lime, 2025 |
| Aspen | PepsiCo | 1978 | 1982 | No |
| dnL | Cadbury Schweppes | 2002 | 2005 | No |
| Hubba Bubba Soda | A.J. Canfield | 1988 | Late 1980s | No |
| Jolt Cola | Wet Planet | 1985 | 2009 | 2025, as an energy drink |
| Orbitz | Clearly Canadian | 1996 | 1999 | No |
SIERRA MIST
Sierra Mist spent 24 years failing to beat Sprite, and in January 2023 PepsiCo finally stopped trying. The lemon-lime soda launched in 1999, was rebranded, reformulated, and re-launched more times than fans could track, and never laid a glove on its rival — by the end it held roughly 0.1 percent of the U.S. soda market while Sprite sat near 7 percent.
So PepsiCo killed it and rolled out Starry overnight. “With Starry, we were able to create a game-changing recipe with the perfect balance of lemon lime flavor and sweetness compared to the competition,” said Danielle Barbaro, PepsiCo’s VP of R&D, in the launch announcement — corporate speak for “this one, we promise, will actually fight Sprite.”
The full obituary gets its own post: Sierra Mist’s history.
COCA-COLA SPICED
Coca-Cola Spiced holds a special place in this graveyard: it’s the one Coca-Cola swore was here to stay. Launched in February 2024 as the company’s first new permanent flavor in three years — raspberry with a whisper of spice — it was dead by that September, roughly seven months after the press release calling it “a permanent addition to the lineup.”
Coca-Cola said it was moving fast to match consumer tastes. Which is one way to describe promising forever and filing for divorce before the year was out.
PEPSI BLUE
In 2002, PepsiCo made a daring splash with Pepsi Blue. It was a neon-blue, berry-flavored soda looking to outshine Coca-Cola Vanilla. But were people who wanted vanilla going to grab a bright blue drink?
Despite celebrity endorsements and its integration into pop culture, its candy-like taste was not a big hit with consumers. By 2004, the Big Blue experiment was over and Pepsi discontinued the soda.
Well — over here. The Philippines never let it go, and Pepsi hauled it back to American shelves for one nostalgic summer in 2021 before shelving it again.
WHISTLE SODA
Whistle hit soda fountains around 1916, the invention of St. Louis promoter Vess Jones and his Orange Whistle Company. Its bold orange flavor and unique citrus blend quickly became a favorite, years before Fanta made orange soda a global staple. Its slogan — “Thirsty? Just Whistle” — was catchier than most of the sodas that outlived it.
The brand slipped out of national circulation decades later, dwindling to a small regional label. Nobody can even agree on exactly when Whistle died — the quietest exit on this list.
SURGE
One of my favorites.
Surge was Coca-Cola’s bold 1996 answer to Mountain Dew. If you remember, it had a neon-green hue and an unapologetically extreme ’90s marketing campaign.
Though this drink was discontinued in 2003, it was revived briefly in 2014, and for a short time, you could buy it on Amazon. Thanks, Jeff Bezos!
The comeback never stuck. Surge drifted into fountain machines at Burger King, then drifted back out — and as of 2025 it appears to be gone all over again.
OK SODA
OK soda, launched in 1993, was Coca-Cola’s bizarre foray into the grunge-era counterculture.
This might be the weirdest soft drink ever launched. It featured cryptic messages and a hotline inviting consumer feedback. The gloomy faces on the cans were commissioned from alternative-comics artists Daniel Clowes and Charles Burns — actual underground cartoonists, hired by the largest beverage company on Earth to sell resignation.
Ultimately, it was one of the most depressing products ever, disappearing from shelves in just two years.
TAB
Launched in 1963. This was Coca-Cola’s first diet soda.
Tab pioneered calorie-free beverages and had a dedicated cult following for an impressive 57 years. The fake sugars were a big hit.
Sadly, the rise of Diet Coke in the 1980s eclipsed Tab, leading to its discontinuation in December 2020, when Coca-Cola culled its zombie brands during the pandemic.
SPRITE REMIX
Sprite Remix, launched in 2003, brought a tropical twist to the classic Sprite formula. It was a hit with the 2000s remix culture.
Despite its flashy campaigns and cultural connections to music and dance, the drink was gone by 2005—too soon!
COCA-COLA C2
Launched in 2004, Coca-Cola C2 aimed to satisfy carb-conscious consumers during the height of the Atkins Diet craze.
It offered half the calories, carbs, and sugars of regular Coke.
Those cola marketers did their best, but this soda died out by 2007 as diet trends shifted and Coke Zero became the new hot chick in town.
JOSTA
Launched in 1995, PepsiCo’s Josta was the first significant energy soda.
It blended guarana with a bold flavor and sported a fierce black panther on its packaging.
Despite its groundbreaking formula, Josta’s wild energy fizzled out by 1999. They couldn’t keep up with the Rockstars and the Monsters of the world.
COCA-COLA BLĀK
Now, here’s a slick idea.
Coca-Cola BlāK, launched in 2006, was a daring fusion of soda and coffee.
Coca-Cola actually thought it could appeal to the coffee elite. And yeah, it didn’t work out, leading to its discontinuation by 2008.
DR PEPPER RED FUSION
Introduced in 2002, Dr Pepper Red Fusion was the first new flavor added to the brand in over a century.
What took them so long?
It featured a bold cherry twist. Groundbreaking. Despite heavy marketing and its striking red color, it was discontinued two years later due to poor sales.
VAULT
Remember Surge? Yeah, this was basically Coca-Cola trying to rebrand its failed idea.
Launched in 2005 as a bold “hybrid energy drink,” Vault promised the refreshment of a soda with the boost of an energy drink. It took aim at Pepsi’s Mountain Dew.
Despite its aggressive marketing and initial success, Vault was discontinued in 2011, alongside many other failed energy drinks. I was actually a fan and was sad to see it go. The killing blow came from inside the house: Mello Yello, the older citrus soda Coca-Cola had benched for Vault, quietly started outselling it — and Mello Yello, unlike Vault, is still sold today.
LIFE SAVERS SODA
In 1981, Life Savers Soda attempted to turn the famous candy into a drinkable experience, offering a liquid version of its fruity flavors.
Here’s the twist: it did well in taste tests. The product died at the shelf, where packaging that screamed candy-in-a-bottle made shoppers feel like they were pouring dessert down their throats. People liked drinking it — they just couldn’t bring themselves to buy it.
By 1982, it disappeared after just one year.
NEW COKE
In 1985, Coca-Cola introduced “New Coke,” a drastic reformulation of its original recipe to counter Pepsi’s growing market share.
The public backlash was swift and intense, and Coca-Cola surrendered in exactly 79 days, reviving the original formula as “Coca-Cola Classic.” Company president Donald Keough owned the miscalculation at the announcement: “The passion for original Coca-Cola — and that is the word for it, passion — was something that caught us by surprise.”
Worst failure in consumer product history? Even its afterlife is strange — Coca-Cola pressed a half-million cans of New Coke in 2019 for Stranger Things, making it the only soda here revived as a Netflix prop.
CRYSTAL PEPSI
Launched in 1992, Pepsi decided to create a clear version of its flagship product.
Crystal Pepsi offered the classic Pepsi taste with a clear, “pure” appearance.
Pepsi bet $40 million on a Super Bowl-anchored national campaign in 1993, and the product was off shelves by early 1994. It refuses to stay buried, though — nostalgia re-releases surfaced in 2016 and 2017.
PEPSI KONA
In 1996, PepsiCo test-launched Pepsi Kona, an experimental fusion of coffee and cola, in exactly one market: Philadelphia. It never earned a second one.
The bizarre concoction was short-lived, lasting just a year before it fizzled out in 1997 because nobody wanted it.
When will these soda giants learn?
SLICE
Slice, introduced in 1984, shook up the soda scene by blending real fruit juice into vibrant flavors like apple. This is a good idea, but before it’s time, I think.
PepsiCo retired it in 2000 to clear shelf space for Sierra Mist — which lasted 23 years before landing on this same list. And in a 2025 twist, the Slice name rose from the grave as a reformulated low-sugar “healthy soda” under new owners.
KOCA NOLA
Here is a soda I would love to try for unknown reasons.
Launched in 1904, Koca Nola brazenly entered the cola wars, mirroring Coca-Cola’s name and formula. Meaning it was complete with a dash of cocaine for an extra kick of “vigor.” That’s not a rumor — federal chemists found cocaine in Koca Nola bottles as late as 1908, years after the company swore it had gone clean.
It was actually famous for a time in the Southern U.S.
I wonder why?
Between Coca-Cola’s lawyers and a public rapidly souring on cocaine in its beverages, the company wound down around 1918 and the brand was gone for good by the early 1920s.
COCA-COLA LIFE
In 2013, Coca-Cola Life sought to bridge health trends with soda cravings by sweetening its soda with stevia and cane sugar.
Come on, Coca-Cola. Nobody drinks your stuff to stay healthy, and nobody is fooled by the green color!
Despite the eye-catching green label and promises of natural ingredients, it never found an audience — Coca-Cola dropped it in the U.S. in 2020, in the same brand purge that finally killed Tab.
7UP GOLD
In 1988, 7UP Gold debuted, swapping the brand’s signature clear, citrusy profile for a darker, spiced flavor with hints of ginger and cinnamon. That actually sounds tasty.
But 7UP had spent decades branding itself as the caffeine-free soda — and Gold contained caffeine. Baffled shoppers left it on the shelf; it scraped about 0.1 percent of the market and was gone by 1989.
COCA-COLA LIME
Coca-Cola Lime, introduced in 2005, captivated consumers by blending the classic cola flavor with added lime. Somebody in that marketing department deserves a promotion.
Despite its early popularity, Coca-Cola quietly dropped it around 2007, joining a whole shelf of dead Coke variants. The lime itself refuses to die, though — sibling Diet Coke Lime hung on until 2018, then returned in retro packaging for a limited run in late 2025.
ASPEN SODA
Aspen Soda, launched in 1978, was an attempt to offer a clear, apple-flavored soda that evoked the crispness of mountain air and orchards. It was lovely.
It had a fanbase, but not a big enough one — sales fell short, and it was pulled from shelves by 1982.
DNL
Launched in 2002, dnL was a quirky, caffeinated twist on 7UP. Its name and bold green color literally turned the classic soda upside down.
This sounds so much better than 7UP!
dnL failed to catch on and was fizzled out by the end of 2005 — Cadbury Schweppes made it official on New Year’s Eve.
HUBBA BUBBA SODA
Introduced in 1988 by Chicago’s A.J. Canfield Company under license from Wrigley, Hubba Bubba Soda attempted to bottle bubblegum flavor in fizzy liquid form. The soda had a bright pink hue.
So appetizing!
The pink soda failed to sustain interest, and by the late 1980s, it was gone.
JOLT COLA
Launched in 1985, Jolt Cola boldly advertised “all the sugar and twice the caffeine,” positioning itself as a rebellious alternative to the diet drink craze.
Heck yeah!
Although Jolt gained a cult following among students and tech workers for its energy-boosting punch, its popularity eventually waned. Its maker went bankrupt in 2009, a Dollar General revival came and went in the late 2010s — and in 2025 Jolt rose again as a 200-milligram-caffeine energy drink, elbowing into the Red Bull aisle it arguably invented.
ORBITZ
Launched in 1996 by Clearly Canadian, Orbitz stood out with its strikingly translucent liquid and floating gelatinous balls, resembling a drinkable lava lamp and marketing itself as a “texturally enhanced” beverage.
I always wanted to taste a lava lamp…
However, the unsettling texture divided consumers, and by early 1999, Orbitz was discontinued.
DISCONTINUED SODAS FAQ
Is Big Blue soda discontinued?
No — Big Blue is still sold. Austin-based Big Red Inc. launched it in November 2008 as a blue “cream soda” sibling to its flagship Big Red, and it remains in production today. If you can’t find it locally, that’s regional distribution at work, not a discontinuation.
What green soda was discontinued?
The two big ones are Surge (1996–2003) and Vault (2005–2011), Coca-Cola’s back-to-back neon-green attempts to beat Mountain Dew. Green-labeled Coca-Cola Life followed in 2020. Mello Yello, the green soda people most often assume is dead, is actually still sold.
What is the rarest soda ever?
Collectors point to a purple amethyst Cheerwine bottle, with only two known to exist. Among mass-market failures, short test-market runs like Pepsi Kona — sold only in Philadelphia from 1996 to 1997 — produced some of the hardest-to-find cans in the hobby.
What are the oldest sodas still made?
Vernors Ginger Ale is America’s oldest surviving soda, created in 1866. Hires Root Beer followed in 1876, Dr Pepper in 1885, Coca-Cola in 1886, and Pepsi in 1893 — all five outlasted every drink on this list.
