Sparkling Ice got its start as something of a soda alternative. It’s carbonated and comes in big, bold fruit flavors, and it doesn’t have any sugar so, sure, it’s almost like you’re drinking sparkling water instead of a diet soda. But lately Sparkling Ice has sort of been horning in on diet soda’s turf. It started back in 2018, when the brand released its first caffeinated bevs and I guess you could say it has culminated in what we’re here to talk about today: the new Sparkling Ice Soda Shoppe flavors. These are sodas. They just are! They’re soda flavored, caffeinated, and bubbly. But are they good?
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My colleague Griffin Parker already tasted and reviewed the new Sparkling Ice Cherry Cola and gave it a highly respectable 8.5 Sporks, so I’ll focus on the Orange Cream and Root Beer here.
Pros: This has a bright, convincing diet root beer flavor. It doesn’t have a huge amount of bite, but it has enough of that nice, spicy sassafras thing going on to convincingly taste like root beer instead of root beer flavored sparkling water. I expected this to be watery and weak, but it’s not. Cons: The lingering flavor of sucralose is strong on the finish. My advice to pretty much all diet root beer brands: instead of plain root beer, make it root beer float flavor. The added vanilla creaminess always takes the edge off the artificial sweetener aftertaste. This is a good strategy—and the Orange Cream flavor demonstrates that!
Pros: This new Sparkling Ice flavor tastes exactly like a creamsicle. You get that nice, pleasantly artificial orange flavor with a healthy dose of round, warm vanilla cream on the finish. You can still taste the sucralose, but it’s SO much more palatable in a cream soda format. I also appreciate that even though these are caffeinated with green tea, it doesn’t interfere with the flavor of the soda at all—that isn’t always the case.
Cons: These 16oz cans are pretty light on caffeine for being so big. Each one has just 70mg of caffeine, which is less than you’ll get in a much more modestly sized cup of coffee. I’m classifying this as a “con” strictly because I know how most Americans feel about caffeine; I’m actually fine with 70mg.
Howdy! I’m Gwynedd, Sporked’s managing editor. I live in Los Angeles and have access to the best tacos the U.S. has to offer—but I’m a sucker for a crunchy Old El Paso taco night every now and then. I’ve been at Sporked since 2022 and I’m still searching frozen mozzarella sticks that can hold a candle to restaurant sticks.
Why you should trust me: I’ve been a journalist for 20 years (yikes), a consumer of food for 40-plus years, and I’m truly hard pressed to think of foods I don’t like (or that I can’t tolerate at the very least). Oh and one time I cooked my way through Guy Fieri’s cookbook and wrote about the journey through Flavortown.
What I buy every week: Trader Joe’s Original Savory Thins. Fat free plain yogurt (usually Fage or Nancy’s). Honeycrisp apples. Sweet cream coffee creamer for my at-home Americanos. A frozen cauliflower crust pizza and some jarred mushrooms to top it with. Old El Paso Stand ‘N Stuff taco shells and Gardein Ground Be’f, even though I think “be’f” is a nightmarish contraction.
Favorite ranking: Stouffer’s frozen dinners. I don’t own a microwave (I get my cancers the old fashioned way!), so I love taste testing things that I don’t really buy to eat at home.
Least favorite ranking: Soy sauce. Don’t get me wrong, I love soy sauce—but consuming that much sodium in one sitting is probably illegal in some countries. Our frozen enchilada taste test was a close second; the smell of microwaved corn tortillas still haunts me.
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Gwynedd Stuart
Ariana Losch
Vinz Karl
