Gatorade Rain Berry Is Back with Way Less Sugar and We Tried It

My sister just messaged me a photo of Gatorade Rain Berry and a good question: “Is Rain Berry a real thing?” (My family now messages me questions like this all the time since I usually have more than enough information to answer any inane food questions.)

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What my sister didn’t know was that I’d already written two articles about the return of Gatorade Rain Berry and that I had a bottle ready to review within an arm’s reach! In the spirit of sibling serendipity, I bumped reviewing the cult classic hydration drink flavor to the top of my to-do list. I even asked my sister what she thought of the drink so I could share her thoughts with the world (without asking). It was the least I could do after making fun of her peanut allergy in an article… and hundreds of times in person.

Rain Berry Is Back!

Gatorade Lower Sugar: Rain Berry Review

Pros: I’m halfway through this bottle and I cannot determine a sole berry flavor that this lines up with. Whatever Gatorade Rain Berry really is, I’m a fan. The sugar-and-stevia-leaf-extract blend does a convincing job of keeping the Gatorade sweetness you expect at just 25% of the sugar content. This new version contains no artificial colors, flavors, or sweeteners; I’m sure that’ll make the ingredient-cop moms online happy.

And here’s my sister’s unfiltered review: “this is tasty tho, I don’t normally drink gatorade so I don’t have much to compare it to but whatever” (Believe it or not, she’s older than me.)

Cons: The stevia-leaf-extract aftertaste is noticeable–no small knock in this modern era of indistinguishable alternative sweeteners. I also can’t actually speak to the accuracy of this new version of Gatorade Rain Berry, since I never had the original. Caitlin Clark says it tastes the same, but she’s also getting paid by Gatorade; I’ll wait for an independent review of someone familiar with the OG Rain Berry before making any affirmative statements.

Credit: Griffin Parker / Gatorade

Rating:

8/10

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So… What is a Rain Berry?

“Gatorade Rain Berry” started as the Berry flavor in Gatorade’s Rain subline. When the Rain subline was discontinued, select popular flavors were moved to Gatorade Thirst Quencher’s Frost subline, getting the word “rain” appended to their previous names to maintain continuity. The Gatorade Frost version of Rain Berry was then discontinued in 2023, to the dismay of Gatoraders across the nation – including Indiana Fever icon Caitlin Clark. (Lucky for her, Gatorade celebrated this revival of her favorite flavor by launching a limited-edition retro-label bottle featuring Caitlin herself.)