Everything We Know About the New Alani Nu Flavor

I love speaking things into existence. There I was a month ago, reviewing the newest dessert-flavored Alani Nu Energy flavor, when I snuck in a little postscript at the very end: “I might have seen a retailer document that mentions the next Alani Nu Energy SKU will be cotton candy-esque.” Sure enough, the internet has caught fire with the recent reveal of a new Alani Nu flavor: Cotton Candy. 

While the flavor is getting plenty of people excited online, one part of this flavor is universally seen as boring as hell: the name. Seriously, Alani Nu is the company that brought us Watermelon Wave and Strawberry Sunrise; we couldn’t come up with any goofy name to get this idea across? Sparkle Floss? Carnival Crave? Soluble Cloud? Nothing? Just…Alani Nu Cotton Candy? 

Where did this news come from?

Of all places, this news came to me from our neighbors up in Canada. Tyler “#BringBackSupernova” Bowers sent me a post featuring a photo of the Canadian release of this new Alani Nu flavor. (You can usually tell the difference between an American and Canadian release by the latter’s ubiquitous French subtitle.)

That post sent me down the rabbit hole hunting for an American product render to use for this article, and I found it at my friend Alice’s favorite place on earth: H-E-B. I can’t imagine that image was supposed to be online this early, but I sure am grateful.

When is Alani Nu Cotton Candy Energy coming out?

Unfortunately, I don’t have an exact release date for this new Alani Nu flavor just yet. That said, Alani Nu has released a new energy flavor every month pretty consistently for a while now. I imagine this will launch later this month (if it hasn’t already been announced by the time this article is published).

Has Alani Nu ever made a cotton candy flavor before?

Yes, but not as an energy drink. Years ago, Alani Nu had a sparkling water line with some pretty mild-sounding flavors: Lemon Creme, Peach, Orange, Pina Colada, and, the topic of today’s piece, Cotton Candy. (In Alani Nu’s defense, I have a pretty high bar for “interesting sparkling water flavors.”) I never tried these, but I did try Alani Nu’s unflavored water which I found shockingly chalky for, you know, a liquid. Gatorade Water gives me the same mouthfeel.