There I was writing about the 7 Never Released Sodas We Wish Made It to Shelves when I realized there were enough abandoned Pepsi plans for an entire separate 7 Sodas piece. The drinks below range from “leaked renders never meant to see the light of day” all the way to “full release plan canceled by pandemic.” Let’s dig through the Pepsi graveyard and see what we find.
- Pepsi Nutmeg Royale
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Back in 2022, Pepsi launched a commercial starring football (aka soccer) stars Leo Messi and Ronaldinho in a “Nutmeg Royale,” a contest to see who can keep their opponents from sneaking a ball through their legs. In honor of that promotional campaign, Pepsi planned to release a nutmeg-flavored Pepsi—they even teased a 16oz can design for the soda. But I never heard another word about this actually making it into the real world.
- Pepsi Nitro Strawberry
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This one hurts, y’all. I loved the vanilla variant of Pepsi Nitro; I truly think if Pepsi Nitro Strawberry had made it to shelves, we’d still have the subline today. That said, while the creamy strawberry cola was spotted on internal release plans just a year after the initial launch of Nitro Pepsi, the plans were canceled for unknown reasons. We did eventually see Strawberries and Cream Pepsi hit shelves—exclusively in the United Kingdom.
- Pepsi-Cola Soda Shop Orange Creamsicle
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Speaking of plans canceled for unknown reasons, remember the Pepsi-Cola Soda Shop line made with real sugar? It floats in and out of availability every so often. A couple years ago, there were plans to debut a new Pepsi-Cola Soda Shop flavor: Orange Creamsicle. This was after Coca-Cola’s first attempt at the flavor combination, but before the recent revamp. While this wouldn’t have been groundbreaking, a real-sugar orange creamsicle cola on shelves would be unique (for the mainstream soda supply, at least).
- Crystal Pepsi Zero
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A few years ago, an internal release calendar for one of the major gas station chains revealed plans to bring back Crystal Pepsi in 20oz bottles—in full and zero sugar. While we did eventually see the return of Crystal Pepsi (for some reason), the zero sugar version has never seen the light of day.
- Pepsi Energy
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We only know about this Pepsi flavor because an in-production promotional graphic leaked online with multiple never-released drinks on it, including Mountain Dew Game Fuel Turbo and an energy drink variant of the original Mountain Dew. While there weren’t any details attached, you can imagine this would have been a Pepsi-flavored drink with amped-up caffeine levels.
- Pepsi Cafe Cola with Coffee (Original and Vanilla)
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Back in 2019, Pepsi announced that we’d see a “cola with coffee” line from Pepsi (similar to Coca-Cola BlāK which came out back in 2006 and the Coca-Cola with Coffee drinks that eventually came out in 2021). The caffeine content would be higher than a standard Pepsi, with both standard and vanilla flavors available. That said, something else came out in 2020 that forced Pepsi to table the release. We’re still waiting!
Thoughts? Questions? Complete disagreement? Leave a comment!