Spiced Cranberry Sprite Is Back

It’s that time of year again. When companies begin releasing all of their fun lil holiday flavors juuuust in time for (two months before) Christmas. And while some people think that the slow creep of Winter holidays into the end of summer and early fall is capitalistic B.S., I happen to think it is a capitalistic delight. In fact, the huge annual onslaught of fall products immediately followed by the cozy winter products may just be my favorite thing about capitalism. That and being able to afford my apartment. The rest pretty much sucks. But you aren’t here to listen to me blab on about my favorite parts of capitalism, you’re here to see what the deal is with Sprite this winter, and the deal is that they’ve brought back Spiced Cranberry Sprite for our festive enjoyment.

So is this stuff actually good? Is that why it’s back? If I serve it on the rocks, is it then ice spiced cranberry Sprite and will it start rapping at me?

Turns out this stuff has nothing to do with Ice Spice other than that both were born post-Y2K. As for whether this stuff is good, the answer is, it kind of has to be, right? Sprite has brought it back every holiday season since 2019, so there must be people out there who like it. The product description on the Sprite website says, “Sprite Winter Spiced Cranberry takes a blend of spices and tangy cranberry flavors, and seamlessly mixes it with the original Sprite, creating something truly spectacular and unique.” As for what the internet thinks of it, it’s hard to tell exactly. When food news Instagram account @Candyhunting posted about Sprite Spiced Cranberry being spotted in the wild, some people responded with positive sentiments like “My favorite 😍”, while many others voiced their disappointment that Sprite wasn’t bringing back the non-spiced Cranberry Sprite that they released in the winters of 2013 through 2018 instead. Anecdotally, reviews online seem pretty mixed as well. One Amazon reviewer said the Sprite “tastes like lemon, lime, cranberry, ginger, and peppermint, it’s not good but for some reason, you still want to drink it.” Yet another said, “I engulfed these so fast they’re so delish.” I think this is such a fun verb to use for drinking soda and I will definitely be stealing this next time I engulf a Dr. Pepper.

The bottom line is that Spiced Cranberry Sprite is back (it’s already been spotted at lots of national retailers), and if you like it, love it, or simply want to (cranberry) spice up a random Thursday and give it a try, I say go for it. But do it soon because before you know it, it will be December and they are going to replace this limited offer with some Fourth of July or New Year’s 2025 Sprite or something.