What Happened to Slice Soda?

I’m from north of Boston. You don’t hear about Boston pizza very much—probably because it’s overshadowed by pizza giants like New Jersey and New York. But there are some very delicious options around there that can hold their own among the best. There’s one particular pizzeria in Ipswich, Massachusetts that my family and I used to go to every Sunday as a treat before the work and school week. I always got a pizza with black olives and garlic, with a glass of orange Slice soda on the side. It makes my mouth water just thinking about it.

Eventually, I stopped drinking soda altogether, but it turns out if I want to relieve those childhood days, I may not be able to. Slice soda has seemingly vanished from restaurants and market shelves. But is this true? Is Slice soda still available? Do they still make Slice soda? Will Slice soda ever return? Let’s open up a fizzy bottle of answers.

What happened to Slice soda? 

Initially, slice was a lemon lime soda introduced in 1984 to compete with the likes of Sprite and 7-Up. It originally contained 10% juice. In 1986 they added orange, apple, and cherry cola flavors. The fruit content gradually started to be reduced as the ‘80s went on and by the ‘90s the juice was entirely gone. Meanwhile, cherry cola and apple were replaced by strawberry, pineapple, fruit punch, and grape.

Then, in the 2000s, lemon lime Slice was spun off as Sierra Mist, and not long thereafter, the remaining flavors were replaced with something called Tropicana Twister soda.  

So, do they still make Slice soda? 

The short answer is no. The soda that you may remember from your childhood has been relegated to the ash heap of food history alongside Sierra Mist (yep, that’s gone, too) and Crystal Pepsi. However, there was an attempt at reviving Slice, if only in name, more recently. The branding rights were bought up by some entrepreneurs in 2018, with the plan of launching a new, healthier Slice.

According to a Chicago Tribune article that was written prior to the product’s launch, “The new Slice will be a lower-sugar, lower-calorie beverage sweetened only with real—possibly organic —fruit juice,.”

Brand owner Mark Thomann is quoted in the article as saying, “If we were just relaunching it the way it was before, I don’t think it would be successful…We believe this will be a $100 million brand in the next five years.” 

This article was written in 2018, so here we are a little over five years later and how is the new Slice doing? Unfortunately, their website is inoperable and it is impossible to find any of the new Slice product online anywhere, as far as I can tell. 

Alas, Slice of any variety is not likely to be returning to market shelves anytime soon. But at least we’ll always have our memories.