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You've probably tried Coca-Cola or Pepsi at some point in your life, but what about Slice, Jolt, or OK Soda?
PepsiCo, the Coca-Cola Company, and other soda makers have tampered with best-selling formulas and introduced brand-new drinks that turn out to be failures. Some soda brands just don't resonate with consumers, so they get taken off supermarket shelves, never to return.
The most memorable ones have worked their way into soda lore, refusing to be forgotten. Some have lingering fans desperately trying to bring them back. And when those fans get soda executives' attention, drinks like Crystal Pepsi and New Coke make their comebacks, even if for a limited time. Most, however, don't.
Here are 18 of the biggest flops in soda history.
Kim Bhasin and Will Heilpern contributed to an earlier version of this post.
SEE ALSO: Coca-Cola is sold in all but 2 countries on Earth. Here's what their ads look like around the world.
Crystal Pepsi
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To get in on the clear-soda fad in the early 1990s, Pepsi unveiled its own version in 1992, Crystal Pepsi. The drink was caffeine-free, and the idea was that consumers would equate a clear soda with thoughts of purity and health.
It worked well out of the gate, and even prompted a response from Coca-Cola, Tab Clear. But soon after, consumers shied away from it, and Pepsi was forced to discontinue it in 1993.
Yum Brands chairman David Novak explained in a 2007 interview with Fast Company, "I still think it's the best idea I ever had, and the worst executed. A lot of times as a leader you think, 'They don't get it; they don't see my vision.' People were saying we should stop and address some issues along the way, and they were right."
Orbitz
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Orbitz is the only drink on this list that contained floating lumps of solid food. It was made by the Clearly Canadian Beverage Corporation, which called it a "texturally enhanced alternative beverage"when it was released in 1997.
Not enough consumers went for the gimmick and the lava-lamp-resembling drink was discontinued within one year, according to Time magazine.
New Coke
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The infamous New Coke remains a cautionary tale about why you shouldn't tamper with strong brands.
The reformulated version of Coca-Cola's classic recipe launched in 1985 to help fight off the hard-charging Pepsi. It prompted outrage among hardcore Coca-Cola fans, and less than three months later, Coca-Cola went back on its decision.
People are still seeking out New Coke, which was later sold in foreign markets under the name Coke II until it was permanently shut down in 2002.
Perhaps because of its colossal failure — and the nostalgia factor — consumers wanted a taste of New Coke in the 21st century. So, to tie in with the hit Netflix show "Stranger Things,"New Coke was released again in June 2019 for a limited time.
Josta
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Josta became one of the first energy drinks to make its way into the Coke/Pepsi cola wars when Pepsi introduced it in 1995. Josta contained guarana — along with caffeine — to provide an energy boost. The brand was shut down in 1999, never to return.
Sprite Remix
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Coca-Cola's Sprite Remix popped up in 2003, and it quickly developed a passionate fan base. Coke would expand its Sprite Remix flavors twice in the next two years, adding Berryclear and Aruba Jam to its portfolio following the original Tropical.
However, in 2005, Coca-Cola decided it wasn't performing well enough and killed the brand — at least in the American market.
In April 2016, however, Sprite Remix Tropical was brought back for a limited time thanks to popular demand.
In a press release, Coke's Sparkling Brands vice president, Kimberly Paige, said, "Fans have thirsted for the return of this popular Sprite tropical flavor for years, and it's great to finally bring it back to reward their enthusiasm."
Pepsi Blue
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Pepsi Blue was introduced in 2002 to compete with Coca-Cola's Vanilla Coke brand. It was known for being berry-flavored, sugary, and very blue. The brand drew fire for being colored with Blue 1, a controversial food-coloring agent banned in some countries.
Years after it was discontinued in 2004, the infamous drink is still being searched for by some, but it's extremely difficult to find.
Slice
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PepsiCo introduced lemon-lime Slice in 1984, and it did well enough to get the company to produce more than 12 variations of the brand.
Slice's brand began to lose its luster over time, until it was finally replaced in the early 2000s by the similar Sierra Mist. Now the flagship and most of the other flavors have all but disappeared, but you can still get some variations, like Diet Slice Orange at Walmart. But be warned: The new Slice brand, which was introduced in December 2018, is not the old soda. It's a new brand with a licensed name, with all new flavors using organic ingredients.
Hubba Bubba
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Hubba Bubba Original Bubble Gum Soda began life in 1987 after film producer Steve Roeder created it, using a snow-cone flavoring. However, the drink was discontinued before the '90s.
The company that produced the drink, Novelty Beverage, acquired license rights from the Wrigley company and it was sold worldwide.
Coca-Cola BlāK
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Coca-Cola BlāK, a coffee-flavored cola, was first introduced in France before making its way to the US market in 2006.
The American version was sweetened much differently from its international counterparts. The French version used sugar, while the American one replaced it with high-fructose corn syrup, aspartame, and acesulfame potassium.
Consumers didn't go for it, and Coke stopped selling the drink in the US in 2008.
But coffee and soda isn't dead yet. The company announced it may start selling one of its international drinks, Coke With Coffee, in the US sometime in 2019.
"That was a trend before its time," Nancy Quan, chief technical officer at Coca-Cola, told CNN Business.
Vault
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Coca-Cola's Vault brand was promoted as a hybrid energy-drink soda when it was brought to market in 2005 to compete with Pepsi's Mountain Dew.
It was directly paired up with Pepsi's citrus brand, and Coke even responded to the development of Mountain Dew: Code Red by coming out with a drink called Vault Red Blitz in 2007.
Vault survived for six years and developed a significant fan base before getting cut by Coke.
Tab Clear
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Tab Clear was Coca-Cola's response to Crystal Pepsi during the clear-soda fad of the late '80s and early '90s. Unlike Pepsi's offering, Tab Clear contained caffeine.
Hitting stores in 1992, the brand went international just two weeks after its launch, but it was doomed from the start. Once consumers got sick of the fad, it would tank like the rest of the clear sodas.
Coke shut down Tab Clear by 1994.
OK Soda
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OK Soda launched in 1993 and was completely gone by 1995. In fact, the drink failed so quickly that it never went completely national, and Coca-Cola decided to cancel the whole project just seven months after its release.
It was backed by an unconventional marketing campaign that tried to be wholly transparent, ignoring the taste of the drink, and purely promoted the "feeling."
Fans stayed with OK Soda after it was discontinued. Various internet communities kept OK Soda going, and people collected a lot of the brand's advertising and other assorted paraphernalia associated with it.
Mr. Green
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Mr. Green's 2002 release was Pepsi subsidiary SoBe's only foray into the soda business, and it failed in a hurry. The Dr. Pepper-like drink was colored green, infused with ginseng, and bore the SoBe lizard mascot on the bottle.
The drink just didn't work with consumers, and SoBe halted production in 2003. SoBe's other beverage lines have taken off since then.
Jolt Cola
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Jolt Cola, created in 1985, was an outsider to the eternal battle between Coke and Pepsi. The flagship drink of Wet Planet Beverage gained serious traction by marketing itself as a "maximum caffeine" alternative, and its appearance in "Jurassic Park" added to its mystique.
In 2011, the company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection following a dispute about its bottles. After restructuring, the company relaunched the soda in September 2017.
Citra
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Coca-Cola started up the Citra brand — a caffeine-free grapefruit soda— in 1996. It's similar to Fresca and Squirt, and managed to get itself a decent following. But it became evident, due to lagging sales, that the Citrus brand wasn't going to work out, so it went on hiatus.
Coke eventually decided to rebrand it into its stronger Fanta stable, morphing the drink into Fanta Citrus.
7-Up Gold
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The formula for 7-Up Gold was developed by Dr. Pepper, and brought out by 7-Up in 1987, soon after the two soda giants merged.
Unfortunately, the drink was a complete disaster, and it failed to last more than one year. This could have had to do with the taste, which was described as "cinnamon-spicy" and had a "reddish caramel hue."
According to the New York Times, 7-Up's chief executive at the time, John R. Albers said: ''I'll be honest. It's a failure."
dnL
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Introduced in 2002, 7-Up's short-lived dnL brand was an attempt to pull consumers away from Pepsi's ever-dominant Mountain Dew beverage.
The dnL concept — 7-Up upside down — failed to gain traction with Mountain Dew drinkers, and the brand was killed in 2005.
Red Fusion
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In 2002, Dr. Pepper Red Fusion became the first new flavor Dr. Pepper ever added in its 120-year history. The drink was predominantly cherry-flavored but was also combined with a bunch of other fruit flavors, and it failed spectacularly.
Despite the marketing power behind it, Dr. Pepper ceased producing Red Fusion nationally less than a year after launch, though it lingered until 2004.
