9 Nostalgic Sodas From The '90s We Can't Find Anymore

Ah, the 1990s — a decade remembered for its great contributions to music, technology, and soda. Don't remember that last one? Allow us to remind you with a sweet, sippable trip down memory lane, starting with the great Cola Wars of the 1980s.

After decades of playing second fiddle to classic Coke, Pepsi finally gained traction in 1975 with its "Pepsi Challenge" marketing campaign, a blind taste test that showed many consumers actually preferred the taste of its sweeter, more syrupy soda. In response, Coca-Cola released Diet Coke in 1982 and a caffeine-free version the following year. When those launches failed to regain the market share Pepsi had taken, Coca-Cola announced "New Coke" with a revamped recipe closer to Pepsi's in 1985. Consumers were angry, and Pepsi continued to gain leverage, poking fun at its opponent at every opportunity.

By the 1990s, the Coke vs. Pepsi battle had reached a fever pitch, with each corporation launching new formulas at a furious pace. Smaller brands joined the fray, making the decade a dream come true for soda drinkers. Now that many novelty flavors have fallen by the wayside, it's fun to recall the frenzy of a simpler, more sugary time. Here are nine nostalgic sodas from the '90s we can't find anymore, for better or worse.

Citrus-flavored, neon-colored Surge was introduced in 1997 as Coca-Cola's answer to Mountain Dew. It made a splash with its bold branding and even bolder marketing campaign, starting with a commercial that aired during Super Bowl XXXI. Coke positioned Surge as a younger, hipper soft drink, tying it to extreme sports and '90s teen culture. And it worked, at least for a little while.

What set Surge apart from its competition was the addition of maltodextrin, which is known to break down quickly in the body. The smooth flavor coupled with relatively low carbonation made it easier to gulp, giving the consumer an instant jolt of caffeine. In the days before energy drinks as we know them today, this made Surge quickly, uh, surge (sorry) in popularity.

Unfortunately, the success didn't have staying power and Surge was pulled from shelves in 2003. Unhappy fans banded together, collecting more than 30,000 signatures on a petition begging Coca-Cola to bring the drink back. Instead, Coke launched Vault, an equally short-lived soda with higher caffeine and higher carbonation. When Vault was discontinued, the Surge Movement was born as a way to put grassroots pressure on the company to revive the beloved beverage. While the movement has succeeded in periodically bringing Surge back to test markets, it's still officially off the market as of this publication.

The grip that diet culture had on the 1990s was strong, and it often led us astray. Case in point: The widespread belief that clear liquids were automatically healthier than those with pigment. This idea, connecting transparent or white-colored products to purity, spawned a trend that touched everything from soda and beer, to dish soap and even deodorant. On every aisle, it seemed, big brands were swapping their colored formulas for clear (and, yes, this is also when we got novelties like White Mystery Airheads, launched in '93.)

Among the labels spearheading the movement was Crystal Pepsi, created in 1992 to bridge the gap (optically, at least) between traditional soda and sparkling water while also lifting the brand's flagging sales. In reality, Crystal Pepsi was just regular Pepsi minus the caramel coloring, plus some modified cornstarch. But the gimmick worked for a couple of years, and Crystal Pepsi was all the rage before fizzing out in 1993.

While some tenets of the purity theory remain embedded in consumer behavior, we've largely abandoned the assumption that clear or white things always have fewer harmful chemicals. But as one of the more famous (or infamous, depending on who you ask) discontinued Pepsi flavors, the nostalgic appeal of Crystal Pepsi remains.

Brought to us by the same marketing team as the 1985 "New Coke" disaster, OK Soda was a second attempt to capture the youth market. This time, instead of mimicking a competitor, Coca-Cola let its target audience dictate the product. Perhaps predictably, given that the target audience was the MTV Generation, things got weird.

The quirky, comic-inspired branding of OK Soda, launched in 1993, was a clear attempt to court Gen X consumers. The soft drink was positioned as subversive and slacking, with neo-noir illustrations and minimalist, postmodernist commercials that appeared to say it wasn't trying too hard. When reviews of the "just OK" flavor were lackluster, likening it (per TIME) to "carbonated tree sap," the company doubled down, printing a sphinx-like OK Manifesto onto the cans that said things like: "Don't be fooled into thinking there has to be a reason for everything." Well, OK.

While we can give Coca-Cola props for taking a big swing, unfortunately, big sales didn't follow. OK Soda was discontinued in 1995, and its legacy should serve as a reminder to marketers everywhere: If you want your product to have staying power, don't base its branding solely on trends.

In a world of caramel-colored colas and lemon-lime refreshments, Orbitz – considered a soda by many but technically it wasn't – immediately stood out. It came in creative flavors like pineapple-banana-cherry-coconut, and the tiny, colorful balls of gelatin floating in the liquid had it often compared to a lava lamp. The product was introduced in 1996 by Clearly Canadian Beverage Corporation, a small but mighty (and now defunct) leader in flavored carbonated water. The company's marketers described the drink as a "texturally enhanced alternative beverage" (noted by TIME) and created a campaign based on the mythical Planet Orbitz, where the gravity-defying novelty was allegedly from.

One element mysteriously missing from Orbitz's advertising, however, was who the drink was for, exactly. Its toy-like charm made it look like something that would be marketed to children, while the glass bottle indicated otherwise. It became more of a collector's item than something repeatedly consumed, and this translated to stagnant sales.

Clearly Canadian responded by adding new flavors to the lineup, including those with multicolored balls and a limited-edition blackcurrant-berry flavor with a pink cap. Eventually, it gave up on trying to make its weird, ball-filled drinks happen, and removed Orbitz entirely from store shelves in '98.

Three new Pepsi flavors are better than one. At least, that was presumably the logic behind the company's Wild Bunch, a limited-edition 3-pack launched in the summer of 1991. Along with Pepsi Tropical Chill, which featured a combination of pineapple and orange flavors, the set included Pepsi Raging Razzberry, and Pepsi Strawberry Burst.

The Wild Bunch cans were colorful and cute, emblazoned with Pop Art-style illustrations that seemed poised to be spotted everywhere. Unfortunately, the recipes were not as successful. Neither Pepsi Tropical Chill nor either of its berry compatriots performed well in test markets, and all three flavors were discontinued less than a year after they launched.

While Pepsi now has other berry-flavored beverages, like Pepsi Jazz Diet Strawberries & Cream, and Pepsi Max Raspberry Cola, there doesn't seem to be a 2025 equivalent of Pepsi Tropical Chill. But given how often the company launches new products, including some steeped in nostalgia, it's not unreasonable to expect that we may someday have a new pineapple-orange variation to try, hopefully without having to buy an entire variety pack.

Of all the discontinued sodas that live on in our hearts, Josta also made history as one of the first-ever energy drinks made by a major beverage company in the United States. It was launched in 1995 by PepsiCo, and had a berry-like flavor possibly inspired by jostaberries, given the name. The soda's formulation also contained both guarana and caffeine, to give the consumer an extra boost of energy. This was novel at the time, and fans speculate that the drink ultimately failed (Josta was discontinued in '99) because it was ahead of its time.

In 2004, the Save Josta Campaign was launched to champion the cult energy drink's return. While the movement succeeded in declaring a National Josta Day on April 4, 2007, it didn't bring the beloved soda back. While we're not likely to find Josta on store shelves again, the Josta Facebook page lives on to pay homage and offer nostalgic fans potential replacements and copycat recipes. The trick, apparently, is to find something with a dragonfruit note.

In 1996, around the same time as it launched Surge, the Coca-Cola Company released Citra as a non-caffeinated alternative. Put another way, the beverage was a non-diet, grapefruit-flavored soda primed to compete with Fresca, which had already been on the market for 30 years. If you wanted Surge without the caffeine, or Fresca with the sugar, you could reach for a Citra. And if you're confused about why Coke felt the need to fill such a small hole in its product lineup, you're not alone.

Another thing about Citra that seemed to throw consumers off was the fact that while the drink was decidedly grapefruit-flavored, it wasn't marketed as such. Instead, Coca-Cola repeatedly referred to it as "citrus flavored," which connected to the name of the product but not what it actually tasted like. Despite the fact that it seemed doomed to fail from the start, Citra was quite popular for a few years. It remained in stores until 2004, when it was quietly reformulated and rebranded as Fanta Citrus, which was then itself discontinued.

By the late '90s, lemon-lime sodas were everywhere. Every big player on the scene had its own version. Coca-Cola had Sprite, 7-Up was owned by Cadbury Schweppes, and PepsiCo's Slice had a respectable reputation, but the company wanted more of the market share. So, in an attempt to grow its fountain business, Pepsi introduced Storm as a caffeinated lemon-lime option. This came on the heels of Coke launching Surge to compete with Mountain Dew, and purchasing Orangina to add orange soda to the mix. The Cola Wars of the 1980s, it seemed, still raged on.

While it was created primarily to be served from a fountain, Storm's bright branding made it hard to miss on store shelves. To capitalize on the eye-catching logo, Pepsi smartly offered cross-promotional cans to celebrate the release of "Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace," which featured illustrations of the main characters. Despite the ingenuity and marketing dollars behind that play, Storm's sales were apparently not up to snuff. The drink was discontinued while still in the test market phase, and replaced by the far more successful Sierra Mist.

Consider the popularity of coffee and cola worldwide. It was inevitable that someone would think to combine the two. That someone was PepsiCo, and the result was Pepsi Kona, named after Kona coffee beans and initially launched as a limited-edition soda in test markets in 1996.

The product received positive feedback early on, leading to its expansion. The company's senior marketing manager at the time, Lori Tauber Marcus, told The Philadelphia Inquirer: "Our early testing showed that consumers who like both coffee and cola love this. We're even getting some customers who normally don't drink coffee." However, as the new drink made its way around the country, its flavor proved polarizing. Coffee purists balked at the taste, and while Pepsi tried several iterations, it ultimately couldn't strike the right balance between sweet, classic cola, and strong, bitter coffee.

While Pepsi Kona was discontinued in 2000, it paved the way for other cola-coffee combinations, like Coca-Cola's Café line that launched in 2021. Unfortunately, those drinks didn't fare much better than Pepsi's and were also shelved shortly after they hit the scene. Will anyone ever get it right? Only time will tell.