6 Best Fast Food Drinks Of 2026 (So Far)

Fast food restaurants have been upping their drinks game in 2026. As the cost of ingredients rises (especially beef), chains are leaning on drinks, traditionally a menu item with high-margins, to draw customers in to spend. The latest trend to hit fast food is the dirty soda (which is different than a dirty drink). Adding cream to a soda became popular on TikTok all the way back in 2022, but now restaurants can make big money by charging extra for a few cents' worth of dairy added to a drink. On this list of new drinks you'll find: a dirty soda freeze and a pineapple whip people love to make dirty from Taco Bell, a new mango strawberry refresher from Starbucks, a caramel dirty root beer from A&W, McDonald's orange dream (basically a dirty Hi-C), and Chick-fil-A's new frosted soda or float.

Plenty of options didn't make the list. Some drinks are too new to tell if they're going to be classics. On August 17, McDonald's came out with a new Red Bull dragonberry energizer in a play to get in on the energy drink game. Dunkin' seemingly releases 20+ new drinks every month, making it hard to keep track of what is making an impact with its customers. The new Dunkin' buckets, 48-ounce literal buckets to put any of the doughnut shop's long list of iced drinks in, seem straight out of a scene from Parks and Recreation. Playful as it is, the tub isn't a new drink, so it didn't make the cut!

When Mountain Dew and Taco Bell first teamed up in 2004 to release the Baja Blast flavor as a franchise exclusive, no one could have anticipated all the variations to come. You can get it dirty with added cream. Want it colder? Get the freeze version for a slushy Baja Blast. Don't forget all the flavors, some of which are long gone: Baja Midnight, Flash, Punch, Gold, and Mango Gem (just to name a few). This year, the chain combined the two variations of the original flavor into a frozen, creamy Mountain Dew Baja Blast dirty soda freeze. A large from Taco Bell runs $5.19.

In April, Starbucks released its line of mango strawberry refreshers. You can get it with whatever combination of caffeine, lemonade, coconut milk, or mango cold foam you wanted. The drink quickly became popular on Reddit, where one poster said it was "way better than I anticipated." Another commenter was a big fan, writing that "the mango syrup is the best flavor they've launched since brown sugar." Starbucks charges around $5.95 for a grande (16 ounces).

A&W restaurants may be hard to find these days, but hunting one down for a cold root beer is worthwhile. The brand ranks in the top three of our list of the 14 best root beers, and it's even better on tap. Now, the chain mixes in caramel and cream to add some indulgence. The drink came out at the start of August for a limited time only, so if it sounds good to you, hunt down an A&W restaurant soon. For a regular-sized frosty mug of this drink, it will cost $4.99.

While you may have drunk Hi-C as a kid to get a sweet burst of vitamin C, McDonald's is now marketing it to nostalgic adult diners by adding vanilla and a cream top, turning it into an orange creamsicle. What started off as a hack to get creaminess into the restaurant's Hi-C drink is now solidified as a menu option early this May, along with some other drinks, like a dirty Dr. Pepper and a Sprite Berry Blast. The beverage runs $3.89 for a medium at McDonald's.

The original Pineapple Whip Freeze was a popular drink in 2020. This new freeze brings back the pineapple taste, only without the creaminess. Thankfully, for $0.30, you can "make it dirty" with a shot of cream to regain the flavor and texture of the original drink missed by fans. "I've been waiting 6 years for this to come back!" wrote a commenter on Reddit. When asked if the new drink was as good as their memories of the original, the poster wrote: "It's exactly how I remember!!!" A regular size of the Pineapple Freeze is $3.79at Taco Bell.

At the start of 2026, Chick-fil-A made official what was once an internet hack: the frosted soda. It used to be that you could only have a frosted soda if you kept asking at different locations until you found one that was willing to blend together soda and the chain's Icedream (softserve) dessert. Customers can choose from any of the restaurant's Coca-Cola brand soft drinks, including Dr. Pepper, Powerade, and Fanta. A glass of the ice cream soda runs $5.35 at Chick-fil-A.