What Flavor Is Sunkist Soda?

Sunkist Growers is a cooperative of citrus growers in California and Arizona, with roots going back to 1893. It licenses its name to other companies for hundreds of products, and the soda is one of them. The cooperative licensed its trademark for an orange soda in 1977,¹ and most accounts date the launch to 1979.

The soda has passed through several makers since, including Cadbury Schweppes. Keurig Dr Pepper makes it in the US today, under license. The growers own the name. They do not make the drink.

What it tastes like

Sweet, bold orange, closer to peel and candy than to fresh juice. There is a reason for that. The US label lists no juice at all: carbonated water and high fructose corn syrup, then natural flavors, citric acid, gums, starch, a preservative, caffeine and two dyes.²

It is sour as well as sweet. One US study measured Sunkist Orange at pH 2.98, close to Fanta Orange at 2.82.³ The acid keeps the sweetness from tasting flat.

The caffeine

The US original has 19 mg of caffeine per 12 oz can. That is well under Mountain Dew at 54 mg or Mello Yello at about 51 mg. At that level, in a drink this sweet, it probably adds little bitterness you would notice.

Retail copy calls Sunkist "the only caffeinated orange soft drink on the market". We have not checked every orange soda, so treat that as the brand's claim. Other Sunkist flavors and some non-US versions are reported to be caffeine-free. Check the label of the one you are benchmarking.

Building a caffeinated orange soda

Plan the cloud. The orange oil goes in as an emulsion. Acacia gum and modified starch coat the droplets. Ester gum, another name for glycerol ester of wood rosin, makes them heavy enough not to float.

Watch the oxidation. Limonene oxidizes to compounds that taste stale and slightly turpentine-like. Cold fill if you can, and judge the flavor at the end of shelf life.

Check the zero-sugar version. Without sugar, caffeine bitterness and the peel oil both show more. See flavor masking.

Make the caffeine easy to see. In the US, caffeine has to appear in the ingredient list. Many shoppers do not expect it in an orange soda, so consider saying it on the front too.

Call it orange soda. Sunkist is a trademark of Sunkist Growers. A flavor house will list a copy as an "orange soda type". And a citrus grower's name on the can does not mean fruit in the can. If your own label implies real oranges, make sure the recipe backs it up.