Our Favorite Orange Soda Brand Absolutely Crushes Sunkist

If you're anything like us, you can vividly conjure the flavor of Sunkist soda even if you haven't put a bottle of this liquid to your lips for 20 years: treacly, fizzy, like something formulated in a lab to taste "orange" more than something that has any meaningful relationship to the actual fruit growing on a citrus tree. In short, it's the kind of taste you love as a kid.

As your palate develops, though, you might find yourself looking for something less syrupy and more flavorful. But there are dozens of orange-soda offerings out there on the market. How do you even begin to sort through them? At Mashed, writers and editors undertook a blind taste test to rank 23 orange soda brands available today — and determine which was best. 

The winner? Stewart's Fountain Classics Orange 'n Cream, sweetened with cane sugar, with just enough cream flavor to balance out the acidity of the orange. As our editors put it, this soda "tastes just like creamsicle ice cream, minus the brain freeze." It makes sense that a creamsicle soda would perform so well today amid a creamsicle craze; several creamy-orange options made our list. But while it may be very au courant, the roots of our affection for orange soda — and orange creamsicle flavors — go much deeper.

In recent years, brands have gone all in on the oranges-and-cream combo, from Tillamook's Orange and Cream ice cream to Wendy's Orange Dreamsicle Frosty ("an old-fashioned joy," per our reviewer) to creamsicle air fresheners and coffee creamers. Some analysts have guessed that the COVID-19 pandemic may be one factor inspiring this return to nostalgic flavors. And, indeed, the creamsicle is an American classic. It descended from the Popsicle, another American creation, which was invented accidentally in 1905 after an 11-year-old left a cup of soda sitting outside with a stirring stick inside. The cup froze overnight and a beloved icy treat was born.

Around the same time, the first orange soda hit the market. Orange Crush was created in Chicago in 1906. Crush Orange, as it's called today (other Crush flavors have followed), is still good stuff. Mashed's taste testers ranked it fifth, commending its "sharp, crisp carbonation" and "vibrant and intense" orange flavor. (Poor old Sunkist Orange? Not even in the top half.) But more important for our purposes was the fact that Crush put orange soda on the map in the early 20th century — so that by 1937, somebody at the Popsicle company had gotten the bright idea to combine oranges with ice cream and offer it frozen on a stick. Et voila: The creamsicle was born. Many years and many creamsicle-flavored products later, we still get to bask in that bright orange glow.