Remember Sierra Mist? PepsiCo’s lemon-lime Sprite equivalent that just disappeared off the face of the earth a couple of years ago? No, you’re not losing your mind, the drink did exist and you’re not the only one confused by its disappearance.
Sierra Mist was officially replaced as the PepsiCo lemon-lime drink of choice in early 2023, although why that is is still a little unclear. Sporked speculates that it’s because Pepsi wasn’t quite sure what to do with the Sierra Mist brand. They often changed the formula, tried to branch out into Sierra Mist Natural, and even attempted to completely rebrand by changing the name to Mist Twist in the late 2010s.
Inevitably, Sierra Mist just couldn’t beat out Sprite when it came to lemon-lime soda. According to Delish, the Coca-Cola counterpart outsold Sierra Mist’s revenue by six times. Fortunately for citrus lovers, Pepsi isn’t ready to accept defeat in the citrus soda wars. The company announced Starry in 2023, which seems to be their new take on lemon-lime flavor.
While the branding has a start contrast, at surface level the two beverages appear pretty much the same. According to Delish, the ingredients are practically identical and at face value, most people can’t really taste the difference between the two sodas. But, the website did note that Starry is less syrupy, more sugary, and has a stronger flavor of citric acid. However, to untrained taste buds, these subtleties may not mean much.
The biggest difference between the two is Pepsi is going all out with branding. It seems that creating a new product lends itself far better to promotion than trying to push its old, less popular product onto soda drinkers.
Despite over-the-top branding tactics, consumers still aren’t so sure. Some took to TikTok to review the drink when it first came out and noted that while Starry is a fine version of a lemon-lime soda, it isn’t anything extraordinary.