REVIEW: Sparkling Ice Life Savers Flavors

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It been a very long time since I’ve noticed Life Savers hard candy on shelves. Are they still around? Do Life Savers need life saving? I mean, I’m not have an existential crisis about it.

However, I may have one about the possible loss of Sparkling Ice’s Starburst Strawberry flavor. There’s a new strawberry-flavored Sparkling Ice in town as part of the Sparkling Ice Life Savers line, which also includes Wild Cherry, Pineapple, and Green Apple, and I don’t know if there’s enough room on shelves for two strawberry-flavored Sparkling Ice varieties.

Starburst Strawberry is my go-to Sparkling Ice flavor whenever I’m in the mood for something non-caffeinated, bubbly, sweet, strawberry-flavored, pink, and in a skinny tall bottle. I’ve bought enough of them that if I redeemed all the bottles for five cents each, I could buy two unopened ones. There’s something about it that makes me feel refreshed and satisfied. So don’t leave me, Sparkling Ice Starburst Strawberry. Please. I love you.

I still see the Starburst flavors on shelves, on the Sparkling Ice website alongside the Life Savers ones, and available on Amazon, so it seems safe for now. But who knows what the future holds? Will Sparkling Ice run a promotion where it pits the two lines against each other, has us vote to keep one and discontinue the other, and calls it “Which Will Be On Sparkling Thin Ice?”

Or maybe that doesn’t matter at all, because after trying all four Life Savers flavors, I think, as Bob Marley sang, every little thing gonna be all right.

I enjoyed all four, including the strawberry one. While I can taste some similarities between the two strawberry varieties, Starburst Strawberry hits me in the feels a little more. Maybe it’s because I prefer Strawberry Starburst over Strawberry Life Savers. The Life Savers version has a nice but standard strawberry flavor I’ve tasted in other strawberry beverages. It’s quite good, and if Starburst Strawberry ever goes away, I could keep an empty bottle around, fill it with the Life Savers version, and pretend nothing happened.

Next, pineapple.

To be honest, I don’t know if I’ve ever had a Pineapple Life Saver. Actually, I can’t remember the last time I popped any hard Life Savers candy into my mouth. Decades ago? Anyway, the pineapple drink has a lovely aroma and a quite tasty flavor for a zero-sugar sparkling water. It’s sweet, a little tart, and reminds me of the pineapple candy I used to eat as a kid, which I’m sure was not Pineapple Life Savers.

As I mentioned in the previous paragraph, it’s been a while since I’ve had Life Savers, but smelling and tasting the Wild Cherry brought back a flood of memories of what Cherry Life Savers tasted like. The beverage started with a sweet cherry flavor followed by a slight tartness. There were also times when I got a little fruit punch vibe. While not as wonderful as the previous two flavors, it’s still quite good, and re-purchasable.

Green Apple is a limited edition flavor, but I’d be fine with it joining the permanent lineup because it’s damn tasty. It nails the green apple candy flavor and the tartness associated with it. I don’t know if it’s because I don’t drink green apple beverages often enough for my taste buds to get bored with them, but they were genuinely excited about this sweet-and-tart flavor. They liked it as much as the Pineapple and Strawberry, and would recommend it if you’re into green apples.

So maybe it won’t be a big deal if the Sparkling Ice Starburst line goes away, because these Life Savers flavors made me feel just as refreshed and satisfied. But I don’t want to imagine what will happen if both lines get discontinued. So don’t do that to me, Sparkling Ice. Please. I love you.

Purchased Price: $1.49 each
Size: 17 fl oz bottles
Purchased at: Times Supermarket
Rating: 8 out of 10 (Strawberry), 8 out of 10 (Pineapple), 7 out of 10 (Wild Cherry), 8 out of 10 (Green Apple)
Nutrition Facts: (1 bottle) 10 calories, 0 grams of fat, 0 milligrams of sodium, 0 grams of carbohydrates, 0 grams of sugar, and 0 grams of protein.

REVIEW: Sparkling Ice Starburst Flavors

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Who among us hasn’t been sitting around eating a fistful of Starburst when the thought suddenly occurred — “This candy is great and all, but what I’d really like to be doing is drinking it”? Well, friends, the good people at Sparkling Ice have read your mind (don’t ask why they were there to begin with; you don’t want to know) and are here with a solution: new Starburst-flavored Sparkling Ice.

If you don’t know Sparkling Ice, it is the primary product offering from Washington State’s Talking Rain beverage company, which started in 1987 and had roughly $500 million in retail sales in 2019. (I couldn’t find more recent sales figures; its website DOES have an extensive FAQ section, however, with real think pieces like, “Why did strawberry kiwi turn pink?” “Is the color safe?” “Is Sparkling Ice vegan?” and “Is it normal to have sediment floating in my Sparkling Ice?”)

And if you don’t know Starburst… that’s just weird.

So, does the low-calorie drink accurately capture its chewy sugar cube inspiration? As an avid fan of regular Sparkling Ice products, I was eager to find out.

Orange

This was the first one I had, and it was the worst. The taste was somewhere between “citrus aspirin” and an orange-Flintstone vitamin that’d been dusted with a heaping of artificial sweetener. The very first part of the drink made me go, “Hey, this tastes like an orange Starburst,” but everything after made me want to rinse my mouth out with paint thinner. Here’s the deal with artificial sweetener — I have no issue with it. Regular Sparkling Ice has it, and I’m a staunchly Zero/Diet guy when it comes to soda. But this was SO bad that it reminded me of being young and first trying Diet Coke, back when it just tasted like poison to a palate honed on only the finest real sugar cane (or, you know, high fructose corn syrup). In any case, I had no desire to drink more than two sips of this.

Lemon

Though my first thought when I poured this one into the glass was, “Welp, this looks a little like urine,” I had it immediately after Orange, so, you know, there was nowhere to go but up. It managed to taste like its namesake flavor all the way through and had a fraction of the Sucralose taste, which earned it a second-place finish overall.

Cherry

It tasted like a cherry Starburst, but it also managed to fall somewhere in the middle of the prior two in terms of the artificial sweetener taste. I also caught subtle cough syrup notes, which didn’t help my enjoyment. (Come to think of it, the actual cherry Starbursts sort of have that medicinal taste, too. So they really nailed the flavor on this one.)

Strawberry

Everyone knows that the pink Starburst is the best Starburst, case closed. (Out of the original flavors, that is. Tropical and Baja varieties really muck up the overall rankings with their deliciousness.) This, too, was the best Starburst Sparkling Ice. It captured the candy’s essence well but was once again marred by the sweetener. While it didn’t reach Orange levels of intolerability, it was still more noticeable than the Lemon kind.

In the end, I was surprised by how much I disliked these. The heavy application of Sucralose kept them from being anything I’d feel the need to purchase again. I’ll stick with regular Sparkling Ices and pilfer the Starburst two-packs from my daughter’s Halloween candy.

Purchased Price: $1.19 (each)
Size: 17 oz bottles
Purchased at: Target
Rating: 1 out of 10 (Orange), 3 out of 10 (Lemon), 4 out of 10 (Cherry), 5 out of 10 (Strawberry)
Nutrition Facts: (1 bottle) 5 calories, 0 grams of fat, 0 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 0 milligrams of cholesterol, 0 milligrams of sodium, 0grams of carbohydrates, 0 grams of fiber, 0 grams of total sugars, and 0 grams of protein.

REVIEW: Sparkling Ice Mystery Flavor 2019

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Sparkling Ice Mystery Flavor 2019

What is Sparkling Ice Mystery Flavor 2019?

A new mystery flavored zero-sugar sparkling water from Sparkling Ice just in time for summer! It comes in festive packaging complete with palm tree leaves and one cool sunglass-sporting toucan. Now are those elements supposed to relate to the flavor or are they simply a ruse celebrating its seasonal debut? Hmmmmmmm.

How is it?

Sparkling Ice Mystery Flavor 2019 Clear

I’m a fan of Sparkling Ice’s drinks as they are refreshing, light, and not too sweet. This one is no different and checks all those boxes. As for the flavor, though? It’s a tasty fruity flavor is about all I can say. Interestingly this one does have peach juice as an ingredient, and I definitely smelled it upon opening. I feel like it comes through in the taste as well but just ever so slightly. However, let’s not forget what happened last time when yours truly tried to conquer a mystery Sparkling Ice. There was lemon juice as an ingredient and the flavor turned out to be… wait for it… Passion Fruit Punch.

HUH?

Sparkling Ice Mystery Flavor 2019 Ingredients

I wish there was some crazy flavor to ingredient algorithm where I could input in peach juice to see what it comes up with. Although, I am digging the glimmering foil on the packaging used for the question marks. Since I got nothing else, I’m gonna take it and run with it. It’s making me think of starfruit which would be a fun, out of left field flavor to have. Since there is a bit of peach, I’m gonna follow suit from last year. The flavor is Starfruit Punch! Boom.

Is there anything else you need to know?

Sparkling Ice Mystery Flavor 2019 Back of Bottle

The drink is clear, low calorie, and caffeine free. It also contains a few vitamins, including antioxidant vitamin A. Also, the toucan is telling us you can guess the flavor to win some prizes. As you can see on the back, there is a cruise with Holland America Line to be won, so get guessing!

Conclusion:

If you enjoy a diet beverage and want something refreshing and fruity to deal with the warm weather, this will most certainly do the trick. If you want something that will make you ponder for hours about what the heck the flavor is, because it’s kinda hard to tell, then this will also satisfy you.

Purchased Price: $1.00
Size: 17 fl. oz. bottle
Purchased at: Target
Rating: 7 out of 10
Nutrition Facts: 0 calories, 0 grams of fat, 0 milligrams of sodium, 0 grams of carbohydrates, 0 grams of sugar, and 0 grams of protein.

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