As of late most soda improvements are horrifying novelties, your Oreo Cokes and Flamin’ Scorching Mountain Dews — issues that folks need to drink out of perverse curiosity, not need. However this “vacation season,” 7UP appears to have cracked the code and given folks one thing they really need, even when we had by no means named it earlier than: a Shirley Temple in a can.
In fact! The Shirley Temple — a mixture of citrusy soda (normally Sprite or 7UP) and grenadine syrup, garnished with a maraschino cherry — has been a staple of Bar Mitzvahs and children tables and vacation events for generations. Nevertheless it has made a resurgence just lately, each in its “soiled” kind and as a legitimately good mocktail. “The child-friendly model nonetheless provides you all the identical emotions from the final time you had one,” writes Rax King in Bon Appétit, “pleasure, pleasure, and the optimism of an individual who didn’t but know again ache.”
The canned model I attempted was the pinkish crimson of a poinsettia, virtually glowing within the daylight. And on first sip, it was precisely what you desire a Shirley Temple to be. It wasn’t “upgraded” to appease extra tart, grownup tastes, nor was it simply 7UP with a reminiscence of grenadine. It was the brilliant, candy-sweet Shirley Temple you keep in mind from each marriage ceremony, and with out the cloying layer of grenadine selecting the underside of the glass.
The primary draw back is that 7UP is just releasing this soda, in each common and zero-sugar kinds, from October 15 by means of December 31. It’s “a festive addition to the vacation season” says Andrew Springate, CMO at Keurig Dr Pepper (watch your neck, Schweppes Raspberry Ginger Ale). However the different draw back is realizing {that a} canned Shirley Temple wasn’t broadly obtainable till now. Crown Beverage launched one in 2014, and Boylan additionally produces a model, however they’re troublesome to search out outdoors of specialty shops and sure areas. 7UP’s model, nonetheless, shall be obtainable in huge field retailers like Goal and Safeway. Don’t present me a Shirley Temple in a can if I can’t get it at each grocery retailer!
Anyway, it’s simply good to see a novelty soda that’s not designed to make me recoil in horror.