Sprite (drink)
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Sprite is a clear, lemon-lime-flavored, non-caffeinated soft drink, produced by the Coca-Cola Company. It was introduced to the United States in 1961. It came from Germany and first was called Fanta Klare Zitrone ("Fanta Clear Citrus"). The trademark was later reconceptionalized as Sprite. This was Coke's response to the popularity of 7 Up, which had begun as "Lithiated Lemon" in 1929. It comes in a primarily green and blue can or a green transparent bottle with a primarily green and blue label. Currently, Sprite is sold in over 190 countries. [1]
In the 1980s, many years after Sprite's introduction, Coke pressured its large bottlers that distributed 7 Up to replace the competitor with its own product. In large part due to the strength of the Coca-Cola system of bottlers, Sprite finally took the market leader position in the lemon-lime soda category in 1989. It is called lemonade in Australia, New Zealand and Switzerland.
Sprite consists of carbonated water, high fructose corn syrup and/or sucrose (sugar), citric acid, natural flavors, sodium citrate (a preservative), and sodium benzoate (another preservative).
Sprite is also a choice of many people to drink when they're sick. Due to the high carbonates and bubbles, Sprite settles the stomach.
Variations
- Diet Sprite Zero: This sugar-free drink originally began production in the United States as "Sugar Free Sprite" in 1974, then was renamed to "Diet Sprite" in 1983. In other countries, it was known as "Sprite Light". In September 2004, it was rebranded as "Diet Sprite Zero", its current name. Since then, it has become "Sprite Zero (Sprite Z)" in Argentina, Europe, Peru, Brazil, Australia, and New Zealand.
- Sprite Remix: A family of differently-flavored variations of the original Sprite recipe.
- Sprite 3G This one was made to rival Red Bull; it had Glucose, caffeine from Green coffe beans and Guarana. The advert for it had a "new addition to the Sprite family", a Sprite baby. Glassworks had developed the next generation of the trademark Sprite goblin.
- Sprite Lemon Lime Herb (not available in U.S.)
- Sprite Dry Lemon (not available in U.S.)
- Mint flavored Sprite made its debut in Korea in 2002 as Sprite Blue, and as Sprite Ice in Canada and Sprite Ice Cube in Belgium in 2003. Sprite Ice Blue was introduced in Italy and China in 2004, and in Chile on the summer of 2005. There is also Sprite Lemon Lime Mint.
- Hong Kong on the other hand introduced Sprite on Fire in 2003 - a ginger flavored Sprite with a burning sensation. This flavor also debuted in China in 2004. Available in some areas as Sprite Finger Lemon.
- Hong Kong also introduced Sprite Super Lemon in 2003.