90s drinks. Core memory unlocked.
School-disco pop. Twist-top bottles. Cola that went see-through. Grab your imaginary pocket money—we are going back to the drinks aisle.
UK 90s memories, with one American guest star. Some disappeared. Some changed. Some never left.
You did not choose a drink by its tasting notes. You chose the colour, the bottle, or the one your mate had just told you about.
That is the joy of a 90s drinks rewind. It is the school disco, the corner shop and the Saturday trip to Woolworths, all in one sip. This is our memory-lane line-up—with something from today’s Candymail shelves beside every stop.
Gone, changed… or hiding in plain sight?
Every drink gets a then-and-now check, plus a modern pairing chosen for flavour, novelty or the occasion. These are editorial pairings, not identical-recipe claims.
Hubba Bubba drinks
Bubblegum. In a drink. The sweet counter has entered the chat.
Back in the day
A drink that tasted of bubblegum? Of course we wanted to investigate. Older Hubba Bubba soda lives on in the memories of people who remember the sweetshop getting a little experimental. It had the same irresistible logic as buying a novelty sweet: this might be brilliant, and there is only one way to find out.
Where are they now?
Four Hubba Bubba 296ml drinks have landed at Candymail: Outrageous Original, Blue Raspberry, Tangy Tropical and Strawberry Watermelon. The familiar name is back in drink form on our shelves. We have not confirmed that this range uses the original soda recipe.
Panda Pops
School disco. Plastic cup. Maximum pop energy.
Back in the day
There is a very specific corner of the brain reserved for school-disco drinks. Panda Pops lives there. Little bottles, bright colours and the thrill of choosing your favourite while somebody played another party song. Nobody was discussing tasting notes. The question was simply: which colour are you having?
Where are they now?
This one really disappeared. Trade reporting in February 2011 recorded that Nichols had discontinued Panda Pops the previous month. A modern fruit soda can bring back the fun of the choice, but it is not the original Panda Pops wearing a different label.
Twist N Squeeze / Squeeze It
A drink and a tiny engineering project.
Back in the day
Twist the top. Squeeze the bottle. Try not to get it on your jumper. The bottle was half the fun. You might remember Twist N Squeeze or Squeeze It in Britain; American nostalgia lists often mention General Mills’ Squeezit instead. Similar squeeze-bottle memories, but they were different products.
Where are they now?
General Mills’ American Squeezit business ended in 2001. UK retailers still list Squeeze It drinks made by Klosterquell Hofer. So the twist-top memory is not completely lost—and a current UK bottle should not be called a relaunch of the American brand.
Tizer
The name you can practically hear.
Back in the day
Tizer did not need to be the newest drink on the shelf to feel unmistakable. For plenty of us it belongs beside a bag of crisps from the corner shop, with a flavour we could recognise more easily than we could describe. And despite its place in our 90s memories, the brand dates all the way back to Manchester in 1924.
Where are they now?
AG Barr still lists Tizer. Its history also records a 2007 relaunch with new packaging and a revised formula. The name has survived; that does not establish that today’s drink has exactly the recipe you remember from the 90s.
Ben Shaws Bitter Shandy
The chip-shop can with a personality of its own.
Back in the day
Hot chips. A wooden fork. A can of something that felt slightly different from the usual pop. If “Ben Shermans Shandy” is the name in your head, you are probably remembering Ben Shaws Bitter Shandy. Memory keeps the occasion beautifully and occasionally files the brand name under “close enough”.
Where are they now?
Ben Shaws still includes Bitter Shandy in its range and describes it as made with British beer. It is a surviving drink, not a newly discovered comeback. We are keeping the history separate from what is available in our own catalogue.
Tab Clear
Looks like lemonade. Plot twist: cola.
Back in the day
The early 90s briefly asked us to reconsider the most obvious thing about cola: its colour. Coca-Cola’s Tab Clear was part of the clear-cola experiment and reached the UK in 1993. A see-through cola was enough to make you stop in the shop and give the can a second look.
Where are they now?
Tab Clear is a historical curiosity rather than a regular current drink in our catalogue. It was also a different product from Crystal Pepsi. One was Coca-Cola’s experiment; the other belonged to Pepsi. The clear-cola shelf was small, but the memories are surprisingly loud.
Crystal Pepsi
The American clear cola that became a nostalgia legend.
Back in the day
Every good nostalgia feature has a guest appearance. Crystal Pepsi is ours: a famously American early-90s clear cola, rather than a drink everyone in Britain necessarily found at their local corner shop. If Tab Clear gave you the “cola can be clear?” moment, Crystal Pepsi belongs beside it in the history book.
Where are they now?
Pepsi brought Crystal Pepsi back for a limited US and Canadian release in 2016. That past return is not evidence of normal UK availability today. We are remembering the experiment, not promising bottles we do not have.
Sunny Delight / SunnyD
The late-90s fridge-door celebrity.
Back in the day
Some drinks have a corner-shop memory. Sunny Delight has a fridge-door memory. It arrived nationwide in the UK in April 1998, right in time to become part of the late-90s drinks conversation. The name, the orange drink and the adverts all lodged themselves firmly in the national lunchbox.
Where are they now?
The brand became SunnyD and went through further recipe changes. UK retailers still list it. UK bottles, imported US drinks and powdered mixes are different products, so “SunnyD” alone is not enough to compare ingredients or sweetness.
Refreshers drinks
Woolworths took the sweet aisle very literally.
Back in the day
A drink based on Refreshers sweets sounds like something you might dream up after a particularly enthusiastic pick-and-mix. But this memory has receipts. In February 1995, Marketing Week reported a Woolworths trial of drinks inspired by Refreshers, Fruit Salad, Black Jack, Jelly Babies and Sherbet Fountain.
Where are they now?
The trial is evidence of the old range, not evidence of a current relaunch. What it does show is that candy-brand drinks were being explored in Britain long before today’s colourful imported cans arrived. The sweetshop-to-drinks-aisle crossover has history.
Fruitopia
The fruit drink with big main-character energy.
Back in the day
Fruitopia was a proper 90s plot twist: Coca-Cola trying a fruit-drink identity with a very different mood from its cola. The brand launched in the UK, and for anyone who remembers it, the name alone opens a little window onto that decade’s colourful drinks aisle.
Where are they now?
A September 1997 Marketing Week report already described Fruitopia as withdrawn. That is useful UK-specific evidence: the brand’s story in other countries should not be mistaken for its availability here. We have not found a current Fruitopia match in the catalogue we checked.
Lilt
The tropical can did a costume change.
Back in the day
Pineapple. Grapefruit. A tropical break from the cola routine. Lilt started before the 90s but absolutely belongs in a feature about drinks people remember from that decade. The name and packaging were part of the experience, which helps explain why its disappearance as a brand caused such a stir.
Where are they now?
In 2023, Coca-Cola moved Lilt into the Fanta family as Fanta Pineapple & Grapefruit, saying it retained the familiar taste. So this story is a rebrand, not “the flavour was discontinued”. Our Fanta Pineapple pairing below is a different imported edition and does not include that same pineapple-and-grapefruit promise.
Five Alive
Five fruits. One very memorable carton.
Back in the day
Before the drinks aisle became an endless parade of limited editions, Five Alive made a fruit blend feel like a little event. If the name brings back a carton in your lunchbox, you are not alone. It sits comfortably in the same memory bank as Sunny Delight and the other fruit-drink favourites of the era.
Where are they now?
Its history is international, and reports about when it disappeared often refer to different countries. We are not pinning an unverified UK discontinuation date on it. This is a remembered UK brand, and we did not find a current Five Alive product in the catalogue search.
The decade changed. The curiosity did not.
Pick a fruity Fanta or a marble-stopper Ramune, and make your own little drinks discovery night. A trip down memory lane can still end with something you have never tried.
Which one deserves a proper comeback? Panda Pops? Refreshers drinks? Fruitopia? Tell us the drink you would put back in the fridge first.
The small print behind the big memories
This is a researched nostalgia feature, not a popularity ranking or a taste test. Drinks remembered in the 90s were not necessarily launched then. Crystal Pepsi is labelled as an American guest star. Historical dates and current-brand claims link to their sources in the sections above.
Pairings are based on flavours, product descriptions, bottle novelty or the occasion. We have not tested them against original recipes. The old-brand photographs were supplied by Candymail. Packaging dates are unconfirmed unless stated: some images show later packs, not original 90s designs. Current product cards show modern alternatives. Image pickers can replace the supplied photographs and their captions can be edited.
Catalogue pairings were checked on 6 October 2026. Liquid cards read current product images, prices and availability; a sold-out item shows its stock status. Different markets can have different recipes. Read the current product label for ingredients and preparation instructions.