The Best Airhead Candy Flavor Isn't A Mystery Anymore

Ask any kid on the playground — the White Mystery Airhead is far superior to any of the others in the pack. Chowhound ranked the top 11 Airhead flavors, and we absolutely agree that this colorless concoction comes out on top (the disappointingly artificial grape Airhead is one that we avoid in the candy aisle). Internet lore states that the White Mystery flavor is actually a combination of factory leftovers, creating a somehow-perfect blend of watermelon, cherry, orange, and more.

Unlike other chewy candies, there's no truly awful Airhead flavor. From the Sour Lemon Berry Squeeze to the classic cherry, the candies all have a tangy and sweet flavor with a soft texture. The reason White Mystery stands out from the rest has more to do with the novelty of the confusing, enigmatic candy, rather than the actual flavor itself. White Mystery doesn't tell you what it tastes like — you have to figure it out for yourself. The ever-changing White Mystery Airhead's exact taste is impossible to pin down, and for some reason, this keeps us coming back for more.

An important note: While we can't know for sure what makes up the White Mystery flavor, it doesn't seem to include the same sourness as the specifically sour flavors we tested, like Sour Blue Blast, Sour Watermelon Punch, and Sour Lemon Berry Squeeze. If we could add some of the sour flavor into White Mystery, we think it'd be even better.

We are still wondering exactly what flavors are contained inside the silver White Mystery Airhead wrapper. While Perfetti Van Melle, the Italian-Dutch parent company of Airheads and old school bubble gums like Bubblicious and Chiclets, has yet to put out an official statement on the exact formulation of the White Mystery flavor, it's thought that the white candy is a mishmash of leftover ingredients.

The design of the White Mystery flavor goes back a few decades, when Assistant Brand Manager Matthew Fenton was tasked with creating a new flavor, a process which he wrote about on his blog. A letter from a young Airheads fan suggested that the brand offer a mysterious white Airhead, and Fenton got to work. He went to a local elementary school and offered students a Fruit Punch Airhead and a white Airhead. The twist was that the second Airhead was one of the brand's most popular flavors, but made without food dye. The fourth-grade testers intensely debated the mystery flavor, and only 5% of them guessed it correctly. Felton went back to corporate, and a few months later, White Mystery Airheads were launched.

As the story goes, the Airheads factory used (and perhaps, still uses) the same machine to create each flavor. The company simply ran white Airhead material through the machine, sans coloring, to provide a fresh start as they transitioned from producing one flavor to the next. This created a fresh canvas for new flavorings, but left the company with a pile of leftover deliciousness, ready to be packaged into White Mystery wrappers.