The Coca-Cola Flavor You'll Never Find In Our Fridge

Coca-Cola is among the largest and most preeminent names in the beverage industry, but even though it's responsible for one of the most recognizable soft drinks in the world, it's still prone to a few misses when it comes to releasing tasty flavors. For every beloved original recipe of Coca-Cola, there's the failed experiment of New Coke — for every cult-favorite Mexican Coke, there's a flavor that simply does not cut the mustard. And sadly for creamsicle lovers everywhere, Coca-Cola's orange cream flavor falls into that latter category.

A little while ago, Chowhound definitively ranked each store-bought Coca-Cola flavor from worst to best, with the orange cream flavor taking the unwanted bottom ranking. While many orange sodas are in-your-face sweet and fruity, this selection was jarring for the opposite reason — it simply didn't taste very orangey or sweet at all. And while you could argue that a hint of orange is appealing to some, the failure to commit to any substantial orange or cream flavor is what ultimately landed this soda at the bottom of the leaderboard. The sugar-free option didn't do much better either, placing only one position higher. So if you want a blast of orange-cream flavor in your soda, steer well clear of Coca-Cola's options.

There's interesting yet little-known history behind Coca-Cola's iconic glass bottles. In a similar vein, it can feel equally mysterious as to why a brand such as Coca-Cola can manage to whiff on some of its flavors while simultaneously producing a bestselling and instantly recognizable soft drink. When you look at the Chowhound ranking and consider the different flavors on offer from Coca-Cola, you can start to piece together what the top-ranked choices have in common and see how the lower-ranked bottles fall short.

Mexican Coke tastes different than its American counterpart, and we think that it's actually better, with Mexican Coca-Cola taking the top spot in the ranking. And when you take a look at the rationale for this, you can see the night-and-day comparison between this one and the orange cream flavor. Where orange cream was vague, confused, and noncommittal to its flavor presentation, Mexican Coke was crisp, nuanced, and developed in its flavor profile. Balanced flavor was a key aspect of the ranking process, and Mexican Coke achieved that balance whereas orange cream Coke simply fell well short. You don't have to be a soda sommelier to appreciate these details and keep that bottle of orange cream Coca-Cola right there on the store shelf.