The Worst Strawberry Milk Comes From A Beloved Nostalgic Brand

While the history of flavored milk is a bit unclear, the popularity of strawberry milk might date back to 1968, when Nestle Quik launched its first strawberry milk. Today, you find all sorts of flavored milk on store shelves, from strawberry and chocolate to vanilla and banana. Chocolate milk is, by far, the big boy in this industry, but strawberry seems to be a solid second. With that in mind, we tasted nine strawberry milk brands and ranked them from worst to best. We enjoyed many of them, but our least-favorite strawberry milk came from a beloved nostalgic brand: Yoo-Hoo.

Yes, Yoo-Hoo, known mostly for its famous chocolate drink (which we ranked last in our chocolate milk rankings as well), makes an undeniably dreadful strawberry beverage that really can't even be called "milk." If Yoo-Hoo's strawberry drink were a person, it would certainly be labeled as a poser because, just like the brand's chocolate drink, there's no liquid milk in this ghastly beverage at all. This strawberry "milk" includes 23 ingredients, yet the main ingredient is water, and the supporting ingredients include high fructose corn syrup, whey, dry milk, gums, oils, artificial flavoring, and artificial colors.

If you're looking for a solid version of actual strawberry milk, we recommend Shamrock Farms 2% Reduced Fat Strawberry Milk and Promised Land Dairy Very Berry Strawberry Whole Milk. Promised Land Dairy, our winner, had the perfect consistency — not too watery, like some of the reduced-fat versions, and not as thick and rich as some of the dessert milks.

There really aren't many positive things to say about Yoo-Hoo's strawberry drink, other than the nostalgia factor if you remember drinking the chocolate version as a kid. The texture is a far cry from creamy milk. It reminded us of a loose, thin juice, but with a chalky texture that, even after shaking, doesn't go away. Then there's the color. You might think strawberry milk would slightly resemble strawberries, but Yoo-Hoo's strawberry drink has a deep magenta color that we just can't explain. Our only guess is that all of those fillers, gums, oils, and artificial colors combined to make this shockingly off-putting color.

Yoo-Hoo definitely hits the nostalgia factor if you're a kid of the 1980s or 1990s, but that's honestly where the fun stops. It's filled with unnecessary ingredients that give it an artificial taste and a wild off-putting color. If you're a fan of strawberry milk, we suggest letting Yoo-Hoo go its own way, and enjoy some of the brands that actually create real strawberry milk.