17 Sparkling ICE Flavors, Ranked Worst To Best

With all the bad press about mainstream diet soda, people are turning to alternative forms of low-calorie refreshment. One popular choice is sparkling water, which is often flavored with real juice and fortified with vitamins and antioxidants. 

Sparkling ICE is a fan favorite brand of sparkling water, available in 17 different flavors from a familiar Lemon Lime to tropical flavors like Orange Mango and Coconut Pineapple. It has just five calories, which makes it a low-calorie alternative to sugary sodas and fruit juice. Granted, according to the Sparkling ICE FAQ page, Sparkling ICE's sweetness comes from sucralose, which is either very safe or the devil in a yellow paper packet, depending on who you ask. (Quick note, the use of artificial sweeteners like sucralose is one of the reasons why mainstream diet soda has a bad rap, so that's worth thinking about.) Lake other sparkling water brands, Sparkling ICE is flavored with real juice, albeit only 1% juice. 

With 17 different flavors, though, how do you choose? We're making it easy for you with this list of all 17 Sparkling ICE flavors, ranked worst to best. 

Ginger Lime ranks second to last, though it's not really a bad flavor. The Ginger Lime flavored Sparkling ICE is reminiscent of ginger ale, but the ginger isn't as subtle as it is in the more mainstream ginger ales. To some, it may also seem not as balanced as it could be — the lime gets lost under all that ginger, making you wish you'd just stuck with a Canada Dry. If the lime was just a little more forward in this flavor, we might have moved it up a couple of places in the ranking. This is generally just a feeling that something called "ginger lime" ought to taste equally like both ginger and lime.

If you're looking for a straight ginger ale replacement, though, that's a bit on the healthier side and you don't mind it being a little more like food ginger than drink ginger, this flavor might land a little higher on your personal list.

Sparkling ICE is flavored with real juice. Not much real juice, but real juice, nonetheless. Yet somehow, this flavor ended up tasting really artificial. In fact, it seems to have a hint of peach, but not like the peaches you buy at the farmer's market in August, more like an artificial peach that you might find in a hard candy. Which is weird, especially since Sparkling ICE's Orange Mango isn't even, you know, peach.

Still, the flavor of Sparkling ICE's Orange Mango is little deeper than the taste of the Classic Lemonade or the Lemon Lime, so it gets moved up the list a couple of notches. Orange Mango has got a mild tropical appeal, too, but that part kind of gets lost beneath what tastes a bit too much like watered-down orange juice. It does have a nice morning-on-the-beach kind of vibe, though, and it does seem to be a favorite for other reviewers, so take it all with a grain of salt. And maybe a splash of tequila.

This is one of Sparkling ICE's more popular flavors, maybe because coconut is kind of having its five minutes of fame right now what with all the coconut water hype and the coconut-scented shampoos ... but not actual coconuts, because have you ever tried to cut one of those things open? You need a hacksaw!

Anyway, the Coconut Limeade Sparkling ICE is nothing if not coconut-y. Which, granted, is exactly what you want in a coconut limeade refreshment. It does have a pretty decent balance, with enough lime to add some zing, but not so much that it overwhelms the coconut. Really, though, the best thing about this flavor is its possibilities. Coconut Limeade serves as a great cocktail mixer — use Sparkling ICE's own Coconut Limeade Creamsicle recipe, or just be creative. It would be a great starting point for the bar at a tropical-themed pool party.

Unlike so many other brands of peach-flavored whatever, Peach Nectarine Sparkling ICE does not taste like a peach Jolly Rancher. It tastes like peaches, which is frankly quite surprising for really anything with the word "peach" in the title. If you want to get analytical, though, the whole "peach nectarine" thing is a bit dumb since a nectarine is just a peach without the peach fuzz and you'd be kind of hard-pressed to actually pick out the peach notes from the nectarine notes in this or any similarly-named blend. (That was a cue for the foodies to jump in and school everyone on the subtle but important flavor differences between peaches and nectarines.)

Peach, nectarine, or both, who cares. Sparkling ICE Peach Nectarine has a real summer vibe, which makes it super refreshing on a hot day. And ultimately, it's only 1% juice anyway so it's not like it matters how much of that 1% tastes like a nectarine.

If you ever tried the grapefruit diet, two things probably happened. One, you took a single bite and then vowed to never again go within 100 feel of that cursed devil-fruit, and two, you didn't actually lose any weight. That's because the grapefruit diet only works because given the choice between grapefruit and nothing, you'd probably prefer the nothing. And let's be real: We'd all rather choose a different kind of fruit!

Face it: Grapefruit pretty much always gets a bad rap. After all, it's not as sweet as a delicious orange. Perhaps it's what an orange would be if it grew on the Tree of Soulless despair in the land of Everything Oranges Should Not Be. Anyway, because grapefruits are grapefruits, we would never have gone anywhere near pink grapefruit, except we kind of had to in order to rank this flavor.

Surprisingly, Pink Grapefruit Sparkling ICE tastes like Fresca, only it's better for you. In fact, this flavor lands pretty squarely in the middle between our favorites and least favorites. Way to go, grapefruit.

It's no coincidence that Cherry Limeade eeks out the spot just in front of it's bolder cousin. The lime is just what the cherry needs — the combination is less overbearing than straight Black Cherry. Cherry Limeade is unsurprisingly pinker than its predecessor, but it doesn't look watery like some of the other Sparkling ICE flavors do. It's lighter and just that little bit more refreshing. If you've ever had a cherry lime Ricky, you already know that cherry and lime are meant for each other, and this is a lovely example of that partnership at work.

Sparkling ICE's Cherry Limeade does lean a little bit on the sweet side, but it's not as sweet as some of the other flavors. It's also guzzle-able, so if you're especially hot, it's easy to down a whole bottle and not feel like you're overdosing on sweetness. This is another flavor that would be great in a cocktail — simply mix it with some rum and maybe an extra hit of fresh lime juice, and it would be a great lakeside refreshment or accompaniment for a barbecue.

Pomegranate and blueberry are probably two of the world's most underrated fruits (if you don't count blueberry's relentless presence in breakfast pastries of all kinds), and putting them together into one drink is actually kind of genius. Sparkling ICE wasn't the first to do this, of course, but it does do it especially well.

While most of Sparkling ICE's other flavors feature summer fruits, pomegranate is very solidly in the fall and winter category, so if you're into that cool, crisp afternoon vibe, you don't have to worry that this drink will transport you back to the sweltering heat of summer.

The flavor of Sparkling ICE's Pomegranate Blueberry is refreshingly different from mainstream sodas, so you won't feel like you're just drinking someone else's version of something that's already been done a million times. It's pom-forward, but you can definitely taste the berries in there, too. The only thing that's a bit on the strange side is the color — both pomegranate and blueberry are in the deep red to blue-purple range, and Pomegranate Blueberry is a lot pinker than it seems like it ought to be. Saying that out loud, though, is kind of like asking for some artificial coloring, and we're just not going to go all the way in that direction. Whatever color that comes out of the mix is fine by us, as long as it tastes good.

If you thought the Coconut Limeade and Orange Mango flavors were tropical, have we got a Caribbean island in a bottle for you. Nothing is quite as tropical as pineapple, with the possible exception of coconut, so why not put them together into one extra refreshing beverage? If you are looking for a drink that says beach umbrellas and flip flops, this is most certainly it. Coconut Pineapple Sparkling ICE has exactly the right blend of its title ingredients, exactly the right amount of sweetness, and exactly the right vibe for summer vacation.

This flavor goes in front of Grape Raspberry, even though we think Grape Raspberry is just short of being interchangeable with the taste-test winner, because Coconut Pineapple really stands all on its own. It's not the only Sparkling ICE flavor that features coconut, but it's the only one that really brings out the potential in this sometimes over-used ingredient. Coconut drinks (We're looking at you, coconut water!) sometimes tend to be watery, but this beverage has the body you'd expect from a pineapple drink with enough coconut to make it a complete, tropical wonderland in a plastic bottle.