Chick-Fil-A Cherry Berry Drinks Review: They're Not All Winners, But The Standouts Are Stellar
Iced tea and lemonade are pretty much must-haves for any Southern chicken spot, including Raising Cane's, Popeyes, and of course, Chick-fil-A. The latter chain offers customers both of these items, as well as its take on an Arnold Palmer — known as a Sunjoy, it consists of equal parts iced tea and lemonade.
Every so often, the chicken sandwich chain shakes up its drink offerings with limited-time variations of the classics. For example, in April 2023, Chick-fil-A brought back Watermelon Mint Lemonade, which it introduced in 2017. Then, at the start of 2024, Chick-fil-A added Mango Passion drinks to its menu for a limited time. This, too, reprised a previous promotion.
On the immediate heels of its Mango Passion beverages, Chick-fil-A unveiled a brand-new drink flavor called Cherry Berry. Just like the Mango Passion offerings before it, customers can order a lemonade, iced tea, Sunjoy, or frosted lemonade with the addition of this new flavor. I tried all four of Chick-fil-A's Cherry Berry drinks — here's everything you need to know.
What's in Chick-fil-A's Cherry Berry drinks?
Each of Chick-fil-A's new Cherry Berry drinks starts with one of the chain's permanent beverage offerings. For example, the Cherry Berry Lemonade is a standard Chick-fil-A lemonade with the addition of the new Cherry Berry mix, which consists of a cherry flavor and a cranberry-blueberry flavor blend. Official descriptions of these menu items claim that the additions contain "natural flavors."
While there are four kinds of Cherry Berry drinks — taking into account regular lemonade, diet lemonade (either of which can become frosted lemonade), sweet tea, unsweet tea, and each possible combination of these choices in a Sunjoy — there are 10 varieties in total that you can try. Based on the fact the Cherry Berry unsweet tea has zero grams of sugar but 25 calories (compared to the zero calories in the standard unsweet tea), it appears that the Cherry Berry flavoring adds calories to each of these drinks but does not contain any sugar.
What do the Cherry Berry drinks cost?
Each Cherry Berry drink is only available in a single size rather than the chain's typical small, medium, and large options. The cost of each drink is generally comparable to that of a medium size in its unmodified form. Worth noting, however, is that even though Chick-fil-A is known for being affordable, prices tend to vary significantly between locations, so an item's price in a large city like Houston, Texas — the city with the most Chick-fil-A locations — may be higher than its cost in a comparatively small town.
While a medium sweet or unsweet tea cost me $2.45 at the location I visited, a Cherry Berry Tea, either sweet or unsweet, cost $2.39. Both versions of the Cherry Berry Lemonade cost slightly more, at $2.79 each. All Cherry Berry Sunjoy drinks are $2.79 as well. Finally, the Cherry Berry Frosted Lemonade and its diet alternative are both priced at $5.15, just over the $4.75 price point of the unmodified Frosted Lemonade.
The Cherry Berry drinks will only be available during spring 2024
Chick-fil-A's lineup of Cherry Berry drinks debuted on April 8, 2024. Limited-time drink promotions have become something of a mainstay for the chicken sandwich chain, and as such, this new drink flavor is only available during a limited window.
Chick-fil-A hasn't shared a specific end date for the promotion, but the Cherry Berry flavor seems to be available for the spring season, so it's difficult to say with certainty just how long these drinks will last. Worth noting, however, is that in 2023, a limited-time Watermelon Mint beverage lineup lasted from April 3 to June 10, so it's likely the Cherry Berry drinks will also leave Chick-fil-A's menu around the first couple of weeks of June 2024.
Chick-fil-A also has a habit of bringing back limited-time drink offerings if they catch on with its customer base. Presuming that the general impression of the Cherry Berry lineup is positive, then spring 2024 could merely be the first of multiple opportunities for customers to try this unique flavor.
Chick-fil-A's Cherry Berry drinks are variations on permanent menu items
The Cherry Berry drinks follow a formula that Chick-fil-A has established during previous, similar promotions — at the core of each new item is an existing offering on the chain's beverage menu. The addition of the Cherry Berry flavor blend to those items is what makes them unique. In full, sweet tea, unsweet tea, lemonade, diet lemonade, frosted lemonade, diet frosted lemonade, and four different Sunjoy combinations are the beverages to which this Cherry Berry flavoring can be added.
Since all Chick-fil-A drink promotions thus far have been temporary, the Cherry Berry drinks are the only alternatives to each standard offering during their window of availability (save for the option to add strawberry syrup to any standard drink at a small cost). The biggest difference between the original items and their variants (other than their flavor) is the fact that Cherry Berry items only come in a single size. In most cases, this one size is just slightly higher in volume than that of a small drink. The only exceptions are lemonade and diet lemonade; the Cherry Berry versions of these are comparatively smaller.
What are the Cherry Berry drinks' nutritional values?
Each Cherry Berry drink at Chick-fil-A varies in nutritional value compared to its unmodified counterpart. For example, a regular small lemonade contains 190 calories, 50g of carbs, and 46g of sugar, while the Cherry Berry Lemonade has 180 calories, 45g of carbs, and 38g of sugar. The Diet Cherry Berry Lemonade, meanwhile, has 60 calories, 14g of carbs, and 7g of sugar, which is close to the small Diet Lemonade's 45 calories, 12g of carbs, and 8g of sugar at a slightly higher volume.
Cherry Berry Sweet Tea has 130 calories, 31g of carbs, and 27g of sugar, while the unsweet version has 25 calories, 5g of carbs, and zero grams of sugar. By comparison, a small sweet tea contains 80 calories, 20g of carbs, and 20g of sugar, while the unsweet tea is zeroes across the board. Each Sunjoy combination reflects its composition, ranging from 160 calories, 40g of carbs, and 33g of sugar in a fully sweet Cherry Berry Sunjoy to 40 calories, 10g of carbs, and 4g of sugar in the diet or unsweetened version.
Finally, the Cherry Berry Frosted Lemonade sits at 380 calories, 7g of fat, 4g of saturated fat, 25mg of cholesterol, 120mg of sodium, 65g of carbs, and 67g of sugar. The diet alternative is equivalent in fat, saturated fat, and cholesterol, with 300 calories, 140mg of sodium, 55g of carbs, and 48g of sugar.
The Cherry Berry Lemonade isn't the best showcase of its unique flavor
While the Cherry Berry Lemonade isn't necessarily a bad drink overall, its showcase of the Cherry Berry flavor is disappointing. The lemonade base is simply too powerful, burying the unique element that should be at its forefront.
The prevailing flavor of Chick-fil-A's base lemonade is a powerful sourness; alone, this could be a good thing, but here, that sour flavor is so intense that it's hard to catch the Cherry Berry element underneath it. In a blind tasting, it would be practically impossible to identify the flavor's source beyond a general fruity sweetness. Furthermore, sourness isn't necessarily the best complement to the Cherry Berry flavor. This is hardly an issue given the addition's subtlety, but the pairing is still far from ideal. Since diet lemonade is simply less sweet, it's unlikely that the low-sugar alternative would do much to alleviate either of these issues.
The sole factor that might place the Cherry Berry Lemonade ahead of the standard variety is its color. Of the four core types of Cherry Berry drinks, the lemonade is the most visually appealing, fading from a crimson red at the bottom to a neon pink near the top.
The Cherry Berry Sweet Tea is a standout
The Cherry Berry Sweet Tea is one of the new drink lineup's undeniable hits. The sweet tea's base flavor is, first and foremost, sugary, with a Lipton-esque black tea underneath the prevailing sweetness. Since neither of these overwhelm the palette and both are fairly simple, they provide an ideal base for the Cherry Berry flavor to shine.
While it's difficult to judge the Cherry Berry flavor's quality in the lemonade, in the sweet tea, it's a noticeable and welcome addition. Cherry is the dominant flavor in the blend, but the blueberry component is still apparent, with cranberry being the most subtle of the added flavors. They all combine nicely with the black tea element, making this an easily justifiable upgrade over a standard sweet tea. Since the black tea flavor pairs so well with the Cherry Berry ingredients regardless of sweetness, it's easy to imagine the unsweet tea retaining most of these positives, as well.
The Cherry Berry Sunjoy is inferior to each of its standalone components
Even though it's supposed to be composed of equal quantities of its components, the Cherry Berry Sunjoy tastes far closer to a lemonade than a sweet tea. As a result, the same core issue hindering the Cherry Berry Lemonade is present here, too — it's hard to taste that Cherry Berry flavoring underneath the lemonade's overpowering sourness.
Furthermore, rather than add any sort of complexity, the sweet tea seems to do little more than water down that lemonade flavor. All in all, this simply recreates Chick-fil-A's lemonade, just weaker, and it doesn't have the layered flavors of a unique Cherry Berry drink. Customers who regularly order the Sunjoy at Chick-fil-A might want to try this just to see how their go-to tastes with an added flavor component, but for anyone else, this is easily the lowlight of the Cherry Berry drink menu.
The Cherry Berry Frosted Lemonade is an exceptional dessert drink
The Cherry Berry Frosted Lemonade is very, very good. Worth noting is that the standard Frosted Lemonade is a combination of lemonade and Icedream, the latter of which is the chain's version of soft-serve ice cream. Lemon juice is second-to-last in the Frosted Lemonade's list of ingredients, and accordingly, this item tastes far closer to an ice cream-based smoothie than sour lemonade.
That flavor is an ideal backdrop for the Cherry Berry component. Its addition doesn't shine through quite as prominently as in the sweet tea, but it sets the Cherry Berry Frosted Lemonade apart from its unmodified counterpart all the same. Overall, it tastes like a creamy Cherry Berry smoothie with just a bit of added lemon. Where the Cherry Berry Lemonade's components clash, this drink's quantities of the same ingredients harmonize and become something greater than the sum of their parts. While it's here, this might just be the best dessert on Chick-fil-A's menu. If you can't get enough of the chain, here are popular Chick-fil-A menu items ranked worst to best.