13 Discontinued Minute Maid Products We Want Back

In the fruit juice world, names don't come much bigger than Minute Maid. The brand has been building its identity and presence since 1946, when the first frozen concentrated orange juice drink was sold in the United States under the Minute Maid handle. This solo post-war product soon birthed an iconic brand, which in its time has sold dozens of different juice and fruit drink products. Throughout the years, Minute Maid has experimented with virtually every flavor combo under the sun, and has done so through a variety of juices, carbonated beverages, and sodas, as well as frozen products that have lived somewhere between a dessert and a drink.

So it's perhaps no surprise that a lot of these Minute Maid products have been lost along the way. Minute Maid is one of those companies that discontinues new offerings and flavors as quickly as it introduces them, and its drinks often disappear without any warning or announcement from the company. Sadly, a lot of these drinks were also fan favorites, and in the Minute Maid graveyard there are plenty of products that we wish it would bring back. Let's check out a couple of the biggest losses.

For a brand that specializes in offering fruit juices to its customers, Minute Maid has had a fair amount of sodas in its time. One of them, the Fruit Punch Soda, is a flavor that deserves a comeback. Minute Maid Fruit Punch Soda first appeared in the mid-90s, and was a product that was definitely of its time, if the label's anything to go by. The branding for each can announced its berry-forward flavor using a hot pink label that didn't exactly scream health, but promised a full fruit punch taste. 

Minute Maid Fruit Punch Soda was just one of the brand's soda flavors, but it's fair to say that it probably wasn't the healthiest one you could go for. While the others promised the presence of vitamins, the Fruit Punch flavor was very clearly artificially flavored. Perhaps it was this quality that led to its discontinuation in around 2005. Despite this, it's obvious that Minute Maid are still keen on fruit punch flavors as a concept, and so are its customers. Its fruit punch flavors have been pretty highly regarded in reviews of its similar products, and so we'd love to see what the soda version tasted like.

Folks of a certain age will remember Minute Maid Frozen Juice Bars with a huge amount of affection. These bars were available until pretty recently, but the first version of them appeared way back in 1986, when Minute Maid introduced its Fruit Juicee bars. These bars were kind of a cross between juice and a popsicle, with frozen bars sold in a triangular shape that was designed with kids in mind. You would squeeze the frozen juice out of one of the corners, and basically pray that none of it leaked down your fingers, leaving your parents to have to clean up the mess.

These bars were popular enough to stick around, and were soon modernized into its Frozen Juice Bars. Coming in a range of flavors, the bars retained their triangular shape, but came with the added promise of being made with 100% juice and natural flavorings. Sadly, these added extras weren't enough to keep them around. Nowadays these bars are nowhere to be found, leaving scores of people unhappy about their disappearance. Rumor has it that now and again they seem to appear in the wild, they're far from widely available, and it's unclear exactly why Minute Maid doesn't offer them around the country.

Most of us have a core memory of trying to stab a Capri Sun pouch with those tiny straws and missing every time, only to finally succeed and then spurt juice all over the table. Well, this is a memory that Minute Maid tried to tap into with its Coolers. Minute Maid Coolers were introduced in the early 2000s, and the idea behind them was simple: Offer kids juice in a pouch, but make it easier to open. Instead of trying to hit the tiny hole that Capri Sun pouches have for the straw, the Coolers pouches had a wider opening to insert the straw into.

The ads for Minute Maid Coolers pointed out this distinction, and when you added in the funky flavors that Minute Maid was offering with this product (which included strawberry, fruit punch, and a tropical option), it's no wonder it was a hit. So it's kinda weird that Minute Maid Coolers aren't still around today. Perhaps the product just couldn't keep up with the dominance that Capri Sun has in the juice pouch world, but we'd personally love to see Coolers make a comeback, and to enjoy the range of options it provided.

There's something about the taste of cherry limeade that just works, but it's pretty difficult to find the combo when it's not in soda form. So we were pretty pumped when we saw that Minute Maid Premium Cherry Limeade was once a thing — and a thing that people loved. This drink took its sweet and sour combo and put it in fruit juice form, making it with 100% natural flavors and real lime. There was no worry about chugging down lurid artificial colors or preservatives here, and while the drink was pretty sugary, it stood out thanks to its frankly awesome taste.

Unfortunately, that taste wasn't enough to keep it around. Maybe Minute Maid considered its Premium Cherry Limeade too niche, but one day we all woke up and it was gone from shelves. It's a testament to this drink's flavor that some folks felt passionate enough about it to start an online petition to bring it back, which garnered hundreds of signatures of support. That didn't do much to make Minute Maid bring it back, though. Although Minute Maid does currently offer a Light Cherry Limeade juice drink, it's not quite the same.

Of all the Minute Maid soda flavors out there, the Lemon-Lime stands out as one of its most iconic. This soda launched in the mid-1980s, with an ad campaign that was pretty much exactly what you'd expect from the period, featuring sweeping synths, big hair, and pretty liberal use of a wind machine. This last feature was used to demonstrate the freshness of the lemon-lime flavor, naturally. Minute Maid Lemon-Lime came in both regular and diet flavors, and although the lemon-lime soda market was pretty crowded back then due to the presence of PepsiCo's once-discontinued Slice Soda, it still made a mark. Years later, people still remember its flavor and how they preferred it to Minute Maid's orange soda offering.

However, the days were numbered for Minute Maid Lemon-Lime Soda. The drink soon disappeared, both from the Canadian market and the American one. That Lemon-Lime that has made a mark for Minute Maid, and over the years it's offered various different versions of the lemon-lime flavor combo, with its Lemon Lime Lemonade available for a short spell. Unfortunately, though, we think it'll be a long time before we see this soda back.

Who likes their juice with a side of legal drama? If so, you're gonna love Minute Maid's Pomegranate Blueberry Flavored Blend of 5 Juices (not the snappiest name, we've gotta say). This juice was first released in the late 2000s, and with pomegranate listed first in its name, you'd be forgiven for assuming that it had a pretty pomegranate-heavy flavor. The thing is that it kinda didn't: In fact, the drink contained just 0.3% pomegranate juice, which felt like false advertising to the company POM Wonderful, which had (and still has) its own line of pomegranate juices.

This led to POM Wonderful bringing a lawsuit against Coca-Cola, which acquired Minute Maid in 1960, that was upheld in court in a victory for the pomegranate-focused company. However, this wasn't the end of the story, and in 2016 a jury ruled that Coke hadn't actually done anything wrong. Sadly, this wasn't enough to keep the drink around, and Minute Maid's 5 juice blend was soon removed from shelves, never to be seen again. We've gotta say, though, that we'd love it to be brought back, just so we can taste exactly how much pomegranate was coming through.

Minute Maid Orangeade is kinda the stuff of legend. This drink was a mainstay in Minute Maid's product line for a hot sec, and when it arrived people immediately fell in love with its orange-forward flavor. Unlike a regular soda, the drink just had a light fizz to it, and despite being made with just 3% orange juice it still had a lot of robust orange-y taste. That orange flavor wasn't overly powerful, though, and it was balanced out by some regular, non-citrusy sweetness.

Then, the sad day came that Minute Maid decided to discontinue its Orangeade, which it did without much warning at all. It was left to the customers to frantically seek information from other customers on social media sites about whether anyone had spotted it out in the wild, or whether it was gone for good. Some people blamed COVID and the accompanying supply shortages that came with it for its disappearance, but that seems to be mere speculation. You're probably not going to struggle to find a Minute Maid product that has a similar orange flavor to it, but it's not going to hit the mark like this orangeade did.

Like most other juice companies, Minute Maid has thought long and hard about how it can make its drinks healthier. One of the results of this was its Enhanced line. In the 2000s, Minute Maid debuted a host of Enhanced Juice drinks, with different benefits that corresponded with different flavors. Its Enhanced Pomegranate Lemonade flavor, for example, was infused with yerba mate extract, vitamin C, and omega-3 fatty acids, and was designed to provide you with a boost of natural energy. Its Pomegranate Blueberry flavor, on the other hand, simply had added omega-3 content.

This last flavor proved to be pretty controversial, and was the subject of a class action lawsuit that argued that the nutritional benefits of the drink were overstated. However, what we're focused on is the Pomegranate Lemonade, and how good it seemed to taste. People who tried the drink pointed out that it had a popsicle-like flavor, and hit the spot over the other options available in the product line. Unfortunately, it seems that either demand ran out for these Enhanced juices, or they just proved to be more trouble than they were worth for Minute Maid, what with the legal action and all. They were discontinued, and are now nowhere to be found.

There's been a lot of talk over the years about how good orange juice actually is for you, and it's something that Minute Maid has definitely tried to address through some of its products. One such drink, its Premium Heart Wise Orange Juice, aimed to offer some heart-healthy benefits. The drink's packaging claimed that it came packed with "added cholesterol reducers," which in practice were plant sterols. These natural substances, which are found in the pulp of oranges and other citrus fruit, can have a positive effect on cholesterol levels.

That would all sound good enough to us, but the added kicker here was that this juice tasted really good. People adored this drink's fresh, zesty taste and smooth texture, as well as how well it kept in the fridge. Unfortunately, this didn't seem to be enough for Minute Maid to keep it available for American audiences, and it now seems to be unavailable anywhere in the United States. Where you might have more luck, though, is in Canada, where it seems to still be available in stores — although there's no telling whether it'll taste the same as the original American product.

Minute Maid doesn't just do juices. In its time, it's also had a range of frozen juice options, which are somewhat like sorbet. Back in the 2010s, it arguably reached its peak with these products with its Soft Frozen Strawberry Lemonade. This frozen snack came in 12-ounce cups, and each container was packed with a soft, smooth, ice cream-like filling in a vivid shade of hot pink. Flavor-wise, it had just the right balance of sweetness and tartness, with a rounder berry flavor that filled everything in nicely.

These sweet treats were perfect for a scorching day, and some places took full advantage of that: the Soft Frozen Strawberry Lemonade was apparently widely available around Disney World in Florida, where hot, flustered customers could cool off with a quick bite of sorbet. If Strawberry Lemonade wasn't your thing, this product also came in Orangeade and Lemonade flavors. It's pretty rare to see mass-produced sorbets like this one, and so you'd think that Minute Maid was onto a real winner here — but it wasn't to be. Soon, its Soft Frozen options were gone forever, and there's been no sign that they're coming back any time soon.

We just love it when a drinks company rolls out a flavor that feels unexpected, fresh, and yet totally appealing. That's exactly what happened when Minute Maid debuted its Kiwi Strawberry Lemonade. Coming in an appealing shade of pastel green, this lemonade was released alongside some other flavors like Berry Punch and Light Cherry Limeade. Some of these, like the Light Cherry Limeade, have stood the test of time and are still available, but the Kiwi Strawberry Option has seemingly been discontinued.

It's a real shame, too, as for our money the Kiwi Strawberry flavor was the most interesting out there. Reviewers noted that while the kiwi flavor was the strongest note in the mix, the strawberry taste did sit nicely underneath it. Its flavor wasn't muted, and with that punchiness there was also a smooth aftertaste, with no bitterness from the citrus notes. Sounds pretty good, right? We think so too — which is why it's so disappointing that you now can't find it anywhere. You'll just have to make do with its regular lemonade, or the Cherry Limeade variety, until it decides to bring it back.

In 2022, Minute Maid decided to take a big swing, and it paid off. The juice brand came out with its Aguas Frescas range, a product line that was apparently designed to appeal to the Gen Z section of the market. The drinks were a twist on traditional and iconic agua fresca, a blended mix of fruit and water that has a lightness and freshness to it, and Minute Maid combined that twist with some exciting flavors like mango and hibiscus.

The Minute Maid Aguas Frescas were such a big hit that in 2023, the brand added a new flavor to its line: Pineapple Horchata. It's fair to say that this drink seriously hit the spot: It managed to avoid being overly sweet, and had a slightly creamy texture that set it apart from other drinks. Its gentle pineapple flavor also lent it well to mixing with other drinks, and especially as a base to more carbonated or alcoholic mixers. This drink seemed to be a real winner, so we don't quite understand why Minute Maid apparently discontinued it without telling anyone. Although it's still listed on the Minute Maid website, it's impossible to find in stock anywhere, and all signs point to it being quietly taken off the shelves. Unless they surprise us with a return, it's safe to assume it might be gone for good.

Minute Maid products are generally non-carbonated, but every now and again it releases a new fizzy drink onto the market. This was the case in 2016, when it seemed to make a play for a section of the flavored sparkling water market. Its Minute Maid Sparkling drinks, which were a low-calorie carbonated juice drink made with real fruit juice, hit stores with a bang, and came in some familiar flavors for Minute Maid fans. Lemonade, Fruit Punch, and Mixed Berry options were all available — but it was the Tropical Citrus option that really made a splash.

Minute Maid Sparkling Tropical Citrus immediately won fans for its punchy, full-bodied flavor that didn't rely too heavily on being sweet. People praised how refreshing this drink was, and dubbed it the perfect option to enjoy on a hot day — and they also loved how it wasn't overly carbonated. As a bonus, the smooth-shaped bottle went down a treat with customers.

Sadly, though, all of these positives weren't enough to save Minute Maid Sparkling Tropical Citrus, or any of the Sparkling flavors. This drink was eventually pulled from the market, and it hasn't been spotted in the wild since.