The Orbitz drink has not been made since the late 1990s, so the only way to buy one today is as a sealed collectible on a resale marketplace, meant for display, not drinking. It was the clear, non-carbonated fruit drink with colorful gel balls that seemed to float in the liquid like a lava lamp, and plenty of people who saw it once in a gas station cooler still wonder whether they imagined it. They did not. Below: what was inside, why it was discontinued, where unopened bottles turn up, and what to buy for the same texture in something safe to drink.
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Is the Orbitz Drink Still Made?
No. Orbitz was a non-carbonated fruit-flavored beverage produced by The Clearly Food and Beverage Company of Canada, the same beverage company behind Clearly Canadian sparkling water. The reference entry for the brand dates the launch to 1996, the big US rollout followed in 1997, and the product was discontinued by early 1999. Marketing sold it as a “texturally enhanced alternative beverage.” Shoppers called it a lava lamp you could open.
A revival is less likely than fan pages suggest, for two concrete reasons. The company has said its proprietary production equipment broke down and is gone, and it no longer owns the trademark; the name ended up with the online travel agency Orbitz. Anyone who wanted to bring back the product would have to rebuild the process and license or rebrand the name first. No relaunch has been announced as of October 2026.
Interest has not faded, though. The drink has a cult following among collectors of 1990s packaging, it shows up constantly in Instagram and TikTok nostalgia posts, and the 2025 film Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie uses it as a plot device to power a time machine. That attention keeps sealed stock moving on the resale market more than 25 years after it left store shelves.
What Was in the Bottle: Flavors, Gel Balls and Gellan Gum
The engineering was the product. Taste came a distant second, which is the whole story of why it failed.
Balls suspended mid-liquid. The drink held small, edible, fruit-flavored jelly beads, often described as floating gelatin balls. Two tricks kept them in place. First, each orb was tuned to a density close to the surrounding liquid, so gravity barely acted on them. Second, gellan gum, a fermentation-derived food thickener that the back label names alongside xanthan gum, formed a very weak support matrix through the drink. The orbs neither sank nor rose; they appeared to float with no shaking needed.
No carbonation. Bubbles would have clung to each orb and dragged it to the top, so the formula stayed flat. A flat fruit drink with something to chew in every sip was unfamiliar to American consumers, and the mouthfeel surprised people more than the look did.
The flavor lineup. The core range included raspberry citrus, blueberry melon strawberry, pineapple banana cherry coconut, vanilla orange, and black currant berry. Several retrospectives also list a Charlie Brown chocolate version, which is missing from some flavor lists, so treat chocolate as the rarer, less documented find.
What it tasted like. TIME’s roundup of bad beverage ideas summed it up bluntly: marketers called it texturally enhanced, but most consumers just called it gross. The same piece blamed a cough-syrupy taste and an incoherent ad campaign about origins on “Planet Orbitz.” The look sold the first purchase. The taste killed the second.
Why a Gimmicky Drink Like This Could Not Last
Novelty beverages of that decade followed a predictable curve: huge first-purchase curiosity, almost no repeat buyers. Crystal Pepsi ran the same lap a few years earlier, and Pepsi has since revived its clear cola more than once because it owns the name and could simply reformulate. Orbitz had neither advantage. Other 90s icons like Otter Pops never left at all, and regional brands such as Faygo outlasted the whole fad by selling flavor first and gimmick second.
The pattern is common with discontinued products that people remember fondly: demand for the memory outlives demand for the item. The same thing happened with toys like the Selfie Mic music set, where the only supply left is old stock in other people’s closets.
Where Sealed Orbitz Bottles Turn Up Now
Everything on sale is 1990s stock resold by a collector, and one marketplace holds most of it.
eBay
Browse the current listings here. Unopened bottles appear and disappear without a pattern, and asking prices are set by individual sellers, so filter to sold listings before deciding what anything is worth. Condition carries almost all of the value.
Amazon
A vintage Blueberry Melon Strawberry product page still exists #ad, but it is a marketplace listing, not a stocked item. No manufacturer remains to resupply it, so read any availability as a third-party seller offloading old inventory, never as new production.
Collector groups and in-person finds
Facebook nostalgia groups and retro-food forums are where private trades happen, and campaigns to bring back the brand have run there for years. Off the internet, retro candy and soda shops are the only physical retail worth a phone call: ask whether they buy collector lots, not whether the item is in stock. Shops carrying Hubba Bubba Squeeze Pop are the likeliest to turn something up. Flea markets, estate sales, and 90s pop culture conventions round out the list, the same circuit where discontinued grocery items like King Vitaman cereal resurface. Walmart, Target, CVS, and Walgreens have had nothing to sell for decades.
One search tip saves time: the brand name alone returns flight deals from the travel site. Add “soda,” “1997,” or “floating balls” to saved searches and marketplace alerts.
Buyer Protection by Channel
Nothing here is new retail, so your protection depends on the channel, not a store return policy.
| Channel | Buyer protection | Practical note |
|---|---|---|
| eBay | Money Back Guarantee on not-as-described claims only | Ask for extra photos before bidding |
| Amazon marketplace | A-to-z Guarantee on third-party orders | Any in-stock notice is resold vintage inventory |
| Facebook groups and forums | None by default | Use a payment method with chargeback rights |
| Flea markets and antique malls | None, sales are final | Inspect the cap and seal in person |
A dispute over condition is much harder to win than one over a package that never arrived, so photos of the actual item matter more than seller feedback.
How to buy an unopened original without getting burned
- Filter to sold listings first, so you negotiate against real transactions instead of hopeful asking prices.
- Require photos of the actual item, including a close shot of the cap and neck seal, because stock images hide tampering.
- Compare label typography and the UPC against reference photos, since a mismatch is the fastest way to spot a refilled container.
- Pay with a method that carries buyer protection, since condition disputes are common.
- Plan the shelf space before it ships, and never plan to open it.
Why a Sealed 1990s Drink Belongs on a Shelf, Not in a Glass
A sealed soft drink from 1997 is a collectible, full stop. Shelf-stable beverages are formulated for a shelf life measured in months or a few years, not decades, and nobody tested how a sugared fruit drink with suspended gel holds up after 25-plus years in thin plastic. Flavors and colors degrade, plastic lets oxygen through slowly, and the seal itself can fail without any visible sign.
The USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service tells consumers to throw away containers that are damaged, bulging, or leaking and not to consume anything with an abnormal smell. An old container may pass that test and still be a gamble, because nothing on the outside tells you what happened inside. If a seller’s photos show a swollen or dented container, cloudy liquid, or residue around the cap, it is a lower-grade display piece at best.
Drinks Like Orbitz You Can Buy Today
These four were picked on one criterion: visible floating or chewable texture you can order this week without a specialty hunt. Check current pricing on each listing, since single-serve prices move.
Best overall: Mogu Mogu Nata de Coco. Soft coconut jelly cubes in fruit juice, commonly stocked at Asian grocery stores. Pro: the chew is the entire point. Con: the cubes are chunkier than the original orbs. Check current pricing on Amazon #ad
Best visual match: TGarden basil seed beverage. The seeds hydrate into coated dots that hold position from top to bottom, which is the effect people actually remember. Pro: closest thing to the original look on a US shelf. Con: the dots are far smaller than gelatin balls. Browse the multi-packs #ad
Best made to order: boba tea. Tapioca pearls in a flavored tea base, customizable at any bubble tea counter and increasingly sold canned. Pro: you set the sweetness and the pearl count. Con: it is tea, so the profile is different. See the canned options #ad
Best for nostalgia: Clearly Canadian. The sibling brand returned through a 2014 Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign rather than the original corporate owner, and the sparkling line and retro bottle shape are available again. Pro: real continuity with the era and the same parent family. Con: no floating texture. See current listings #ad
Miss the sweet fruit profile more than the texture? A canned iced tea like Peace Tea gets you closer for less money.
Decide first whether you want the artifact or the experience. For the artifact, pull up sold listings so you know what an Orbitz drink has really changed hands for, then set a saved search with “floating balls” in it and wait for a clean, sealed example. For the experience, order a nata de coco or basil seed drink this week, which gets you the floating texture in something made this year.
Orbitz Questions, Answered
Can you still buy an Orbitz drink?
Only secondhand. Production ended by early 1999 and no retailer, distributor, or manufacturer supplies it, so every unit changing hands is 1990s stock resold by a collector, mostly on eBay. Listing counts stay small, which is why saved-search alerts beat checking manually.
Was Orbitz a soda or a juice?
Neither, exactly. Orbitz was a non-carbonated, fruit-flavored soft drink, so it is often called a soda even though it had no fizz. It was flat on purpose, because carbonation would have pushed the orbs to the top.
What were the floating balls made of?
Small edible jelly beads, flavored and colored, held in place by gellan gum. Because they nearly matched the density of the surrounding liquid, the gum only had to stop drift rather than carry weight. Gellan gum is still common in plant-based milks and jelly desserts, so the science outlived the product.
Is it safe to drink an old Orbitz drink?
No. Anything sold today is more than 25 years past production, far beyond the shelf life a fruit drink is designed for, and its condition inside cannot be judged from outside. Buy one to display and pick up a modern jelly drink if you want to taste the texture.
Is Orbitz coming back?
No relaunch has been announced as of October 2026. The company has said the original equipment is gone and it no longer owns the trademark, which makes a straight revival unlikely, although the Clearly Canadian comeback shows the family of brands can return. Treat any listing that promises new production as a red flag.
Editorial review: wheretobuyguides.com team. Last updated October 2026.