Where all those weird new drinks are coming from

Host Jeff Guo opens by contrasting the limited brand choices of his 1990s childhood—Nike versus Reebok, Nintendo versus Sega, Burger King versus McDonald’s, and especially Coke versus Pepsi—with today’s beverage aisle. During a supermarket trip with fellow Planet Money host Kenny Malone, Guo points out sparkling tea with adaptogens, flavored seltzers, canned lattes, protein-enhanced latte energy drinks, and “functional” sodas that claim to help people focus, sleep, or use the bathroom. They joke about the category’s “poopies,” including a Spider-Man-branded Poppy drink, and list unusual products and flavors such as Dubai Chocolate Pepsi, Creamy Coconut Dr Pepper, and Cosnopolitan-flavored Spindrift. Guo says the question is not merely why consumers see new flavors, but why the entire beverage business has changed so dramatically. He frames the episode as an investigation into Big Beverage: how flavors are created, how bacteria are being used to make flavor compounds, and how the business of launching drinks has changed. The explanation ultimately has three parts: flavor science has expanded the available palette, companies have invented new beverage categories and functions to create new reasons to buy drinks instead of water, and lower manufacturing barriers have made it easier for small brands to enter the market.

Guo visits Flavor Man, a Louisville beverage-development company that works behind the scenes for brands that do not have their own food scientists. Business-side executive Evan Floyd says the company sometimes acts as the “dark secret” behind large national brands. Guo is asked to sign a nondisclosure agreement but does not sign it; he agrees instead to be careful about naming clients. Flavor Man can publicly identify work for Ocean Spray and Jones Soda, while privately saying it has helped launch tens of thousands of beverages. Its trophy wall includes a salmon-flavored juice box designed for aging cats. Chief flavorist Tom Gibson explains that what people call flavor is often largely aroma: the smell released when eating something such as a strawberry. Natural aromas may contain hundreds of chemicals, and Flavor Man’s shelves hold thousands of small bottles containing essential oils and individual aroma compounds. Gibson says one compound can contribute to berry, tutti-frutti, or cherry flavors. A cherry recipe might be adjusted toward fresh fruit, ripe fruit, cherry blossom, or darker caramel notes. He also lets Guo smell an unpleasant compound associated with dairy, sweat, and vomit; a small amount can add realism and complexity to a ripe berry. Gibson calls this needed “dissonance”: without it, the fruit can taste flat.

Gibson tells Guo that the supply of usable flavor components has changed substantially. Ten or twenty years ago, many aroma chemicals in the lab either had not been identified or were not manufactured commercially. New scientific techniques, machines, and plant-extraction methods now make it easier to isolate delicate flavors that once disappeared during processing. Scientists can even engineer bacteria to produce some flavor compounds, reducing the need to harvest the original fruit. That expanded supply gives flavorists far more freedom to make exaggerated flavors or invent “fantasy” flavors. Guo compares the work to impressionist painting or Jackson Pollock: a dragon-fruit flavor may come from combining many elements and seeing what emerges. Once unusual flavors reach consumers, they change the American palate; people discover that they enjoy more exciting tastes, which encourages flavor scientists to seek out stranger compounds and suppliers to invest in exotic ingredients. Guo describes this as a “delicious cycle.” Flavor science is therefore the first major explanation for the explosion of beverage choices. The episode also begins a side project: Flavor Man agrees to develop a drink intended to capture Planet Money’s qualities—global, insightful, curious, and surprising.

The next stop is chief technical officer Kristen Wemmen’s lab, where white powders replace Tom Gibson’s amber flavor bottles. Wemmen develops beverage types and ingredients rather than just taste. She shows Guo pure caffeine and says the FDA recommends staying below 400 milligrams per day; Guo jokes that licking a pinky dipped in the powder would probably constitute a serving. Wemmen says Flavor Man initially handled many energy drinks, including the host’s favorite, Crunk, with three exclamation points. The market then expanded through alcoholic and nonalcoholic seltzers and, more recently, “functional beverages”—drinks marketed as doing something for the consumer. Examples include sodas that claim to support relaxation, sleep, or gut health. Gum acacia, a prebiotic ingredient used in products such as Olipop, is one example. Guo’s economic explanation is that people do not need most of these products; they could drink water. The industry instead creates new categories and benefits so consumers have new reasons to skip the water fountain or replace ordinary water with Gatorade, a nighttime soda, or another specialized drink. These categories have helped beverage sales grow even though the episode notes there may be limited evidence that the claimed health effects are noticeable. The lab’s prototypes demonstrate the range: an Aperol Spritz-like mocktail tastes good, a matcha liqueur is strange but enjoyable, a protein-enhanced nonalcoholic beer tastes like pennies, and a yellow “sports broth” combines tropical pineapple flavor with beef bone broth, protein, and the health associations of bone broth.

Flavor Man founder Dave Defoe explains the third reason for the beverage explosion: a major change in manufacturing access. When he started the company in the 1990s, soft drinks were dominated by Coke and Pepsi, and large companies owned their bottling plants. Independent brands had only a few contract manufacturers to choose from, and those facilities often required a full truckload—about 12,000 cases, or more than a quarter-million cans. A new brand could not easily produce 1,000 cases merely to test whether customers would buy it. The craft-beer boom changed this structure. Thousands of small breweries appeared, many with their own bottling or canning equipment and spare capacity. As alcohol consumption has declined, that spare capacity has grown, and breweries and other manufacturers have become willing to handle small beverage runs. Defoe estimates that ingredients such as flavoring, sweeteners, and other additives may cost 20 to 30 cents per can. Cans that once cost roughly 10 cents now cost about 20 cents because of inflation and aluminum tariffs. Manufacturing adds roughly another 20 cents, producing a rule-of-thumb total around 60 cents per can before research and development, shipping, and other costs. Some lines will now make only a few thousand cans, for a few thousand dollars, although the per-can cost rises. Marketing, celebrity backing, and grocery-shelf access still make success difficult, but the lower barrier lets newcomers challenge established brands. Guo compares this with music, where anyone can record an album on a laptop and put it on Spotify. More entrants mean more variety and more choices tailored to individual tastes, even if consumers do not need every new soda.

Flavor Man’s team gives Guo a dozen prototype cans designed to represent Planet Money. The first is light, refreshing, bright, and zingy, with a citrus flavor that is not ordinary orange. Gibson identifies it as yuzu, a Japanese citrus related to orange but more complex and floral. The drink also includes elderberry, described as an earthy blackberry flavor popular in Europe. The team says the goal was to make the drink global and exotic while keeping it approachable. The beverage is not simply a soda. R&D director Katie Clark says it is a yuzu elderberry sparkling coconut water. Coconut water supplies electrolytes, mostly potassium along with some sodium and magnesium, making the drink a collection of trends in one can—Guo calls it an “everything bagel soda.” The team then offers a second version containing jambu. After Guo tastes it, his mouth develops an increasingly strong tingling sensation, like a tiny battery. Jambu is a tropical herb traditionally used to numb the mouth for toothaches, somewhat like Sichuan peppercorn, and its extract can be used as a background note to make drinks seem more effervescent. Guo says the drink tastes good despite the warning that some people dislike the sensation. The final formula is therefore a yuzu elderberry sparkling coconut water with a jambu twist: sophisticated but approachable, with a dose of surprise. Malone says he wants to try it, but Guo did not bring any cans back because they were too heavy to take to the airport. They discuss making a small batch and possibly holding a live event where listeners could taste it, asking listeners to email if interested.