Utah's dirty sodas appear to still be stirring the beverage industry with new products

KEY TAKEAWAYS

Utah's dirty soda trend influences national beverage industry with new products debuting.
PepsiCo plans Dirty Mountain Dew Code Red and Mug "Dirty Dawg" for 2027.
Keurig Dr. Pepper and Coca-Cola will introduce float-inspired drinks in 2027.

SALT LAKE CITY — Utah's dirty soda craze appears to still be influencing the national snack and beverage community, based on some of the new products unveiled at a Las Vegas trade show last week.

PepsiCo, for instance, unveiled two new dirty soda-themed drinks coming in 2027 during the National Association of Convenience Stores, according to multiple reports from snacking outlets and snack influencers.

One is the Dirty Mountain Dew Code Red, an alternate to the original Dirty Mountain Dew flavor released earlier this year, per Food Dive. The other is the Mug "Dirty Dawg," a dirty soda-inspired Mug Root Beer.

"The dirty soda trend — built on flavored syrups, cream, and customization — has grown from a regional phenomenon into one of the defining consumer beverage movements of recent years. ... Mountain Dew is scaling it," PepsiCo wrote in a news release in April, when the first Dirty Mountain Dew flavor debuted.

The region in question? Utah and the Intermountain West.

Dirty soda grew with the launch of Swig in Utah 16 years ago, and Utah was the home of the infamous lawsuit over the term. Swig and Sodalicious ultimately settled in that case in 2017, while a few other Utah-based chains launched dirty sodas into the sugary universe.

This history served as inspiration for the Salt Lake Bees' first alternative identity, the Utah Dirty Sodas, which was recently named the best new minor league identity this season, among other things.

Dirty sodas have latched into the mainstream for a few years now as Swig and others have branched outward, while social media and Utah-based reality shows have also sparked a national interest in it.

That's seemingly led to national competitors, including McDonald's, taking on the trend, as well as on-shelf products also racing to capitalize on it.

Dr. Pepper Coconut Cream was so popular in Utah and Idaho when it debuted in 2024 that the region got bonus batches to meet the demand. The drink has been a seasonal Dr. Pepper mainstay over the past two years, showing its strength nationally.

A few other new drinks coming to stores soon appear to be more dirty soda-influenced.

PepsiCo is also planning a strawberry shortcake Pepsi, Food Dive added.

Keurig Dr. Pepper unveiled an ice cream float Dr. Pepper, which it said adds a "creamy vanilla ice cream flavor and rich notes of caramel and butterscotch." It will be released in February 2027.

Coca-Cola announced that it, too, is going the float route, releasing a strawberry float flavor in May 2027, per Sporked. That's after Coca-Cola launched a "holiday vanilla" cola last year, which features "a smooth, creamy vanilla twist." The drink just returned to store shelves this month for the holidays.

These come as PepsiCo and Keurig Dr. Pepper each released root beer float flavors with their Mug and A&W brands earlier this year.

It all seems to indicate that the new dirty soda wars might be playing out in drink aisles.

The Key Takeaways for this article were generated with the assistance of large language models and reviewed by our editorial team. The article, itself, is solely human-written.