Now that the frenzy following the launch of the Pumpkin Spice Latte has died down, it’s time to start looking ahead to the winter holidays and all the limited-time offers they bring. There’s one seasonal product that’s already generating a lot of excitement online — even though it hasn’t been officially announced yet. Good luck, because we might be getting a 7-Up Shirley Temple soon.
While the news hasn’t made it to 7-Up official channels as of yet, it’s been circulating on various snack and beverage insider accounts, including Snackolator and Snack Betch. According to these online sources, 7-Up Shirley Temple is a pomegranate and cherry soda that will hit shelves this holiday season. Promotional images show the product coming in 12-ounce cans and 2-liter bottles; it’s unclear if it will also be sold in individual 20-ounce plastic bottles. Like 7-Up’s flagship soda, the Shirley Temple flavor will reportedly come in regular and zero sugar flavors — at least according to the initial images shared.
If you’re not familiar with the Shirley Temple, we sympathize—it’s a nonalcoholic mixed drink made with lemon soda or ginger ale, a splash of grenadine, and a cherry (or two). Legend has it that it was invented in Hollywood in the 1930s, when Brown Derby bartender Gustave Tops created the drink for child star Shirley Temple. It’s often compared to another sweet and simple mocktail, the Roy Rogers, which uses Coke instead of 7-Up.
While it’s unclear when the 7-Up Shirley Temple will officially launch, food-focused content creator Markie Devo predicts it’ll be in mid-October. Whenever it does, it looks like it’ll be soon, as Walmart and Target have already featured the product on their respective websites, though you can’t place an order just yet: It’s listed as “out of stock” in both locations.
This limited-time flavor makes perfect sense for 7-Up, since the brand’s signature lemon-lime soda is often used to make Shirley Temples. Not only that, but as Sporked points out, pomegranate-flavored 7-Up and cherry-flavored 7-Up have both been sold in the past (with cherry still being the core product). Combining those flavors into one can and adding the enticing “Shirley Temple” branding seems like an easy way to cash in on that success.
7-Up seems to have been preparing us for this launch in recent months without anyone realizing it. The brand’s Instagram account offers a tutorial on how to make Shirley Temple, and the Shirley Temple recipe has been on the official 7-Up website since at least 2017. Now there are only two questions left: When exactly can we get our hands on it, and what will the Shirley Temple King think of this canned mocktail?
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