What Happened To SoBe Drinks?

If you're a millennial, you most likely have some memory of the drink brand SoBe. Easily identified by its glass bottles and lizard iconography, this drink got its start in 1995 as South Beach Beverage Company with the flavor SoBe Black Tea 3G, flavored with ginko, guarana, and ginseng. However, numerous other flavors quickly followed, like SoBe Ice, SoBe Lizard Lava, SoBe Elixirs, and SoBe Life Water. Thanks to the brand's growing popularity, Pepsi snapped it up in 2000 for $370 million.

Unfortunately, despite having tons of fans and flavors, SoBe started facing some stiff competition during the early 2000s thanks to other soda alternatives like energy and sports drinks. Instead of working to promote SoBe more, Pepsi chose to prioritize its other brands, like Lipton. They also moved to using only plastic for packaging, which did away with SoBe's iconic glass bottles.

While SoBe didn't die out immediately, it did become increasingly more difficult to find in the 2010s. Then, in 2015, people started finding messages under caps of SoBe Life Water that read, "Help me trapped in SoBe factory." This gave the brand some much-needed attention, but it wasn't exactly the good kind. Although Pepsi clarified that the messages were meant as a funny slogan, the joke didn't land with many consumers, and the brand faded from the spotlight once more. However, while SoBe looks to have gone the way of our favorite discontinued sodas, the brand is actually still around if you know where to look.

Despite being absent from almost every store, SoBe isn't completely gone. In fact, unlike Fruit Stripe Gum, it is still possible to find it if you know where to look. For example, the brand still has a functioning website. On the SoBe website, you can use the store locator to see if anyone in your area sells the drink. However, some drinks are listed as only available in certain regions, while SoBe Water Yumberry Pomegranate and Fuji Apple Pear are listed as discontinued.

Moreover, the site states that while they don't accept direct ordering, products can sometimes be found on sites like Amazon, and consumers might be able to request that their local supermarket place a special order for the drinks. While we weren't able to find any SoBe drinks on Amazon, some folks over on Reddit claim to have been able to snag bottles. One person attested to finding it at Jersey Mike's Subs, two claimed it existed at Runza's in Nebraska, and another found SoBe Life Water at True Texas BBQ.

While some lucky folks appear to live in the right locations to enjoy SoBe still, that's ultimately what it comes down to right now: luck. However, given that Pepsi revived Sierra Mist by turning it into Starry, we're still holding out hope that SoBe will make a similar comeback.