10 Best Sonic Slush Flavors + 3 Tasty Alternatives

Jacqueline Eisenbraun (Senior Editor)

Sonic is one of America’s most popular drive-through chains. They border on iconic, however, for their popularization of the slush. If you want to learn more about Sonic Slush Flavor and which slush is the best, you’ve come to the right place.

Before Sonic made slushes what they are today the iced drinks were only average sides to boring fast food meals.

Sonic Slushes made the drink what it is today and created a staggering number of flavor options. According to their own website, there are 168,894 possible drink combinations — what you create is up to you.

Sonic Slushes are delicious, refreshing and a lower calorie alternative to ice cream. They’re great alongside a burger or nachos (or even Sonic’s own invention — totchos).

Best of all you can easily copy them at home using our clever hacks further on in this article. But let’s find out more about what Sonic Slushes really are, how they’re made, and what flavors you really need to try.

What Sonic Slush Flavors Are

What Sonic Slush Flavors Are

Sonic Slushes are made using flavored syrup and crushed ice. They’re the original highly popular slushies made in America and available in hundreds of tasty flavor combinations.

What’s great about these is that you can add flavors, toppings, and even candy, so you can really personalize your drink.

Where Sonic Slush Is From

Where Sonic Slush Is From

Sonic was originally founded in Oklahoma by Troy N. Smith, Sr. Troy started out with a root beer stand called the Top Hat. From this small enterprise, he eventually came to create Sonic. Today, Sonic are worth several billion dollars in revenue.

What Sonic Slush Is Made Of

What Sonic Slush Is Made Of

Sonic Slushes are made using basic ingredients: these include crushed ice and flavored syrups. Their syrups are mostly made up of water, sugar, and artificial flavoring. They also add preservatives and food dyes to give your drinks their vibrant colors.

Origin of Sonic Slush

Origin of Sonic Slush

Nobody is completely sure where slushies originated. Sonic made them popular in the 1970s as part of their fast food chain’s drinks range. Nowadays the Sonic drive-in restaurants are renowned for their frozen drinks as well as their range of fast foods.

The Best Sonic Slush Flavors You Need to Try

The Best Sonic Slush Flavors You Need to Try

With so many flavors to choose from it’s hard to pick the very best of the Sonic Slush flavor lineup. With that said, we’ve tried our best to give you our top picks. These certainly won’t disappoint and will be ones you’ll come back to time and time again.

Cherry Limeade Slush

Cherry Limeade Slush

The classic Cherry Limeade Slush flavor is an all-time fan favorite for a reason. The original features cherry flavor, cherry fruit, and lime fruit.

You can modify it by adding extras such as Powerade, grape flavor, or more cherry flavoring. The original is delicious without any extras though, and we definitely recommend giving this one a try.

Real Fruit Strawberry Slush

Real Fruit Strawberry Slush

This slushie is popular as it’s made with real fruit rather than just sweet strawberry syrup. It’s refreshing, light, and full of flavor. The use of real strawberries and less syrup also makes this slush slightly lower in calories than others.

Limeade Slush

Limeade Slush

Any of the limeade slush flavors are firm fan favorites at Sonic. The plain limeade slushie is no different. It’s refreshing, tangy, and not as sweet as some of the other drinks.

You can add extra slices of fresh lime on top of your drink for even more tanginess, too. If you do find this one too sour, you can add additional flavors such as grape or raspberry.

Strawberry Limeade Slush

Strawberry Limeade Slush

One of Sonic’s all time best slushes has to be their Strawberry Limeade flavor. It’s a little less sweet than the top-ranked Cherry Limeade, giving just the right balance of sweet and tart.

The lime flavors are delicious on their own, but with strawberry added in it just becomes the perfect summer drink.

Red Bull Dragon Fruit Slush

Red Bull Dragon Fruit Slush

This one came as a surprise, as the watermelon version isn’t that great. The Red Bull Dragon Fruit slushie, on the other hand, is delicious.

The dragon fruit flavor adds a delicious tropical flavor to the drink, giving it an extra kick that more than makes up for the lack of Red Bull-fizziness. Plus it’ll give you a bump of caffeine, which is never a bad thing.

Watermelon Slush

Watermelon Slush

If you enjoy watermelon candy, you’ll probably love this. It’s got the same characteristic sweet and tangy flavors. It’s just plain delicious if you’re into that sort of drink. Add an extra shot of limeade to make it just a little bit more tart, and you’re guaranteed a delicious slushie drink.

Orange Slush

Orange Slush

This flavor is relatively neutral, which doesn’t sound that great on the surface. It’s really good though, and what makes it is the fact that it’s somewhat neutral — not overly sweet but not overly sour either.

It’s also one of the less artificial tasting flavors you can get, so it feels healthier (though it’s still just made with syrup.)

Powerade Mountain Berry Blast Slush

Powerade Mountain Berry Blast Slush

Sports drinks generally have a lighter, less sweet taste than other soft drinks. As a result, this slush is a little softer-tasting with less sweetness, despite having at least as much sugar as other drinks.

All that to say: if you like Powerade you’ll enjoy the slushie version of it as well.

Pineapple Real Fruit Slush

Pineapple Real Fruit Slush

The Pineapple Real Fruit slushie has chunks of real pineapple laced throughout it. It’s not an artificial flavor, so if you love real pineapple juice this one’s for you.

The chunks may be a drawback to those wishing they had a smoother drink. It’s also not as heavily flavored as some of the artificial choices, though that’s a good thing to our minds, as it makes for a slightly tangy, less sugary drink.

Green Apple Slush

Green Apple Slush

This slushie is a great choice if you’ve ever had apple Jolly Ranchers and loved them. It’s an artificial flavor and tastes just like an apple-flavored candy, which does make it on the sweeter side. With that said, it’s a fun choice and may particularly appeal to younger kids.

The Worst Sonic Slush Flavors

The Worst Sonic Slush Flavors

Most of Sonic’s many slush flavor combinations are delicious. With that said, some are a little less so than others. These may still be worth a try if you like unusual or very sweet flavors. Just don’t say we haven’t warned you.

Plain Cherry Slush

Plain Cherry Slush

If you’ve ever taken children’s cough medicine you’ll know why this one doesn’t rank high. It’s just a little too sickly sweet for most people.

It’s a little bit artificial-tasting and doesn’t have any balance to it, with no added tanginess from lime or lemon. Maybe it is a good one for kids as it’s very sweet, but anyone else may wish to steer clear.

Plain Grape Slush

Plain Grape Slush

This one is ‘bad’ for the same reasons as the plain cherry flavor. It’s not awful in itself, just very sweet. If you’re a kid or have a particular sweet tooth you’ll probably love it. Anyone else will wish they’d added a bit of sour to cut the sweetness just a tiny bit.

Red Bull Watermelon Slush

Red Bull Watermelon Slush

The Red Bull Watermelon flavor is an unfortunate let-down. It lacks any sort of fizziness (as all slushes do), and this makes it somehow a weird drinking experience.

The watermelon is also quite an artificial flavor, which isn’t uncommon when it comes to watermelon flavors. Still, with a name like Red Bull Watermelon Slush we expected a caffeinated taste explosion, and this just wasn’t it.

Blue Coconut Slush

Blue Coconut Slush

Most of the blue drinks at Sonic seem to be hit or miss. This one is sadly no different, and is described as tasting ‘just blue.’

It just has a weird flavor of coconut sun cream, which isn’t something you want in a drink. Adding candy or extra flavors sadly doesn’t help either, and it just remains a slightly strange drinking experience.

Pickle Slush

Pickle Slush

The ultimate in bad Sonic drinks. This one is an iced pickle-flavored slushie drink. It may be a great choice for pregnant women craving their favorite tangy treat, but it’s probably not so great for the rest of us. In fact, you should stay far away from this strange creation.

Benefits of Sonic Slush Flavors

Benefits of Sonic Slush Flavors

With there being such a variety of fast food chains available in the United States, it’s hard to decide which is best. Below are some of the benefits of Sonic, in particular with regards to their delicious slush flavors.

Variety of Flavors

Variety of Flavors

Boasting an alleged 168,894 possible drink combinations, Sonic certainly does have the upper hand on flavor choices.

To top it off you can mix any of their flavors, top them with candy, or even get drinks like their iced tea in frozen slush form from their menu.

The Original Slushie

The Original Slushie

Sonic popularized the slushie in the 1970s. While they didn’t invent it, this makes the Sonic Slush, more or less, the original slushie drink. If retro drinks are your thing, this may well be a benefit to you as little will have changed in the way it’s being made over the past 50 odd years.

Delicious Sonic Slush Flavor Hacks and Recipes

Delicious Sonic Slush Flavor Hacks and Recipes

If you love Sonic Slush drinks we’ve got the perfect hacks and recipes for you. From making your Sonic slushie totally bespoke to the perfect copycat recipe to make at home, we’ve got you covered.

And if you’re thinking that making a bespoke drink at Sonic is easy with so many choices, you’ll find that our hack maybe teaches you another trick or two.

Bespoke Slush Menu Hack

Bespoke Slush Menu Hack

Did you know that you can ask for any drink on Sonic’s menu to be made into a slushie? Alternatively, you can request a plain slush (essentially just crushed ice and water) to take home and add your own flavoring to.

This is a particularly clever hack if you’re following a strict diet, as you can add natural fruit juice at home to make your own slushie.

DIY Copycat Sonic Slush

DIY Copycat Sonic Slush

Sonic Slushes aren’t the priciest fast food drinks around, but costs can add up if you’re a real fan and have them often.

Enter this easy copycat recipe: all you need is a cup of ice water, 2 cups of ice, some granulated sugar, and a powdered drink mix of your choice. Add everything to a blender and blend until smooth.

Decorate with toppings of your choice if you wish. For a more natural, sugar-free alternative, you may use a cup each of frozen fruit, ice, and ice water instead. This will taste a little less like the original, but be a refreshing alternative with less calories to boot.

Best Sonic Slush Alternatives

Best Sonic Slush Alternatives

If you can’t get a Sonic Slush or want to branch out and try alternatives, we’ve got some suggestions for you. These are the best options to try whether you want something just a little different — or strikingly similar.

Starbucks Refreshers

Try Starbucks Refreshers instead of Sonic Slush

Starbucks Refreshers are a great alternative to Sonic Slush drinks. They’re vibrant in color and have exotic natural ingredients that are hard to resist.

Some of the flavors include their hot pink Mango Dragonfruit Lemonade Refresher and their Paradise Drink Refresher. A Grande Mango Dragonfruit Lemonade is only about 150 calories, making it a reasonably low-cal slushie option.

McDonald’s Frozen Drinks

McDonald’s Frozen Drinks

These are very like the Sonic Slush drinks, to the point that, in some instances, you could ask for the identical drink at either location.

McDonald’s make frozen Coca-Cola Classic and Blue Raspberry Fanta, just to name two popular options. If you’d rather have something a little more natural, they also offer smoothies flavored with fresh fruit such as strawberries, bananas, mangos, and pineapple.

KFC Refreshers

A tasty Alternative: KFC Refreshers

KFC offers slushie alternatives in the form of their tasty iced drinks. These aren’t slushies as such, but rather sparkling drinks with natural fruit juices.

KFC also have iced tea, iced juices, and regular iced drinks. If you prefer a more standard slushie-style drink, they also create their famous Krushems — frozen dairy-based milkshakes.

These are somewhere in between a slushie and a creamy shake, making them a fun alternative to try.

(20 votes, average: 4.80 out of 5)
You need to be a registered member to rate this.

Loading...