Review: Fizzies – they’re back!

Monday, October 23, 2006 - by Brian

I first found out about Fizzies a few months ago when I saw that Old Time Candy was announcing that “Fizzies are back!” I’d never heard of Fizzies – should I be happy that they are back? What are they? Why did they leave? They sound fun!

With a little investigation, I found out that Fizzies are tablets that you drop into water to create flavored, bubbly water – think of it as flavored Alka-Seltzer. They were very popular in the 50s and 60s. In fact, in 1968 they generated approximately $90 million in sales!

Unfortunately, Fizzies were sweetened with saccharin and after government studies in the late 60s concluded that saccharin was connected to some forms of cancer, Fizzies were pulled from the market when they could not get the fizzing to work with other sweeteners of the time.

The new Fizzies are now sweetened with sorbitol and sucralose (i.e. Splenda) instead and have 0 calories, 0 caffeine, 0 sugar, and 100% daily Vitamin C in just one tablet. They are round disks similar to Alka-Seltzer and they just barely fit inside the tops of most water bottles. One tablet is used in 4-6 ounces of water.

So, now I knew what Fizzies are/were, time to get some. A few emails and a week later and I had some samples for review. New Fizzies are available in seven different flavors. Unfortunately, almost every one of them is nasty tasting. The problem is, the drink is very salty from the sodium bicarbonate used to make it fizz. Here is a quick rundown of each flavor:

• Blue Razz: A tad salty, and artificially sweet. Not a great taste, but my five-year-old daughter LOVED it. Not for adults.
• Root Beer: Weird brownish color – it tastes like root beer – vaguely. I love root beer and didn’t like it and my five-year-old daughter didn’t even finish it.
• Fruit Punch: This has a really fruit punchy flavor. Kinda like watermelony lemonade.
• Orange: Tastes like a diet orange soda. Not bad, but not great.
• Cherry: Tastes a lot like cherry Kool-Aid. Pretty good actually if you can get by the saltiness.
• Lemon-Lime: Has a decent taste – sort of like a lemonade soda.
• Sour Apple: Nice and green, but it didn’t really have much flavor at all – apple or otherwise.

Honestly, these are horrible. The saltiness of them just overwhelms any good flavor you might get out of them. Having said that, they are fun to drop into the water and watch them fizz and color your water and my five year old liked the Fizzies drinks a whole lot more than I did. We even tried them straight (with no water) and that was fun – they foam like crazy in your mouth (but are still really salty).

Realistically though, I really can’t recommend these unless you remember them from your youth and want to relive those memories and/or share them with your kids – otherwise, steer clear. They say the drink is crisp and refreshing but I found it to be neither.

If you really want to try some (and don’t say I didn’t warn you), I haven’t seen them at places like Wal-mart, but some brick and mortar candy stores carry them and the online stores below carry them. The only one I have seen that sells them by individual box (and not a case) is Old Time Candy. They re $2.99 for a box of 8 tablets.

• Fizzies.com

Buy Fizzies online:

• at Old Time Candy
• at Candy Crate
• at Amazon
• at Candy Direct

candy, sweets, retro, nostalgia, fizzies, soda, 50s, 60s