Orbitz was a non-carbonated fruit-flavored beverage produced by The Clearly Food & Beverage Company of Canada, makers of Clearly Canadian. The drink was sold in five flavors, and made with small floating edible fruit-flavored jelly beads. Orbitz was marketed as a "texturally enhanced alternative beverage" but some consumers compared it to a potable lava lamp.
Contents
History
It was introduced in 1996 and marketed as a “scientific marvel”. It was discontinued by early 1999.
Post-discontinuation
The product's domain name was bought by the Internet-based travel agency named Orbitz.
Unopened bottles from the drink's original launch have become a collector's item, appearing on online auction websites worth $30-$50 on online sales. The Clearly Food & Beverage Company states that the proprietary equipment that made Orbitz broke down and the trademark is no longer owned by the company.
Ingredients
The small balls floated due to their nearly equal density to the surrounding liquid, and remained suspended with the assistance of gellan gum. The gellan gum provided a support matrix and had a visual clarity approaching that of water, which increased with the addition of sugar. The gellan gum created a very weak yield stress which has been measured to be ~0.04 Pa.
Flavors
Several flavors of Orbitz were produced:
Raspberry Citrus
Blueberry Melon Strawberry
Pineapple Banana Cherry Coconut
Vanilla Orange
Black Currant Berry
In popular culture
The drink is seen in the 1999 Gregg Araki film Splendor, in which Kelly MacDonald's character opens a fridge full of Orbitz and drinks one.
The drink is featured as a plot device in the 2025 film Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie, as an element necessary for the function of a time machine, but which is not readily available in the present.