I’ve written about several Iraqi sodas recently, and I promise that eventually I’ll shift my focus to other parts of the world. But first, there are more stories to unpack! I found three different brands of orange soda that were bottled in Iraq and I researched the history of each one. Oh yeah, and I tasted them as well. Some of this will be a repeat of my previous research in the History of Mission Orange Soda (“Mishn”) and Iraqi Soda Taste Test, but there’s some new info here about the politics of the Middle Eastern soda market over the last century.
Mission Orange (“Mishn”)
Mission was my first introduction to the Iraqi orange soda culture. This was remarkable because Mission is a defunct American soda brand that vanished from US markets in the 1970s. During the height of their popularity, Mission franchised their brand to bottlers in the Middle East. Their Iraqi bottler, Crystal Baghdad, has kept producing the beverage for over 50 years since it’s death in America.
I’ve talked to many Iraqi’s on social media about Mission, and most tell me that Mission is their preferred orange soda and holds a warm nostalgia for them. It was very popular and prominent with the older generation during the 1970s and 1980s, but production was challenging during the sanction era of the 1990s. Some say that the bottler stopped making the soda for many years, others believe that it was just limited (and inconsistent).
Mission Orange is distinct in several ways. You can see real fruit solids/sediment at the bottom of the glass, the liquid is a vibrant and opaque orange, and it tastes remarkably like a perfectly ripe orange. Maybe even something more premium…like a short-season sumo mandarin. It’s very sweet and refreshing. While this was originally an American brand, I have no problem calling this an Iraqi soda. As far as I can tell, they’re the last Mission bottler left on earth.
Mirinda Orange
Mirinda is a Pepsi product, but it was originally founded in Spain back in 1959 and wasn’t acquired by PepsiCo until 1970. Pepsi leveraged Mirinda as the main offering for fruit flavored sodas in its international markets. I couldn’t tell when exactly Mirinda Orange entered the Iraqi soda market, but Pepsi had a presence in the country since at least the 1950s. It’s reasonable to assume that Pepsi introduced Mirinda to Iraq shortly after the acquisition to compete directly with Mission.
While it appears that Pepsi and Mirinda were generally successful in Iraq through the 1980s, the sanctions of 1990s put a complete halt to their business dealings in the country. Well, to be clear, it stopped Pepsi’s legitimate business dealings in the country but it sparked an interesting period of counterfeits and creativity. The local bottlers no longer had access to the official syrups and supplies from PepsiCo, but that didn’t stop the more ingenious workers from kicking off a black market of Western sodas. Most were counterfeits and fakes using available ingredients and recycled bottles. Some were real Pepsi products smuggled from neighboring countries and resold to those with means to buy them. This lasted up through Saddam’s fall in 2003 when Pepsi reentered the market and made new deals with their old bottling networks.
Despite the interesting history, I found Mirinda’s Orange soda a pale comparison to Mission Orange. Figuratively and literally. The sodas is a much less vibrant orange, more translucent, and tastes almost watered down. That’s not to say that it’s bad, just that it’s less.
BONUS HISTORY: Pepsi doesn’t offer the Mirinda brand in the US market. Currently, Pepsi doesn’t offer an orange soda at all. The orange soda market in the United States has always been a little crowded. Despite several attempts to gain traction with their own brands of Orange soda, Pepsi hasn’t had anything stick. One of the more serious attempts was Orange Slice which was introduced in 1986. After a quick spike in popularity, it waned year over year until Pepsi retired it in the late 2000s. A Tropicana Twister soda was attempted as well, but many believe it was unsuccessful due to the American market’s perception that Tropicana is a juice brand, not soda. My take is that Pepsi could never compete well enough with Fanta (Coca-Cola), Sunkist (Keurig Dr Pepper), and Crush (Keurig Dr Pepper), so they focused on their other competencies and kept Mirinda abroad.
Fanta Orange
Fanta is a Coca-Cola brand, but with a very interesting origin story. Coca-Cola established a European presence early in the 20th century, but WWII created a significant inconvenience to their operations. As you’d expect, the bottling plants in Nazi Germany lost access to the Coca-Cola syrups from Atlanta, and adapted the production line to what was available. They began brewing a soda made primarily with fruit scraps and whey. It was cloudy, not very sweet, and entirely dependent on a limited local supply chain. The bottlers named their new soda “Fanta”, short for “Fantasie”, as a nod to their creativity in producing something with very little resources. I suppose that Fanta sounded better than “Verzweiflung”…the German word for desperation.
Coca-Cola acquired the Fanta brand after WWII and transformed it into a line of vibrant fruit sodas. They expanded the brand throughout Europe and the Middle East during the 1950s, but several countries were excluded from Coca-Cola’s reach. The Arab League Boycott prevented Coca-Cola from doing business in Iraq and other politically aligned countries (due to Coca-Cola’s relationship and connections to Israel). This means that Coca-Cola didn’t enter the Iraqi soda market until the fall of Sadam in 2003. With only about 20 years of history in the country, Fanta is youngest of the three Iraqi bottled sodas that I tried.
I found Fanta’s Orange soda to be more fragrant and sweet than Mirinda, but still obviously short of Mission. The taste was comparable to a fresh orange, but relied on orange essence rather than the vibrant orange juice flavor of the Mission brand. There was almost a bitterness to it, like you’d experience with orange rind/peel. It’s not bad, but it wasn’t my favorite.
I also took the opportunity to compare it to a can of Fanta Orange from the United States. When tasted side by side, the American Fanta tasted like sugar water and the Iraqi Fanta tasted like an orange. It was night and day.
Conclusion
I’m confident of a few things after doing this taste test. Iraqi orange sodas, and maybe all international orange sodas, are much better than the American equivalents. Also, Mission Orange is a phenomenal beverage and the clear winner of my taste test. Second place was Iraqi Fanta Orange, and third place was Iraqi Mirinda Orange. I didn’t think that I liked orange soda this much, but if it’s done right then it’s a real treat.
If you want to try Iraqi orange sodas you have a few options in the Seattle area. So far I’ve been able to find bottles at H Mart (the Lynnwood store, specifically), Lynnwood Mediterranean Food, and Saars Super Saver in North Seattle. Please watch my video review linked above and subscribe to the YouTube channel. I’m getting close to the 1,000 subscriber milestone and it’s been really fun getting to interact with new fans around the world. Your likes, comments, and shares seriously help YouTube know that people are interested in this content.
Sodafry 