All Gatorade flavors ranked worst to best

I am WIRED. I am PUMPED. I’m so LOUSY with electrolytes I feel like could lightning-bend, Prince Zuko style. I am so well hydrated that you could ride on my back across the Sahara. I am convinced that the cure for all known diseases now exists in my bloodstream. I have become a Gatorade God. And my first commandment? Drink some Gatorade. Here’s a definitive, divinely ordained list of all classic Gatorade flavors, ranked worst to best.

14. Lime Cucumber

My second commandment as the God of Gatorade is to drink not the Lime Cucumber, for it is an abomination. It’s wrong. A blasphemy. Apostasy of the highest degree. This backsliding cucumber backwash is not fit to water the ground. Listen, I’m not an unbiased judge, I think cucumber is vile on a good day. But synthesized and mixed into a sports drink? Abhorrent. I felt the need to go to a church and confess that I drank this thing to a priest, and I ain’t even Catholic. That’s how much of a sin this flavor is.

13. Fierce Grape

Fierce Grape gives me a fierce urge to throw up. It tastes like a grape farted in my mouth. It’s got a cough-syrupy vibe to it that I am not a fan of. And don’t get me wrong, I’m a huge fan of grape-flavored things. I put the “fan” in Grape Fanta. But this? No. This is no grape soda. Grape no-da. It just doesn’t work.

12. Frost Arctic Blitz

Frost Arctic Blitz tastes like a make-out with a chemical plant. The flavor is so completely synthetic that its creators couldn’t even think of a naturally occurring taste to name it after. Tell me, what does Arctic Blitz taste like? A numb tongue? I wish my taste buds had been anesthetized before tasting this rocket fuel. If NASA needs a new fuel to put humanity on Mars, the makers of Arctic Blitz should apply for the job.

11. Strawberry Lemonade

Drinking Strawberry Lemonade makes my taste buds feel like they got kicked in the genitals by the CEO of Splenda. This thing is SWEET. But not in the “aww” way. In the pungent, cloying, sickly way. It’s a strawberry tall cake standing at 7’3″ of sweetness. It’s just overwhelming. Now listen, if hypersweet is your thing, then I’m sure your 12-year-old tastebuds will be overjoyed to guzzle this stuff and then go play some Fortnite.

10. Frost Icy Charge

This flavor was elusive, but I found it. With a flavor so rare, I was expecting to ascend to the height of tastebud heaven or the fiery pits of flavor hell. The result was more like purgatory. It was blank. It was bland. It was a kiss with no chemistry. Just kinda … wet? Listen, it wasn’t bad. Really. I wouldn’t turn it away if I was dying of thirst in the desert, but I’m not sure I’d reach for it even over a glass of lemon water. All ice, no charge.

9. Fierce Blue Cherry

When I discovered Fierce Blue Cherry, I prayed to the Gatorgods that it would cause my palate to make contact with the highest plane of synthetic flavor: blue raspberry. Blue raspberry is a personal favorite of mine, capable of turning a mere Jolly Rancher into candy royalty. But alas, it was not to be. While its synthetic cherry flavor was somewhat refreshing in an “I just played a middle school basketball game” kinda way, it didn’t cause me to ascend anywhere.

8. Frost Glacier Cherry

Frost Glacier Cherry makes a marginal cherry-flavored improvement upon Fierce Blue, but not by much. Gatorade, why can’t you just make a normal cherry-flavored drink? Not one that’s fierce or blue or found in a glacier? Granted, there is an “icy” feeling to this drink that does make it rather refreshing. It’s drinking from a mountain stream that was pissed in by a grizzly bear who just ate a bushel of cherries. I actually don’t mean that as an insult. Simply a scientific observation.

7. Fierce Green Apple

Now we’re getting somewhere. Fierce Green Apple looks radioactive and it tastes that way too. I’m sure that if Fierce Green Apple Gatorade existed in Marie Curie’s day she would have had a far simpler time discovering radiation. No uranium necessary. It’s all in the Gatorade Green Apple formula. Don’t get me wrong, like my cherry-flavored bear piss crack from earlier, my observations of FGA aren’t meant as an insult. It’s a synthetic drink. I expect synthetic a flavor. I am pleasantly, radioactively refreshed. Next time I’m in the supermarket I’ll be sure to bring a Geiger counter to find this flavor again.

6. Cool Blue

Cool Blue. A class act. What flavor is it? It’s blue. Just blue. No bells and whistles. It tastes like the world’s favorite color. Because yes, according to science, blue is the world’s favorite color. Perhaps Cool Blue is the world’s favorite drink as well, but like the color, I feel that it leaves just the smallest something to be desired. It’s cool, relaxing, and refreshing, but it doesn’t quite have a punch. That being said, it is still a perfectly respectable flavor.

5. Riptide Rush

Riptide Rush has my respect. Gatorade flavor namers could have called this thing Fast Grape or something, but no, they came up with a totally out-of-pocket name. Chock full of electrolytes, Riptide Rush is just as salty as the lethal seawater it shares a name with. But does it taste like the ocean? No. It tastes like lavender heaven. Technically grape. But lavender sounds more poetic, and this flavor deserves prose as purple as its hue.

4. Frost Glacier Freeze

Frost Glacier Freeze tastes like a Five Gum commercial. Esoteric. Nonsensical. Somehow satisfying. It’s a berry-flavored mystery that doesn’t need any solving, for the Gatorade Gods have worked in mysterious ways to make this flavor delicious. Drinking this will make your tastebuds feel like they’re lost in a Swedish forest. Still. Calm. Serene. Is that frostbite setting in? You don’t care.

3. Orange

Orange. An unparalleled classic. A Gatorade standard. Remember that probe bearing golden records that NASA sent out to make contact with aliens? They should have included a glass of Orange Gatorade to represent human athletic achievement. Anyone who’s ever thrown, kicked, or dribbled a ball has tasted this stuff and been thankful. It’s as iconic as the tall glasses of OJ that you see in commercials advertising breakfast foods.

2. Lemon Lime

Lemon Lime. Perfect mixed in a glass of gin or served straight the morning after. This isn’t a sports drink. It’s sunshine. Ambrosia. It’s a five-cent lemonade stand on a hot summer day. It’s uncomplicated. It’s delicious. It’s a yes.

1. Fruit Punch

Fruit Punch is like a punch on the tongue from an angel. It’s the PEAK of Gatorade flavors. Everest without all the frozen corpses. It’s, dare I say, the definitive Gatorade flavor. It’s a flavor that telepathically communicates with you. When you see that bottle of red liquid, you somehow know exactly how it will taste. Sweet. Fruity. Punchy. Refreshing. Perfect.