12-07-2025
I Have an Controversial Trick to Make Soft Drinks Taste Better. You Just Have to Be Brave Enough to Try It.
This is One Thing, a column with tips on how to live.
Thanks to the pandemic being followed by three years spent living across the country from Slate's headquarters, having two kids in a row, and being reluctant to travel, I hadn't met any of my colleagues in person until this week. I do feel like I've become a little socially awkward since I last worked from an office. So before heading to New York for a team meeting, I made a point of avoiding faux pas by going over faces and names of people I might run into, and I just generally reminded myself not to say anything weird.
Whoops. We hadn't even made it through lunch before I was proclaiming—and defending—my love for 'Cooked Sprite.' That's right, warm soda. Actually, closer to hot. Despite my careful preparations, I had indeed said something weird. Something I hadn't thought about for decades. Something that inspired at least four audible gasps. But now, back in the safety of my home, I want to make the case that I was right: There is nothing wrong with a tea-temperature lemon-lime soft drink—in fact, there is a lot to like about it.
I remember the day I discovered this. I was maybe 11 years old, and during a fall heat wave in Marin County, California, someone—probably my dad, because this is the kind of field trip we did on the weekends I stayed with him—took my best friend Thea and me to the Renaissance Fair. After a day walking around the dusty grounds, riding a giant swing, and dressing up for old-timey photos, we made it back to the car exhausted and thirsty. And in the back seat (I don't know if it had been purchased as part of post-outing lunch or was just rolling around back there) was a six-pack of Sprite that had been, well, cooking all day.
We each cracked one open, and that's when I realized something important was happening. It was so good! The soda was hot but somehow still refreshing. The sweetness was softened and the bubbles felt bigger and more luxurious—not like the sharp, sneeze-triggering ones you get when it's cold. We locked eyes and smiled mischievously. It felt rebellious (look, we were very sheltered kids) and wildly innovative. 'Cooked Sprite' was born.
OK, so it turns out we didn't actually invent this, or at least were not the only ones to have done so. A Reddit thread from four years ago proclaims: 'Hot soda is delicious and great when you're cold.' But it's a shame that it had to be filed under 'unpopular opinions.' I think it's time for a cultural shift.
After trying it once, Thea and I never looked back. Neither of our moms kept soda in the house, so it became a delicacy to enjoy (along with things like ice cream as coffee creamer and breakfast baked potatoes) only on weekends at my dad's. 'Should we make some Cooked Sprite?' was always said somewhat conspiratorially, in the tone people use when they want to open a bottle of wine at a time or in a place where alcohol isn't socially acceptable. He had this set of heavy, textured, foggy drinking glasses, and we'd fill them up, microwave them for 30 seconds, and make a toast.
Now that you know the origin story and the basic techniques, I want you to try Cooked Sprite. Maybe not outside in the middle of summer. Wait until you're in an overly air-conditioned house (or office!), or bookmark this to revisit in the fall or winter. It's especially soothing if you're feeling sick. We all know that Sprite is already the official soft drink of illness. Why not make it more like tea? If you're biased against warm carbonation, interrogate whether that belief is fair, or if it's keeping you from experiencing something special.
I'd told Thea before the business trip about how I was trying to take steps to avoid social slip-ups with my colleagues. At the end of the day, she checked in to ask how everything went, and I had to report, 'For some reason, I told them about Cooked Sprite.'
Like a real friend—and a person with good taste in beverages—she affirmed me. 'It was really delicious,' she said. 'Kinda burny in three ways simultaneously. Anyone can like cold soda. Only a really sophisticated palate can appreciate Cooked Sprite.'
