| Orbitz | |
| Type: | Soft drink |
| Manufacturer: | The Clearly Food & Beverage Company |
| Origin: | Canada |
| Introduced: | May 1996 |
| Discontinued: | 1998 |
| Related: | Clearly Canadian |
Orbitz was a non-carbonated fruit-flavored beverage produced by The Clearly Food & Beverage Company of Canada, makers of Clearly Canadian. It was introduced in test markets around May 1996, then went to most markets by 1997, and then quickly disappeared due to poor sales. The drink was sold in six flavors, and made with small floating edible balls. Orbitz was marketed as a "texturally enhanced alternative beverage" but some consumers compared it to a potable lava lamp.[1] [2]
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.[3] 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.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.[1] In July 2013, Clearly Canadian stated that it was considering producing a limited run of new products to satisfy "nostalgia demand", with the possibility of annual issues thereafter based on consumer reception of the initial batch.
Several flavors of Orbitz were produced:[4]
The drink is featured in the 1999 Gregg Araki film Splendor when Kelly MacDonald's character opens a fridge full of Orbitz and drinks one.