Social media creators claim you can make Sprite at home with just a few ingredients. I tested the viral recipe to see what it actually tastes like.
There are some things you don’t really imagine making at home, and soda is high on that list. It’s so closely tied to cans, bottles and brand loyalty that the idea of recreating it from scratch can feel unnecessary—or at least a little beside the point. But lately, creators online have been rebuilding familiar name-brand sodas at home—without fancy soda makers.
Sprite has become one of the most popular targets. In one widely shared video, the creator frames it plainly: “Sprite was never supposed to come from a bottle or can—and you can make it at home with just four ingredients.” I tested that recipe to see how the idea holds up in practice and whether the result actually resembles the soda most of us already know.
What is the viral homemade soda trend?
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Homemade sodas themselves aren’t new. Mixing flavored syrups with sparkling water has been around for ages. What’s new is the focus on recreating specific, recognizable brands—Sprite, Coca-Cola and others—using pared-down, whole ingredients.
In the case of this lemon-lime version, the goal is explicit: all the bubbly, citrusy sweetness of Sprite sans artificial flavoring. The recipe—pulled directly from Boyd Brown III’s Instagram caption—relies on citrus zest rubbed into sugar, turned into a syrup, then mixed with sparkling water.
How do you make homemade Sprite?
Ingredients
- Zest of 3 lemons
- Zest of 6 limes
- 1 cup sugar
- 1 cup boiling water
- Juice of 1/2 lime, per glass
- Sparkling water, chilled
- Ice
Directions
Step 1: Make the citrus sugar
Place one cup of sugar into a medium bowl. Add the zest of three lemons and six limes. Using your hands, rub the zest into the sugar until it becomes fragrant and slightly damp, releasing the citrus oils.
Step 2: Turn it into syrup
Pour in about 1 cup of boiling water and whisk until the sugar dissolves completely. Strain through a fine-mesh sieve into another bowl to remove the zest. Let the syrup cool.
Step 3: Build the soda
Fill a glass with ice. Add about 1/4 cup of the syrup and the juice of 1/2 lime, then top with chilled sparkling water. Stir gently, and serve immediately.
Did it actually taste like the real thing?
Not exactly—and that’s where expectations might need a reset.
Sprite is known for a very specific flavor and feel: icy-cold, aggressively fizzy and almost static in its sharpness. This homemade version doesn’t deliver that same crisp, stinging bite. Instead, it drinks more like an elevated lemon-lime soda—softer bubbles, fuller citrus flavor and a rounder, more natural finish.
It’s less “crispy” than Sprite and more citrus-forward, with a richness that feels almost spritz-like. It’s easy to imagine taking it in another direction too. A splash of vodka or light rum works naturally with the citrus, though it’s equally enjoyable served plain as a light refresher.
For the sake of curiosity, I also tried a homemade Coca-Cola recipe making the rounds online. It became clear almost immediately that this was not something that improved with homemade preparation. The results were, frankly, unpleasant.
The homemade Sprite, though, isn’t a replacement for its commercial counterpart—and it doesn’t need to be. It’s a different drink altogether that treats Sprite less as a product to copy and more as an idea worth rethinking.
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