Squirt zero sugar grapefruit soda

The short version is that Squirt began as a Phoenix, Arizona, experiment, not a national brand. Sources differ on the details. Wikipedia credits Herb Bishop with creating it in 1938. PHOENIX magazine's 2024 history says a grapefruit soda called Citrus Club came first, made by Edward Mehren around 1936 with about 1% grapefruit juice and less sugar than rival sodas. Two years later Mehren partnered with Bishop, and they renamed it Squirt because "grapefruit squirts." The concentrate was made from Arizona grapefruit juice and oils. Other accounts give 1941 as the official launch, when a mascot appeared, so the exact year depends on which milestone you count.

The brand grew after that, especially in the American West and Southwest. It also became a standard mixer for the paloma cocktail in Mexico. Diet Squirt arrived in 1983, and the zero-sugar version on your can is much newer.

The PHOENIX article is a local history piece, not a formal archive, so for firm dates the company's own history page or a business archive would be the next place to check.

Keurig Dr Pepper (Nasdaq: KDP) owns Squirt. It came to the company through the 2018 deal that merged Dr Pepper Snapple Group with Keurig Green Mountain. The trademark notice on squirtsoda.com still names the older Dr Pepper/Seven Up, Inc., which is why the fine print reads that way. Ownership could change again soon. KDP is splitting into two public companies, Beverage Co. (led by CEO Tim Cofer) and Global Coffee Co. (built around its 2026 purchase of JDE Peet's). KDP's June 23, 2026 leadership update gives the split's target as early 2027. I didn't find a list of which brands go to which company, so I can't say where Squirt will land. As a soft drink it would most likely sit with Beverage Co., but that's my inference, not something the company has confirmed.

Short version: the 1983 Diet Squirt and today's Squirt Zero Sugar appear to use the same core sweeteners, aspartame and acesulfame potassium, and the label changed mainly in name and packaging. I found no published record of the full formula history, so I can't say how much the recipe has shifted.

For the 1983 Diet Squirt, the Wikipedia entry on Squirt) says it was the first US soft drink sweetened with aspartame. A vitamin-C version, Diet Squirt Plus, was briefly sold in the mid-1980s. Squirt's own retailer listings now say "Diet Squirt is now Squirt Zero Sugar," and the ingredients they list are carbonated water, grapefruit juice concentrate, natural flavors, citric acid, aspartame, acesulfame potassium, modified corn starch, ester gum, sodium benzoate and calcium disodium EDTA. The exact date of the rename isn't clear from what I found.

The ingredient lists don't fully agree. One Foods Co. listing also includes brominated vegetable oil, while a Safeway listing for the same product doesn't. That likely reflects different batches or markets, so check the can in your hands.

For the original formula, the sugared Squirt has used high-fructose corn syrup, and the brand has always claimed less grapefruit and sugar than rival sodas. Sources give different grapefruit figures, with some saying under 1% and others under 2%, and I couldn't find a reliable record of how the recipe changed across decades. A comparison of taste from the 1980s would have to come from people who drank both.

If you want firm dates for the formula changes, Squirt's own history page or a food-industry archive would be the place to look.