Zima
The clear, faintly citrus malt beverage Coors pushed as "Zomething different." Part of the '90s clear craze, it was briefly everywhere before late-night jokes turned it into a punchline.
Zima was a clear, lightly carbonated malt beverage made by the Coors Brewing Company — an early 'alcopop' with a lemon-lime flavor and around 5% alcohol. After test marketing in 1991, it launched nationally in the US in 1993 and became a fast fad, hitting a peak of about 1.2 million barrels sold in 1994, especially popular with young drinkers.
It arrived amid the '90s 'clear craze' alongside Crystal Pepsi and Tab Clear, riding the idea that see-through meant clean and modern. But — and this trips people up — Zima was alcoholic, not a soda. Its momentum didn't last: a mocking 'girly' reputation and relentless parodies from David Letterman turned it into a national punchline.
Zima was discontinued in the US in 2008 — MillerCoors announced the end that October — though Coors brought it back for brief, nostalgia-driven summer runs in 2017 and 2018. It has had a longer life in Japan, where it was reintroduced and — after a pandemic-era pause — returned again in 2023.
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