Orbitz was a non-carbonated fruit-flavored beverage produced by The Clearly Food & Beverage Company of Canada, makers of Clearly Canadian. The drink was sold in five flavors, and made with small floating edible fruit-flavored jelly beads. Orbitz was marketed as a "texturally enhanced alternative beverage" but some consumers compared it to a potable lava lamp.
It was introduced 1996 and marketed as a âÂÂscientific marvelâÂÂ. It was discontinued by early 1999.
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 worth $30-$50 on online sales. 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.
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.
Several flavors of Orbitz were produced:
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.
In 2025, the drink was featured in Matt JohnsonâÂÂs Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie as the secret ingredient to time travel.