TikTok user Miss Sage (@sugarxage) asked the question that pretty much everyone who’s ever had a cup of Hawaiian Punch has asked: why in the world does the stuff never get cold?
She uploaded a viral TikTok while gazing at shelves of the product, and it seems like there were tons of viewers who were all asking the very same question.
“Why they got the Hawaiian Punch in the refrigerator at Kroger?” Sage asks, recording a wide variety of the sweetened fruit-flavored drink and its many different varieties inside of the refrigerator section at the popular grocery store retailer. “They know good and well this can stay in the freezer, the frigerator, the deep freezer, it’s never gonna be cold. Ever.”
HP isn’t the only beverage that’s being lambasted for failing to ever truly get cold—there are plenty of folks who seem to have the same exact issue with Sunny-D.
But it seems denizens of the net are demanding to know why Hawaiian Punch can stay in a refrigerator but never reach a chilly, satisfying-to-drink temperature. It’s a question that’s plagued Black Twitter, with one person writing: “I need a scientific breakdown of how you can put Hawaiian Punch in the fridge for hours, and it NEVER gets cold. How does that make sense?!”
Another user who posted on the platform shared their bizarre, but seemingly common, Hawaiian Punch drinking experience. “Like I remember a cookout I went to, and I put Hawaiian Punch in a solo cup with 4 ice cubes, and I could feel the cold from the ice but the drink around it was warm?? And then the ice cubes melted but the drink was stil the same????” they wrote.
The origins of Hawaiian Punch
It seems that the reason why Hawaiian Punch doesn’t act like a drink is because it wasn’t originally created to be a drink but rather an ice cream topping. That is, according to Today I Found Out. “The brand was originally ‘Leo’s Hawaiian Punch’ sold under the company name Pacific Citrus Product Company. The recipe for the confectionery was created by Tom Yates, A.W. Leo, and Ralph Harrison in a garage in Fullerton, California in 1934,” the site reports. “They started out by selling this tropical fruit flavored ice cream topping to local restaurants, stores, and to certain ice cream makers.”
Folks started taking that syrup and using it in beverage form, but the company never officially acknowledged this practice or marketed its syrup as a beverage until 1946 when Reuben P. Hughes and some investors bought Leo’s Hawaiian Punch and began selling the syrup in numerous grocery store chains across the country in different drink iterations.
In about ten years, Hawaiian Punch’s popularity, after being marketed as a drink, ended up making a ton of money and the drink became a “national selling brand.” And like many a fine widely distributed product, Hawaiian Punch was marketed with a mascot named Punchy, who would sock people in the face after asking them if they’d like a “nice Hawaiian punch.”
@sugarxsage ♬ original sound – Miss Sage
Why does Hawaiian Punch never get cold?
So why doesn’t the juice ever get cold? Well, although the above-linked commercial says the beverage was made with 10% fruit juice, the drink is purportedly only made with 3% fruit juice now. The nutrition facts listed on this Stop sand Shop product page indicates that the Fruit Juicy Red flavor (which many would call the original) actually contains less than 2% of concentrated juices, which includes Apple, Clarified Pineapple, Passionfruit, Orange, and fruit purees of Apricot, Papaya, and Guava. Add in some other ingredients like Pectin, Acacia Gum, preservatives, Sucralose, and, of course, the second ingredient in the drink’s list: High Fructose Corn Syrup (after water) and you’ve got a concoction that won’t get cold unless it’s put in an environment less than 31 degrees Fahrenheit, per Gator 995.
The Daily Dot has reached out to Keurig Dr. Pepper (the owners of Hawaiian Punch) via email for further comment on its freezing point, along with Miss Sage via email as well.
