Dirty Sodas Are Having a Moment — I Tried 2 New (and Very Different!) Ones from Fast-Food Chains

Whenever I drink soda, my one request is that it has lots of ice (pebble ice, if I can get it), but I might soon require my soda to also be “dirty,” thanks to two new offerings from Dunkin’ and McDonald’s. Dirty soda isn’t a new idea — if you’re familiar with Swig, you know it’s been all the rage in certain parts of the country for years — but getting a dirty soda from a particular Boston-born coffee chain or the Golden Arches is very new; they dropped on April 29 and May 6, respectively.

With this drinkable phenomenon now so easily available to me in Chicago, I had to try both chains’ interpretations of dirty soda. Here’s what I thought about the respective versions from McDonald’s and Dunkin’ and how they stack up to each other.

The first time I saw someone pour creamer into a glass of soda, I didn’t think: I gotta have that. But after trying these sips, maybe I should’ve. The basic recipe for a dirty soda is a soda base, cream, and usually a flavored syrup.

Shops like Swig, which opened in 2010, have dozens of different flavor combos — if you watch any reality TV, you might’ve seen dirty sodas and Swig pop up on Utah-based shows. According to Eater, dirty sodas have their roots in Utah’s Mormon culture: Practicing Mormons generally don’t drink coffee or other “hot drinks,” because it’s against their religion. With a large Mormon population in Utah, the dirty soda was born. 

According to The Wright State Guardian, there have been debates within The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints if Prophet Joseph Smith’s revelation about “hot drinks” not being good for the body meant to abstain from all caffeine, but the church clarified in 2012 that it only applies to not drinking coffee and tea, meaning dirty soda was allowed.

Dunkin’ forgoes traditional cream for “coffee milk” and combines it with Pepsi, topping it off with sweet cold foam. This drink looked incredibly creamy, with its light tan hue. My first sip was rich and layered. Even with a thick cold foam topping, I got a distinct Pepsi flavor, and the coffee milk hit the back of my palate as I sipped. But make no mistake — this is a sweet drink, and despite the intensity on the first sip, other sips were much creamier and sweeter. It was hard to get a consistent flavor experience.

It also smelled very sweet. I enjoyed the hint of coffee flavor from the coffee milk, but overall I think I’d make a few tweaks to this drink if I were to get it again, namely asking for a light pour of the coffee milk and maybe easy on the cold foam. 

McDonald’s version of dirty soda looked more like soda, with a darker caramel color and visible carbonation. The Dirty Dr. Pepper is made with Dr. Pepper, “a vanilla flavor,” and finished with cold foam. When I took a sniff, I instantly smelled vanilla, and I was surprised when I got so much soda flavor on the first sip. I couldn’t immediately place the flavor as Dr. Pepper, but it tasted like a soda float, which I really enjoyed. Soda seemed more like the star of the show for this drink, which made it easier to want to keep drinking it.

For my taste preferences, the more soda-forward Dirty Dr. Pepper from McDonald’s is a drink I’d be more likely to order again. But the coffee milk in the Dunkin’ Dirty Soda does intrigue me, and I might have to give it another try with my tweaks. I wouldn’t say I’m craving either one again right away, but I have officially become dirty soda-curious.