‘Gatorwine’: Viral smash mixes sports drink, fruit of the vine

Image via Fresh Take Florida.

It’s the internet’s latest bizarre beverage sensation — a mix of blue Gatorade and inexpensive red wine that’s known, of course, as “Gatorwine.”

On the campus of the University of Florida (UF) — the birthplace of Gatorade — it gets decidedly mixed reviews.

The recipe is simple: One part Gatorade “glacier freeze” flavor (it’s light blue) and one part red wine (priced at $12 or less a bottle). Across social media, users are posting their own taste-testing videos of the concoction.

Food reviewer and influencer Andrew Rea popularized the strange mixture in a YouTube video that has generated responses ranging from “not half bad” to utter revulsion. Some vowed never to take another sip. Rea, known online as “Binging with Babish,” called it “unlike anything I’ve ever tasted” with undertones of cherry and leather.

Rea’s video has 2.1 million views and over 69,000 likes. Though it is not immediately clear where Gatorwine originated, the drink has gone viral on TikTok and other platforms.

Prescott Vanmeyer III, a TikTok mixologist, announced the flavor “wasn’t unpleasant” in his own reaction, while influencer Foodgod asked followers to “take away his food god license” after filming Gatorwine’s flavor taking him by pleasant surprise.

University of Florida researchers, led by professor and physician James Cade, created Gatorade in 1965, and the university still receives a share of the brand’s royalties, which have amounted to more than $150 million.

The sports drink was invented to help Gator football players hydrate in the Florida heat and humidity, and it went on to have medical use for treating dehydration in patients.

Phoebe Miles, 60, Cade’s daughter and founder of the Cade Museum for Creativity & Innovation, said her father, who died in 2007, would get a laugh out of the “Gatorwine” mixture.

Cade himself dabbled in alcoholic versions of his product. He invented an electrolyte replacement beer called Hop’n Gator, a lemon-lime lager, launched by Gatorade in 1969 and discontinued in 1972.

“At the Cade Museum we invented a new word called ‘inventivity’ — I think this counts,” Miles wrote in an email from Italy, where a lack of available Gatorade has kept her from sampling the mixture. “Always try new things … who knows? Sometimes an unimaginable idea can take off in surprising ways.”

Representatives from Gatorade and its corporate parent, PepsiCo, did not respond to repeated requests to discuss the concoction.

Maude Wilson, 51, owner of The Traveler Wine Bar in downtown Gainesville, said she’s not surprised by Gatorwine’s appeal.

“As weird as it sounds, it’s the same thing that we’ve been doing for centuries with wine,” she said. “You think about sangrias and mimosas, or Kalimotxo, which is wine and Coca-Cola.”

The flavor profile of the light-blue Glacier Freeze Gatorade — which carries notes of citrus, orange, and strawberry — mixed with inexpensive red wine makes Gatorwine similar to sangria, which is made with red wine and chopped fruit, Wilson said.

She said she plans to stock a bottle of Gatorade in her bar in case a customer requests a Gatorwine. The trend could help wine drinkers looking to “spice up” a dud bottle or cut the wine to make it lower in alcohol per volume, she said.

Keith Singleton, 52, is the general manager of Salty Dog Saloon, a favorite bar among UF students located across the street from the university’s main campus. Singleton said he doesn’t plan to serve Gatorwine but will keep an eye on the trend as it develops.

“It definitely sounds interesting,” Singleton said.

At tailgates ahead of a recent home football game, Gator football fans tested the trend.

“I would not pay for it, but I would drink it again if it was offered,” said 22-year-old UF business administration senior Jacob Hamburg after sipping Gatorwine from a plastic shot glass with one hand while holding a White Claw in the other.

“Think like, you know, watermelon and ketchup,” said Max Kappalman, a 21-year-old UF political science and psychology senior. “You don’t imagine it because you’re not used to those two flavors together. I didn’t really know what to expect. But I had it, and it’s not half bad.”

Stuart Kaplan, 55, whose daughter plays the mellophone in the UF marching band, said Gatorwine brought back memories of culinary risks with his own college friends.

“Jägermeister mixed with Rumple Minze,” Kaplan said. “I don’t know how I drank it.”

He rated Gatorwine an eight out of 10, decidedly more palatable than the herbal German and 100-proof peppermint liqueurs he mixed in college.

Others, like 21-year-old UF linguistics senior Lily Kurek, can’t see themselves ordering Gatorwine out but are intrigued by the idea of mixing some at home in order to stretch the wine and save money.

“It’s sort of like making bread, but with sawdust,” Kurek said.

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This story was produced by Fresh Take Florida, a news service of the University of Florida College of Journalism and Communications. The reporter can be reached at [email protected] and [email protected]. You can donate to support our students here.