It’s the year of our Gozer-Lord 2025 and I have not had an official taste of Hi-C Ecto Cooler in over nine years. The drought of the spectral, citrus-y nectar is real and there are no heroes in the Coca Cola company advocating for the nerd masses that would love a full, nationwide return of the beloved soft drink. To fill the gap, fans have a few options to quench their thirst, whether it’s picking up a bottle of Orange Tangerine Juicy Juice (which is a pretty spot-on flavor replica for this Coke-owned line of juices), or attempting to make their own, something I have attempted before with mixed results…
Well, fear not Ecto fans, for a Cooler head has prevailed at an east-coast pizza chain called &Pizza. The restaurant is known for offering a variety of creative flatbread-style pizzas and their own line of canned sodas. Well, this year the marketing team outdid themselves and they created an Ecto Cooler knock-off called “&Do Cooler” that is a the closest representation of our beloved juice drink we’ve ever seen for sale in a professional capacity. They’re selling their version in 12oz cans with shrink-wrapped labels evoking all of the slime and cross-out logos that we could hope for without crossing over into possible infringement litigation.
My bud Chad (@HorrorMovieBBQ), who has a preternatural awareness of all things Ghostbusters, tipped me off to the new release and within 45 minutes I found myself buying a six pack of these from my local &Pizza joint. This is one of the few times when a promotion like this was super easy to partake in as I’m usually at least 800 miles from the the nearest restaurant celebrating Ghostbusters like this. Here’s some copy from their website describing the new limited edition offering…
NEW, for a limited time! With everything going on in the world right now, &pizza thinks it’s time to go green. Introducing the all-new &do Cooler. We’re throwing it back with our sweet, citrusy (and green) beverage that tastes so good it’s scary. Only one question remains: Who ya gonna drink?
I was super eager to get this cans home and chilled so that I could do a proper taste test, and while pouring the first can into a fun 8Bit Zombie pint glass, I immediately had a flashback to 2016 when I was lucky enough to receive one of the first batch of cans directly from Coca Cola. I have to say, the aroma and color is pretty dang exact. It looks just like the original. I was afraid that the color was going to be off, but it was perfect. But how does it taste?
This is where the drink falls a little bit short. It’s really good and a very close approximation of Ecto Cooler, but the &Do Cooler has a slightly different consistency (it’s more syrupy and has some sediment mixed in that was noticeable) and overall it’s a bit too sweet. I wouldn’t go so fat to say that it’s cloying, but it would be hard for me to pound a can of the drink. It’s more of a sipping soft drink. That’s actually part of the danger of the original Ecto Cooler. The drink is so smooth that I could drink it like water. So for my health, maybe this &Do Cooler being a bit more intense is a good thing.
All said, I’d give this Ecto Cooler knock-off a solid 7 out of 10 Slimers. At $2 a can it’s a little pricey (though it’s still cheaper than most of the nostalgic or “healthy” sodas on the market now like Slice or Ollipop), but it can easily be a needed oasis in the desert that fans have been wading though for the last decade. Also, it has 100% of the daily dose of Vitamin C that we all need to avoid stuff like scurvy or the sniffles.
If you have an &Pizza near by and you miss Ecto Cooler, be sure to hit them up for some liquid nostalgia before this offering moves on to the giant Containment Unit in the sky. I have a feeling that this will go fast and be gone before the end of summer…
