Sonic's New Hotumn Dirty Sodas Are Lukewarm At Best

August sure is a strange time of the year. While some people and restaurants are still clinging to the coattails of summer, others are already in full fall mode. Seriously, the Halloween decorations and onslaught of pumpkins seem to come earlier and earlier each year. Usually, there's no middle ground when it comes to this transition. But Sonic may have just found a way to bridge the seasonal divide.

Enter "Hotumn". This is the theme of the drive-in chain's new collection of beverages. Fitting in with the ongoing trend, most are dirty sodas, along with one flavored tea. All are designed to mimic fall flavors but with a refreshing twist to combat the late summer heat. The season-straddling lineup includes Cherry Pie made with Coke, Blueberry Pie made with Dr Pepper, Harvest Berry made with Sprite, and a Cranberry Orchard sweet tea. To me, the entire collection sounds like a trip to grandma's house on a crisp day. I also love the commitment to fruity flavors rather than diving headfirst into pumpkin, maple, and all those warm spices we'll be inundated with soon enough.

On paper, it sounds like the perfect compromise for summer lovers and fall fanatics. But I tried all four Hotumn creations to find out whether they actually deliver the best of both seasons — or leave the troops even more divided.

Despite my usual self-imposed policy not to eat, drink, or buy anything fall-related until at least the first day of September, I picked up these four Hotumn drinks the day they came out on August 24 (you might argue that it's close enough to September, but it's the principle of the thing). I ordered them all through the app and just got a small size of each for sampling.

You can customize your beverage by requesting "easy" or "extra" amounts of the included flavorings. Of course, other add-ins are also an option (this is Sonic, after all). But I chose not to tamper with the Hotumn recipes.

Once at home, the sipping began. I gave each drink a solid stir and a few sips before making my judgments. I first considered how well each one captured the flavor it was trying to imitate. Does Cherry Pie actually taste like cherry pie? You get the idea. From there, I looked for a nice balance between the fruity flavorings and the soda or tea at the base. I also considered sweetness, consistency, and how well each drink fits into this creative summer-meets-fall concept.

There's nothing particularly special about infusing a Coke with cherry flavors. The Coca-Cola Company has been doing it since 1985. But Sonic does take this bevy a bit further. It also layers in vanilla flavoring, sweet cream, and finishes it off with a cherry on top, though mine sank to the bottom.

With all these mix-ins, what you get is something very similar to Coca-Cola Cherry Float — a special feature that debuted early in 2026. That trademark Coke taste is obvious, even though the color is much lighter than I expected, and you also get some brighter pops of cherry along with warm notes of vanilla. Probably my favorite part about it, though, is the thicker, almost creamy consistency –- no doubt thanks to the sweet cream. This is the ingredient that makes it a true dirty soda and also what differentiates it from any kind of fizzy beverage you'd find in a bottle or can.

The only thing I'm hung up on is the name. I think it's a bit of a stretch to say this truly tastes like cherry pie. Without some kind of crust-adjacent component or baked flavor, I just don't see it. Cherry à la mode? Maybe. Tart cherry pie? Not quite.

The Hotumn Blueberry Pie drink is built much like its Cherry Pie counterpart. However, it trades out Coke for a more complex pour of Dr Pepper and cherry flavoring for blueberry puree. The vanilla flavoring and shot of sweet cream remain constant.

I like it. But I think a lot of my fondness has to do with the fact that I just naturally like Dr Pepper anyway. The 23 flavors of the soda are the main attraction here. The vanilla syrup and sweet cream bring out the natural vanilla notes already baked into Dr Pepper, and it's all made just a little bit better by the richer mouthfeel. It makes the whole thing feel more like a float with ice cream than a straight-up soda.

Once again, though, the resemblance to an actual pie is pretty weak. Actually, the blueberry flavor is all but missing. I thought using a puree rather than a syrup would make the fruit taste more authentic and pronounced, but it was hard to taste the berries at all. I really only noticed them in the aftertaste, when I was left with the lingering sensation that I had just swallowed some kind of blueberry candy.

The Harvest Berry beverage yields the strongest flavors yet. Built around the lemon-lime taste of Sprite, it blends cranberry flavor, vanilla flavor, and wildberry puree into what's essentially a fruit basket in a cup.

Unlike the last two offerings, which lead with their respective sodas, here the berries are first to hit your taste buds. It tastes mostly like a blend of strawberry and raspberry, and I liked that the puree contained little raspberry seeds, making it feel like real fruit was actually used in the making. It's definitely sweet overall but not terribly syrupy, and those vibrant berry flavors are somewhat tempered by the vanilla. The tart, autumnal taste of cranberry, on the other hand, gets lost underneath everything else.

As for the Sprite, its main contribution is its full-force bubbles. They give the drink some extra life and a refreshing edge, even in the absence of its citrus punch. But still, I couldn't help but think this particularly fruity combination would have been better as a classic Sonic Slush.

The Cranberry Orchard Sweet Tea masquerades as the simplest Hotumn drink of the bunch. It sounds like a straightforward sweet iced tea infused with cranberry flavoring. But Sonic sneakily slips in another ingredient you'd never expect, given the name: peach puree. Perhaps the "Orchard" part of the title was meant to be our clue. Cranberry and peach isn't a combination I would have concocted myself. But it is a pretty genius way to marry summer to fall, with juicy peach representing the warm months and cranberry the cool. Whether or not it's actually a good marriage, though, is an entirely different question.

For me, the flavor was all peach tea. It tasted just like one of those Pure Leaf bottled teas with some peach notes filtered in. I didn't get cranberry at all, which was odd, considering the item's name. On top of that, the sweet tea wasn't overly sweet — more earthy than sugary. Knowing it contained peach puree, I was also expecting larger bits of fruit floating around, like what was found in the Harvest Berry drink or what comes in a Chick-fil-A peach milkshake. But there were none. Given the setting, this was probably for the best, though I couldn't help but feel disappointed.

Overall, it's okay for a light, refreshing sip. But it didn't hit all the marks I was hoping for.

I'm not getting those warm and fuzzy fall feelings from Sonic's Hotumn lineup. I'd say they lean decidedly more summer, but orange-washed with autumn names and imagery to fool you.

By itself, that isn't necessarily a bad thing. I'm more than happy to slide into fall on a waterslide of bright, fruity flavors. But the larger letdown is that there isn't anything particularly new or exciting going on here. Most of the flavor combinations mimic things we've tasted before. Coke with cherry and Sprite with berries are nothing revolutionary. And the combinations that should have stood out — like blueberry with Dr Pepper and cranberry with peach — didn't pop quite like I expected them to. If I had to pick favorites, I'd go with the two Pie drinks. Not because either one tastes particularly like pie, but because they lean into that creamy soda quality that's hard to resist.

At the end of the day, every Hotumn drink tasted a little too much like something I've had before and not enough like a true segue into the cozy months of autumn. Maybe summer and fall are simply two seasons best enjoyed separately.

All four Hotumn drinks officially launched on August 24, available on the Sonic app and in-person at participating locations nationwide. And to usher in this new in-between era, the chain recruited Caitlin Covington, one of social media's most famous fall fanatics. She gave the lineup her plaid stamp of approval and helped introduce this strange new season to the masses.

Sonic hasn't released an official end date for the promotion, but unsurprisingly, the seasonal drinks will only be around for a limited time — presumably until another wave of true autumn flavors blows into town. In the meantime, all four beverages can be purchased in the following sizes: mini, small, medium, large, or RT 44 (aka Sonic's Route 44 mega cup). The prices are also consistent across all four drinks. At my local Sonic, they cost $1.99 for a mini, $3.29 for a small, $3.79 for a medium, $4.19 for a large, and $4.59 for an RT 44.