now THIS is science 🧪

McDonald’s sprite is laced with a tiny amount of ice cream, the true reason it’s always broken.

To be 100 percent, you'd have to test at the McDonald's with a fresh sprite pour. The travel time, ice melt and temperature difference will definitely make a difference when doing the testing. Very thorough and great content as always!! Cheers.

I'm a bit surprised they didn't do a blind taste test. Usually when they are comparing flavors like this they do

I love how they made an emphasis on using individual straws and Matt made a point of licking the bottom of his straw every time

Matpat will never run out of strange ideas

You should have tried the canned and bottled versions with ice to see if that would make a difference or if it was the same as with the McDonald's Sprite.

Could also be how thirsty salt from the fries makes you and how MCDONALD'S sprite is "Watered" down since we tend to drink more water when thirsty so a bigger straw compliments this by allowing bigger drinking amount per sip to sooth the thirst.

I like how they used seperate straws for the taste test. But proceeded to lick the bottom of the straws and then stick them in the drinks lol.

I think they should have done this in the car immediately after getting the sprite, and also done a blind taste test like they have in past videos

We gotta appreciate how the theorist team is like a family where they even share stuff (drinks, sometimes food) 😂

I think another big part of it is the fact that in all the other Sprites, you’re typically drinking it mouth to container contact, where as with the cup you will almost always be using a straw.

I like how they're each using their own straws but MatPat is licking off his straw everytime

I can totally see Matpat dipping french fries into Sprite

If MatPart is doing McDonalds Sprite, he should do why Movie Theater Pepsi hits so different.

6:30 I can relate to this part so much because the thermodynamics chapter is being taught in my class.

My question is how long was that sprite from McDonald’s sitting before you taste tested it? In that time it would’ve became more flat tasting and the ice would’ve melted, completely changing the flavor from right when you get it.

If they do an episode revisiting old theories, I'd like them to come back to this one. The fact they let the McDonald's Sprite get watered down and settle, while everything else was opened fresh, I think could explain how the McDonald's Sprite is seemingly walking out of this with an inverse appearance to what was originally proposed

12:06 she got a very big heart

17:07 oh Matthew Patrick, we saw the cut, we know u used the can opener of DEFEAT MWAHAHAHDDJSKH

Rachel is hilarious!

I wish this had also been a blind taste test. Plus fresher sprite, or at least an explanation of “we just got this from the McDonald’s 5 minutes away”

That Sokka scene added to the end there gets me every time I see it 😂

you could test the syrup density at McDonalds with a hydrometer (measure the specific density of sprite at several McDonalds, and compare to gas stations)

My only gripe with this taste test is you compared a fountain soda to 3 sodas that had to be sealed shipped and sat on a shelf. I think a more fair comparison would’ve included other restaurants’ fountain sprites so you could see what makes McDonald’s stick out among other fast food places

I love how your both using different straws trying not to share your germs, yet you keep licking the tips and sides that are being put into the shared beverages lmao.

I didn’t even know there was internet stuff about this- I was just like “hmmm… this tastes really good” then went on with eating my medium fry

As a worker for mcdonalds I can tell you at least 1. no we do not get it in metal containers, we get it in plastic bags in cardboard boxes, call'em bibs. 2. it is not more carbonated than any other drink we serve, they all run through the same amount of carbonation ((they are actually carbonated when it hits your cup, not before.)) 3. Idk how to really debunk or support this, it's kinda an opinion. The salt on the fries would enhance *any* of our fountain drinks.

I'm convinced that matt is an employee in every single restaurant and is just leaking the secrets.

Well all miss you mattpat!

I applaud your dedication to your theories you are a gifted genius

You should’ve compared McDonald’s sprite with sprite from other fast food restaurants. Fountain drinks in general taste way different from their bottled and canned counterparts.

I love how they make a point to have separate straws and Matt makes a point to lick the bottom of his straw each time XD

They should just bring back the beef tallow. It's been debunked that it was "unhealthy" and actually it's way healthier giving the amount of processing vegetable oil has and that it is actually oxidative fats (polyunsaturated) which are actually plain toxic.

I love this video so much I’ve watched it hundreds of times! 🤣

the fact that matpat can make us watch a 25 minute video about how sprite tastes different from mcdonalds is truly amazing

I love how the ending changed from “bon appétit” to “bottoms up” because it’s a drink based episode! They really love their small details over at the theorists, don’t they 😂❤

I saw that stray change when you were tasting it with your college, the straw changed from yellow to red at the 19:28. It was so seamless, astonishing 😮

I love Rachel!!! she needs to be a guest more often

I wonder if having the Sprite tasted a long time after it was exposed to air affected the amount of carbonation while the other three were freshly opened.

The McDonald's cup was flatter because it had been out in the open air since you purchased it, right? The other three containers were opened on camera.

In my experience (ex McDonald’s manager) the coke doesn’t actually get delivered in those big tanks, those are just our carbonation tanks, coke is delivered in plastic bags just as the rest

Matt, you did not take into account the variable of driving with the sprite. The other drinks are sealed so the carbonation level doesn't change until you open it. Whereas the McDonald's spray is losing carbonation as you drive over time

The way Matpat licked the end of the straw after every sip haunted me

Watching Rachel pop open that sprite with her teeth gives me the impression she's the type to key beer cans and chug them for some reason

I just love the reference in the thumbnail to that one Renaissance painting.

these videos are so detailed ive gone down a rabbit hole of watching them all haha! just wanted to say for any non-Americans watching, the maccies fries in the UK and Europe (possibly other areas too) are vegan friendly 😁

Wish you guys could have tried the sprite AT the mcdonalds. you went into detail about how it's the chill factor that makes the mcdonalds sprite so 'spicy' but the sprite would have watered down, lost carbination and lost a lot of temperature

i like how matpat puts other coworkers into his videos its nice to see a different option and goes to show you he has a great team

I think the chillness makes more sense, given that when u try out a normal can of soda at different levels of coldness, they seems to vary in taste

Small straws need a higher vacuum to pull the same volumetric flow rate through it. In fact, the flow rate scales with D^4! Big straws need less vacuum to put the soda in your mouth that causes less of the dissolved carbonation to escape while going up the straw.

Matpat is the only person I would listen to who would ramble on and on about things like tax law. Edit : thanks for 875 likes!

Glad to see that my boy Jordan, Leader of The Fast Food Secrets Club got a small shoutout here. I think him and Mat could fully expose all the fast food secrets if they worked together

The “Bliss Point” made me think of frequent times I go get a couple apple pies, a Lrg Fry and and a Sprite. I was caught in their loop

I love that yall have different straws but lick the bottom that you put back into the sprite containers if it was for cleaniness then I don’t think you hit the the nail on the head😂 but I do love you film theories and it’s my first food theory video super stoked to be here!

I feel like this channel is a way for matt to write off his strange food habits as a work expense... 💀😂

Is it just me or is food theory going back to their editing roots? Either way, I’m lovin’ it.

In my country there's also a considerable flavour difference between the different formats in most juices but they will simple have less concentration in % between them and the worse is always the big plastic bottles which are mostly the ones with less %...

not all mcdonalds stores have the tanks for coke either, it depends on the volume of the store. some smaller locations with far less business will just use the boxes(or bib) but .ost places have the tank cause you don't have to worry about constantly changing out empties

I'd be curious to know how much time passed between dispensing the Sprite at McDonald's and when they actually tasted it. This probably played a significant role in the amount of carbonation they felt. All other products were sealed until Right before they tasted it whereas the fountain drink had been exposed to the air for some time. This would have allowed some of the carbonation to escape.

I would love a blind test using the can, bottle, McDonald’s, Wendy’s (or other fast food soda fountain)

I wonder if the temperature made any difference to the overall flavor; the McDonald's cup had ice, but the others didnt seem to be kept chilled throughout the taste test

i think its to do with carbonation hitting your mouth at a colder tempriture but liquid being slightly warmer and supressing your taste buds less. so its the illusion of more carbonation and suger. might be worth using menthol, mint or wintergreen in the water filtering to gain the illusion of being chillier water and crisper

As a former McDonald’s employee I can tell you for a fact that we receive soda syrup in boxes which contain bags, we then hook a bag up to a apparatus which sends the syrup through the system and adds carbonation to it, it then goes to the soda machine for customers and drive through.

Mat pat licking the straw every time he drank was so strange to me. bro licked it and put it back in every drink

I was in the Philippines during the summer and they don't have straws anymore at their McDonald's they have like a coffee cup lid instead but the sprite still taste better than the bottle variant 😂

15:54 "you ever do this?" (gets absolutely domed)

The fact that I just watched 2 people drink sprite for 10 minutes without realizing is crazy

Rachel is my new favorite addition to the theorist team, she seems like the most relatable and fun

Important fact to keep in mind whilte taste testing. The human brain and tongue can only clearly idetify 3-6 individual tastes in short periods of time. Afterwards those tastes start to blend and become hard to differentiate. Tgats why taste testers only get 2-4 foods to taste at a time before taking big breaks and doing things like brushing teeth. To reset their taste buds and taste brain parts.

WOW My Mind Is Blown You Do Some Amazing Work Here Food Theory

Time to absorb this information to randomly bring up in a family dinner to seem smart. Thank you for your service Matpat o7

The thing about the one with ice is that it changes flavor over time. When it first comes out of the fountain it has a strong punch of a flavor and carbonation. Presumably you take a sip of it before you open your burger and eat your fries. The cold allows for a higher level of bubbles too creating a really punchy first sip. There the key though. The cup is wide enough to allow the bubbles to escape quickly and the ice dilutes the flavor, so as time passes and a highly flavored drink wound grow overwhelming over time the taste actually becomes more mellow to become more palatable, just as the bubbles become less pronounced due to dispersion. I really think this combination could be key.

I worked at McDonald's and Sprite does come in plastic bags but the coke company sends out technicians about once a month and tweaks the syrup levels there's two little knobs behind the plastic cover and they have a measuring cup that splits the carbonated water and the syrup

You think with all the work they put into the soda filtration machines they would actually have their ice cream machines working too 😂

I do wonder if the time it took to get that McDonald’s sprite and set it up with the experiment let the sprite lose a lot of its carbonation. As someone who works at McDonald’s and drinks sprite there constantly, it’s definitely more intense right after being dispensed rather than after it’s sat for a bit. Not to mention, the other contenders all had the upper hand. They all were opened right there right before being tasted, while the McDonald’s sprite had definitely been sitting there for at _least_ ten minutes or longer.

I don't even like soda but that McDonald's Sprite hits so different it has to be an exception.

They're missing the one thing that had the biggest affect on the flavor of fountain drinks: Wax cups

As someone who works at the golden arches , yes our sprite like other soft drinks comes in a bag in a box.

It's definitely the heavy carbonation. Every drink I've had at McDonald's has been so carbonated that when I burp, it burns my nose. Heavy carbonation is my favorite though.

I will point out that all of the sprites were sealed except for the McDonald’s sprite, maybe making it flatter.

I love how Jordan made a cameo in this video

0:59 also my personal favorite, Mainly cuz I’m a DBZ fan and ssj2 is my second favorite transformation after super saiyan blue.

Since a lot of this boiled down to the wateriness, it would’ve been interesting to see a comparison with fountain Sprite from other restaurants rather than just off the shelf Sprite. It could be that McDonald’s isn’t special, but simply being a fountain drink makes it better.

As someone who worked at mcdonalds. I think it's the filtered water. We keep all the soda bags on the shelves at room temp and i think the sprite tastes better with the fries since its a bit watered down with the ice to counteract the salty. But the mconalds water was so refreshing, i miss it. And p.s. our ice cream machine would "break" because people would order too much ice cream at once so it didnt have enough time to freeze or we would run out of ice cream base.

love the science in the episode and it was super nice to have rachel join us!

-I love watching the reactions of the sprite drinkers in your video. Totally funny! -I worked at McDonald's for 7 years. Their sprite is very strong! I still prefer it to 7 Up. -I really liked Tropic Berry Sprite that was served for a while, a few years ago. It was more fruity than the regular, like somebody dropped an fruit flavored Tic Tac into it. -Customers have told me that McD's Coke is the best. One person said it was the way it was refrigerated during shipment, which is confirmed in this video. -The altered ratio does explain why the first sip is freaking strong! -I agree with the ketchup one 100%! My mother worked at Super 8 sometime during my 7 years at McD. I got so used to the ketchup at McD that the Super 8 version had no flavor being being tamoto based. McD's ketchup has spoiled me! It's vinegar and spice contain rocks! "Ancient day os the 1980s ..." I was born in 1980. Freaking hilarious! -The straws there are huge. I understand why, I just don't like it. -The McD sprite may be flatter because it got warmer and more watered down between the time it was made and sipped from. This includes the transport home, the set up on the table, the set up to the video, the intro, the discussions, then the sips. The fresher the better to prevent the warmth and dilution (more than normal) to change its flavor and effect. Because it is more diluted - hence different taste/feel, I believe the results were skewed. Perhaps if the others had been diluted, too ... -plus, I think that fresher fries would have helped. Fries tastes different after 10 minutes than they do in the first 3. Those fries were waiting a long time before they got touched for the test. -Canned sodas always taste different from bottled or fountain. I noticed that at a young age. -Rachel looks like Lily Collins. This is a compliment. Very beautiful!

Haven't had a Sprite in over a decade yet I'm sitting here watching MatPat go to town with it 😅

I think you should've tried all the Sprite at McDonalds so it wouldn't go flat on the drive.

Don't forget that you transported the sprite from the mc to the studio and it might have lost some carbonation and the ice melted more

I love watching this while drinking sprite

I feel bad for Rachel getting all that germs from Mat licking the bottom of his straw 😂

8:17 as someone who is a connoisseur of ketchup, I can conform that there is a difference between McDonald's ketchup and normal ketchup, a BIG difference.

you forgot to account for the time that the mcdonalds sprite vs the can and bottles have been unsealed or out from the machine its only watered down and less bubbly bc of the timeee

I'd never thought i'd learn so much to have the perfect drinking experience

Yeah, I never understood why everybody thought the sprite was spicy but then I remembered I don’t use ice in any of my drinks because it bothers my teeth 😂

Would’ve been interesting to include Sprite from another fast food chain (maybe Burger King or Wendy’s) in the taste test to see whether McDonald’s really is different, though I’m sure you would’ve reached the same conclusion

I used to be a beverage service technician rapairing and installing the soda machines/ice makers ect. for mcdonalds, tacobell ect. And can confirm the filters are extensive and have some of the cleanest filtered water available also when setting the syrup its actually a little difficult to get the ratio right with the measurement container as the syrup and water look almost identical I would always set the syrup higher just in case the syrup measurement was diluted with water i didnt see going into the container, this could've just been a me thing but I feel alot of technicians would've done this also just to be safe 😂 but 🤷‍♂️

i love mcdonalds sprite because it is watered down, but i try to get it without ice so it's a nice inbetween of normal bottled/can sprite and iced mcdonalds sprite :)

Rachel is so such a mood. Opening things with my teeth is a weekly acurance for me.