Saturday, July 17, 2021

The Definitive Sparkling Ice Rankings

Note: This is NOT paid content for Sparkling Ice

Previously, I wrote a post definitively determining the number 1 Spindrift flavor to be Lime. I have this same data available for Sparkling Ice flavors, which can be found at places like Wal Mart and Publix, and aim to calculate an explicitly scientific rating like I did for Spindrift.

Compiling the ratings of 4 different people, I've calculated a robust, indisputable ranking of all flavors.

Everyone was asked to rate each flavor on a scale of 1-10, with 10 being the highest, and 5 being the average, and the average ratings result in the following expansive ranking set, including Classic flavors, the Caffeine flavors, and even limited edition flavors:

OrdinalRankCardinalRankItemBrandNotes
19.1Triple CitrusIce Caffiene
19.1Black CherryIce
38.3LemonadeIce
48.1Strawberry LemonadeIce
48.1Cherry LimeadeIce
68.0Blue RaspberryIce Caffiene
77.9Lemon LimeIce
87.6Black RaspberryIce
97.1Pink GrapefruitIce
107.0Black RaspberryIce Caffiene
116.9Pomegrante BlueberryIce
126.8Kiwi StrawberryIce
136.6Strawberry CitrusIce Caffiene
136.6MandarinIce
156.5Coconut PineappleIce
165.6Orange Passion FruitIce Caffiene
175.5Fruit PunchIce
185.3Cranberry FrostIceLimited Edition
195.1Grape RaspberryIce
204.0Coconut LimeadeIce
213.8Ginger LimeIce
223.3Orange MangoIce
233.1Peach NectarineIce
243.0Mystery - PassionIceLimited Edition
251.0Crisp AppleIce

Once again though, we need to go a step further - human bias definitely exists in this cardinal rating. My ratings don't have a mean, median, OR mode of 5. And with the median higher than the mean, my ratings are very negatively-skewed:

*Scale relative to all ICES, out of 10CountMeanMedianMode
MS256.226.58

As I did with Spindrift to adjust for this, former guest poster Jason Laso used the technique of calculating each individual's percentile on each rating, which normalizes each person's rating set to be from 0 to 10 and centered around 5.

Doing this on all ratings provides a better assessment over all preferences, and gives a definitive ranking of:

OrdinalRankAdjustRatingItemBrandNotes
19.5Triple CitrusIce Caffiene
19.5Black CherryIce
37.9Strawberry LemonadeIce
47.8Cherry LimeadeIce
57.6LemonadeIce
67.6Blue RaspberryIce Caffiene
77.3Lemon LimeIce
86.9Black RaspberryIce
95.9Pink GrapefruitIce
105.8Black RaspberryIce Caffiene
115.5Pomegrante BlueberryIce
125.3Kiwi StrawberryIce
135.1Coconut PineappleIce
145.0MandarinIce
154.7Strawberry CitrusIce Caffiene
163.0Orange Passion FruitIce Caffiene
172.8Fruit PunchIce
172.8Grape RaspberryIce
192.6Cranberry FrostIceLimited Edition
201.8Coconut LimeadeIce
211.4Ginger LimeIce
221.3Orange MangoIce
231.0Peach NectarineIce
240.8Mystery - PassionIceLimited Edition
250.0Crisp AppleIce

There's a tie at the top! Triple Citrus (Caffeine) and Black Cherry. Since it's one of the OGs, we'll give the tiebreaker to Black Cherry, with the exact same 4 scores - 10, 9.6, 9.6, and 8.8.


However, if we look at the data further, we come to a far more important, concrete conclusion - Crisp Apple is definitively the worst flavor ever created. A perfect straight 0 score - every single entrant's worst flavor.

Congrats to Crisp Apple, a flavor that doesn't even appear on their web site any more!!