A Search for the Flavor of a Beloved Childhood Medicine

Until about middle school, I got an annual ear infection, as well as a bout of strep throat about once every two years. For these ailments, I would inevitably be prescribed what was referred to in my home as “the pink stuff.” It was the antibiotic amoxicillin, in its pediatric liquid form, and it was a bright, chemical pink. It was delicious.

My recurrent infections may have given me more experience with amoxicillin than the average child, but the flavor was beloved enough that the internet nostalgia factory has picked up on it. A subreddit dedicated to nostalgia has a couple posts about it, one with more than 13,000 likes. There are rhapsodic tweets, and pins on Pinterest, and the pink stuff even made a cameo on a BuzzFeed list of ’90s childhood memorabilia. (Although amoxicillin has been on the market since 1972.)

What does it taste like, to inspire such devotion and meme-ing? That’s harder to answer than it seems like it should be. The flavor is often described as bubble gum, but that’s not how I remember it. I remember something fruitier, an artificial strawberry-adjacent taste.