Tanya Iwalani José’s first time drinking POG — the juice made of passion fruit, orange and guava that is widely beloved in Hawai‘i — was on a Hawaiian Airlines flight. Growing up in the Seattle metropolitan area, José remembers it as a rare treat.
“Funny story: I was not raised on POG here,” she told HPR. “And I think it’s because my parents could never find it.”
Following in her footsteps, José’s three daughters also tried the sweet beverage on the airplane to Hawai‘i. But as it’s gained popularity outside of the islands in recent years, POG is much easier to find in the continental U.S. and beyond.
Like lei and Spam musubi, the tropical juice counts as another Hawaiʻi export sweeping the nation.
“Every time I see it, I point at it, and I go, ‘Oh, wow!’” said José, a resident of Federal Way, Washington. “It’s all the rage.”
POG-flavored cider chills in many grocery store refrigerators on the West Coast and in other parts of the continental U.S. Trader Joe’s started selling cans of POG in May — even though they have no stores in Hawaiʻi.
“Our buyers travel the world looking for products they think our customers will enjoy,” Trader Joe’s spokesperson Nakia Rohde said in a statement, adding that the juice is produced for the retailer by a supplier in Vietnam.
Today, POG is used as a cocktail enhancer, a seltzer flavor, and a standout ingredient for hip bartenders and baristas across the U.S. and sometimes even in international locales.
“It drinks like sunshine and mixes like a dream,” Reformation Craft Spirits, a Georgia brewery and distillery, wrote in a description of its POG Liqueur.
The juicy history
But let’s not forget that the juice is steeped in decades of Hawaiian history. The inventor of POG is pegged as Haleakalā Dairy in 1971. The company was purchased by Meadow Gold in 1999. Hawai‘i Island dairyman Bahman Sadeghi most recently acquired Meadow Gold in 2020.
Established in 1897, the food and beverage company still reliably churns out POG for major brands, including Safeway, Walmart, Target, Sam’s Club and Longs Drugs, per its website. Meadow Gold touts that its juice can even be delivered by the case in 12-ounce plastic bottles from Amazon.
“I had never had this stuff before,” one customer from the continental U.S. wrote in an online review. “Dang, it’s good.”
Hawaiian Airlines has also introduced many to POG. Starting in the 1970s, the airline served the sweet drink in cartons before switching in 2001 to cuplets by Island Maid.
“Today’s travel agent: Our beloved POG juice,” the airline wrote in a social media post earlier this year.
POG spreads
The verdict is clear: The world wants POG. The trend has spread as far as Okinawa, a prefecture of Japan.
Minami and Kokoro Yamashita are siblings who own Suntan Sisters, a fruit ice cream truck, in Chatan. Their menu features a passion fruit, orange and guava juice blend to wash down the frozen treats.
“We love it a lot,” Minami said to HPR. She and Kokoro first tried POG on a trip to O‘ahu. They recreated it for their patrons after their business opened in the seaside town last year.
It’s a popular order. While they’ve introduced many from Japan and beyond to the beverage, “Americans already know,” Minami said.
Stateside, Eddie Felan was the mastermind behind No Preference Coffee’s POG matcha in Portland, Oregon.
Felan recalled his boss encouraging him and his coworkers to curate new ideas for the coffee shop. Felan, who was born in Honolulu, thought back to his childhood indulgences. POG ranked alongside loco moco as favorites.
“I want to spread that same joy to everyone else,” he said.
Sourcing ingredients
Last year, Felan made the decision to create a POG syrup. However, sourcing ingredients in the Pacific Northwest proved to be no small feat.
“That was the hardest part about trying to make this drink possible,” Felan said.
On the hunt for guava, his research took him to several local groceries, striking out each time. Notably, guava is not native to Hawai‘i but to Latin America. Finally, he came across a small Asian market that stocked white guavas.
Though he made a sauce out of the fruit, “it just didn’t really land,” Felan said. “The flavor wasn’t as bright and vibrant as I was hoping it to be.”
His dream was almost dashed until he found a guava puree sold by a fruit distributor.
From there, oranges were an easy find. To avoid a wild goose chase for passion fruit, also known as lilikoi in Hawaiʻi, Felan tweaked the traditional POG recipe, replacing it with pineapple.
“The design of the drink was a little convoluted but in a good way,” he said.
Felan didn’t want to mask the taste of matcha with POG. Instead, he wanted its savory, nutty notes to balance out with the tropical flavors. So he made an oleo saccharum out of pineapple and orange, relying on sugar to naturally pull the flavor from the fruit by letting it soak overnight and turn into a syrup. Then, Felan cooked it with the guava puree.
The POG matcha turned into a crowd-pleaser.
While Felan no longer works at No Preference, the coffee shop continues to use his recipe — with his blessing.
He believes the appetite for POG continues to swell.
“It’s always fun to even see it here,” Felan said.
