Sunset Sarsaparilla is a root-beer-type carbonated beverage found around New Vegas. With its easy availability and low cost, it is an excellent consumable that provides a high health regeneration effect, while also lacking the radiation present in other drinks. Thanks to these factors, it supplements the somewhat-scarce stimpaks as a primary healing item in the Mojave.
The Sunset Sarsaparilla Company was founded in 1918, since becoming known across the former United States for its sarsaparilla flavored soft drink.[2][3] By 2077, the soda's popularly had spread nationwide and into Canada, despite competition from Nuka-Cola Corporation's Nuka-Cola Wild, an attempt to replicate the soda's flavor and success.[4][5]
Despite the widespread success of the drink, a study was conducted that claimed the soda was hazardous to consumers' health. Broadcast on television, the study showed that consuming large quantities of the product resulted in a wide range of harmful side effects, including kidney damage, nausea, digital numbness, anxiety, loss of visual acuity, dizziness, occasional nosebleeds, joint inflammation, tooth decay, sore throat, bronchitis, organ rupture, and halitosis. Sunset Sarsaparilla disputed the claims as unverified but took steps to improve its PR after the story aired in attempt to mitigate any further financial loss. Such as the case with the creation of Festus, a robotic kiosk made in the image of a "hard of hearing" old-westerner.[6]
After the war, Sunset Sarsaparilla can still be found in New Vegas and surrounding region. Some specially marked bottles of Sunset Sarsaparilla do have a special blue starred cap and loose blue caps are found scattered around several desert locations.