Tag: Mountain Dew

What is it?

Mtn Dew Berry Monsoon is quite possibly the most exclusive soda in stores right now!

Oh, wait, I mean store.

That’s right because it’s available only at Sam’s Club — and, even then, only at the soda fountain. Luckily for me, I happen to be a member of The Club, so I grabbed a cup of this ultra-exclusive, berry lime-flavored soda during my last Sam’s run.

How is it?

Coming from someone that drinks enough Mtn Dew to have a lucrative Dew Nation Rewards account, pretty good! The berry flavor is definitely more prominent here, but the hint of lime provides a nice countenance for the fizz, which is a bit on the lighter side.

If you can imagine mixing together three-fourths of a cup of Mountain Berry Blast Powerade with one-fourth of a cup of 7Up, then you would get a pretty accurate representation of what Mtn Dew Berry Monsoon tastes like. You’d even replicate the color, which is nearly identical to that of Berry Powerade.

Is there anything else I need to know?

This stuff is a great deal if you have a Sam’s Club membership, or if you know someone with one that you’re able to drag along with you to get you in the door. I paid less than a dollar for my 24-ounce cup, and, yes, you can get refills. You’re probably going to want to because Berry Monsoon’s likeness to carbonated Powerade makes it particularly satisfying after shopping and hauling cases of chips and toilet paper around the store.

Conclusion:

If you shop at Sam’s Club, like Mountain Dew, and are looking for something a little lighter to quench your thirst over the summer, then I think that Mtn Dew Berry Monsoon is something you’ll enjoy! Hopefully, PepsiCo will incorporate this flavor into its regular selection, because I’ll be sad to see this one go.

Purchased Price: 89 cents
Size: 24 oz.
Purchased at: Sam’s Club
Rating: 7 out of 10
Nutrition Facts: (8 fl oz.) 60 calories, 0 grams of fat, 0 calories from fat, 35 milligrams of sodium, 16 grams of total carbohydrates, 16 grams of sugar, 0 grams of dietary fiber, and 0 grams of protein.

Mtn Dew Kickstart Energizing Original Dew is giving us a possible taste of the future…

…a dystopian future.

Oh, wait. I mean DEWstopian DEWture.

Over the past year or so, PepsiCo has made an effort to lower the amount of sugar in its beverages. In the Mtn Dew Universe, we’ve seen the advancement of this plan with most of the new flavors, like Ice and Game Fuel.

Instead of using only high fructose corn syrup (HFCS), they contain a cocktail of HFCS, sucralose, and acesulfame potassium. This has resulted in:

1. Lower sugar amounts that are around half of previous Mtn Dew flavors.
2. A flood angry tweets, Reddit comments, and Facebook posts from Dew fans chastising the change.

The original flavors have been immune to this, and, I believe, it’s been stated they will never change. But I feel as if the new Kickstart Energizing Original Dew is the toe being dipped into the radioactive green pool sweetened with HFCS, sucralose, and acesulfame potassium to find out if original Mtn Dew COULD change. Because this Kickstart flavor, which has that trio of sweeteners, is what I imagine the original would taste like if it’s reformulated to lower its sugar content.

From what I’ve experienced with those Dew flavors that have been cursed with the saccharine salmagundi, they’ve all tasted, for a lack of a better word, diet-y. And after taking my first sip of this, I thought someone secretly replaced what should’ve been in the can with a flat store brand version of Diet Mtn Dew. But it’s not quite like a diet soda since it has 20 grams of sugar per can. It looks and tastes as if it’s in the Dew family, but like a second cousin or something.

But while Kickstart Energizing Original Dew tastes like a diet knockoff, so does the Kickstart ULTRA version, a beverage with less than one gram of sugar per can. It’s able to accomplish this by swapping the HFCS with coconut water. This makes it taste a bit more diet-y than the regular one. It also makes it easier to drink. Actually, both are smoother than original and diet Dew.

Overall, I like both of these new Kickstart varieties, but I enjoy them as much as most of the others in the line. So they didn’t stand out, even though they’re based on the original.

I find them to be more palatable than regular Diet Mtn Dew and I like that they have a little bit more caffeine per ounce than the original soda. So if this is the future of original Mtn Dew, I’d be okay with it.

(Nutrition Facts – 1 can – Kickstart – 80 calories, 0 grams of fat, 170 milligrams of sodium, 21 grams of carbohydrates, 20 grams of sugar, 0 grams of protein and 90 milligrams of caffeine. Kickstart Ultra – 5 calories, 0 grams of fat, 180 milligrams of sodium, 1 gram of carbs, less than 1 gram of sugar, 0 grams of protein, and 90 milligrams of caffeine.)

Purchased Price: $1.89 each
Size: 16 fl. oz. can
Purchased at: 7-Eleven
Rating: 6 out of 10 (Kickstart)
Rating: 6 out of 10 (Kickstart Ultra)
Pros: Less sugar than regular Mtn Dew. Better tasting than Diet Mtn Dew. Kickstart Ultra is a better name for Kickstart varieties with coconut water than Hydrating Boost.
Cons: Won’t be enjoyed by those who don’t like PepsiCo’s efforts to put less sugar in Mtn Dew. Tastes like what I imagine original Mtn Dew would taste like if PepsiCo tried to lower its sugar content. The DEWstopian DEWture

The whole “translucent soda” thing isn’t exactly the freshest idea. Nor is it exactly a novel turn for the Mountain Dew brand, which already went clear in 2015 with the limited time only DEWShine. Which, by the way, is still being sold in convenience stores down here in Atlanta, despite the product allegedly being discontinued over a year ago.

Alas, this newfangled Mtn Dew Ice isn’t exactly the same old same old. It’s an all-new Mountain Dew variation that boasts of a lemon-lime flavor and (direct quote, right off the label) “a splash of real juice.” Or, as the ingredients list puts it, “clarified lemon juice concentrate,” which I suppose is accurate enough to keep the F.D.A. off their heels.

So obviously, Mtn Dew Ice is an attempt to cut into Sprite’s customer base (apparently, Mist Twist hasn’t been up to the task). And at first taste, I’m not sure how to describe the product. After a couple of preliminary swigs, I reckoned the stuff tasted like regular Dew, albeit a little thinner and slightly less sugary. By the time I got halfway through the bottle, though, I started to pick up that advertised “lemon-lime flavor” – which, yes, is pretty much a dead ringer for the aforementioned Mist Twist.

What we’ve ended up with is a beverage with a serious identity crisis. It’s probably a bit of a stretch to say Mtn Dew Ice is basically the merger of Mountain Dew with Mist Twist, but it’s still close enough to get the gustatory point across. Instead of giving us a more Sprite-like Mountain Dew variation, Pepsi has bestowed upon us a beverage that tastes like it’s a 50/50 split between the two.

Even weirder, it’s like the two dueling tastes refuse to gel with one another. Sometimes when I take a sip, there’s a more pronounced Mountain Dew vibe and with others I swear I took a gulp of Sprite.

There’s been some caustic feedback about the product’s artificial sweeteners, but to be honest I didn’t notice anything out of the norm. While, again, it does taste slightly less sweet than normal Mountain Dew, it’s significantly sweeter than Sprite. So if that’s a turnoff for you, don’t say you weren’t warned.

Aesthetically, there isn’t much to look at – you know, because the soda itself is the same color as Crystal Pepsi, Tab Clear, and any of the Zevia cola offerings. The packaging isn’t all that impressive either – a light green palette with a few swatches of black and yellow here and there. But the canned iteration of the drink looks a bit snazzier.

While fairly predictable (if not flat-out boring) in taste and presentation, Mtn Dew Ice is a good (but not great) soft drink. Outside of the whole “it’s a caffeinated version of Sprite” hook, I’m afraid there isn’t much worth going out of your way to experience here.

(Nutrition Facts – 20 ounces – 160 calories, 0 grams of total fat, 90 milligrams of sodium, 41 grams of total carbohydrates, 41 grams of sugar, 0 grams of protein.)

Purchased Price: $1.49
Size: 20 oz. bottle
Purchased at: Kroger
Rating: 6 out of 10
Pros: It’s a decent citrus-flavored cola with an all right caffeine kick. The hybrid Mountain Dew/Mist Twist taste is definitely intriguing. I guess it won’t stain the carpet as badly if you spill it?
Cons: The competing flavors never really come together all that harmoniously. The packaging is lame. Wondering if Pepsi meant for it to subconsciously remind consumers of Smirnoff Ice or if it’s just me?

I, for one, hope this holiday-themed Dew trend continues. Hot on the heels of the oh-so-patriotic DEW.S.A. from earlier this summer, PepsiCo’s now hoisting Mountain Dew Holiday Brew on us, which could be the tip of the iceberg.

Why not release a special Dew variation for President’s Day called Grape-raham Lincoln? Or a special edition Mountain Dew Rosh Hashanah Raspberry while they’re at it? (I can see the tagline already – “you’ll want to Yom Kippur another one.”)

While we’re probably a few years away from that Thanksgiving tie-in Pecan Pie Mountain Dew or a special Saint Paddy’s brew (might I suggest the namesake Dew-U-I?), we can all take solace in the fact this year’s Christmas/Chanukah/Kwanzaa/New Year’s/Wright Brothers Day-themed beverage ain’t too shabby.

As the product name and hue would lead you to believe, this special edition Holiday Brew is apparently one half Mountain Dew Code Red and one half regular old Dew. The beverage looks a little pinker than Code Red, though, and it doesn’t smell that much like either variation of Mountain Dew (I personally got a pureed cake batter vibe from mine, but your olfactory glands may detect something else.)

But taste-wise is where things get very interesting. As soon as the beverage hits your tongue, the taste is unmistakable – this stuff is Code Red Mountain Dew, straight up, with no additional flavorings. BUT when the aftertaste hits you, WHAM! It’s unmistakably the traditional green Dew flavor we’ve been slurping on forever. So we’ve got this downright bizarre mouthfeel thing going on where every five seconds or so, the flavor of the beverage shifts from Code Red to traditional Dew.

I can’t recall ever tasting a soda that did that, not even the aforementioned DEW.S.A. Whereas that tri-branded brew created a new synthesized flavor, the divergent flavors of Holiday Brew are pretty much locked in gustatory mortal combat – and that one-of-a-kind sensation might be worth purchasing the newfangled soda all by its lonesome.

Of course, if you never cared for either permutations of Dew in the past, I guess the prospects of Code Red Dew and normal Dew having a liquid kung fu fight on your tongue probably won’t convert you as a consumer.

I can’t say that Dew and Code Red Dew combined results in a better product than either as stand-alone beverages, but as far as Franken-sodas go, it’s still quite flavorful. That, and it opens the floodgates for even wackier novelty sodas in the future. Come on, Pepsi – you know you want to combine Pitch Black and LiveWire as All Hallow’s Eve Dew. You just KNOW you do. Or is that dew?

(Nutrition Facts – 20 ounces – 290 calories, 0 grams of fat, 110 milligrams of sodium, 77 grams of total carbohydrates, 77 grams of sugar, and 0 grams of protein.)

Purchased Price: $1.49
Size: 20 oz. bottle
Purchased at: Circle K
Rating: 7 out of 10
Pros: The alternating citrus/cherry flavor is unlike anything you’ve probably tried before. It’s a very thick and filling beverage. The packaging is festive.
Cons: It really doesn’t taste any better than Code Red or regular Dew. The cross-pollinated flavors aren’t as harmonious as DEW.S.A. Wondering which two brands Pepsi’s going to merge together for the inevitable Bastille Day Berry.