QUICK REVIEW: Mtn Dew Ice Cherry

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Mtn Dew Ice Cherry

What is Mtn Dew Ice Cherry?

The latest concoction from Mountain Dew’s burgeoning “Ice” line, Ice Cherry takes everything you love about cherry soda, mixes it with a little of that Mountain Dew magic and then turns up the ice, I suppose. Oh, and it’s clear too, which is a bit weird. Kinda makes you wonder what its larger gameplan is with all this Ice stuff, doesn’t it?

How is it?

Like a cherry Laffy Taffy that’s been your pocket for way too long or an illegal helping of pure ICEE white cherry syrup, Mtn Dew Ice Cherry tastes like a bottle full of melted fake cherries. But that’s not a bad thing, just something you have to take in small doses due to its incredible sweetness.

Mtn Dew Ice Cherry 2

With its strong cherry flavor and light carbonation, it might remind some of cherry-flavored Alka-Seltzer. Those people, like me, who’ve been known to drop about five or six tablets in their glass at a time, will love this.

Is there anything else I need to know?

I thought the sugar would be through the roof, but 41 grams doesn’t seem all that bad, does it? This Ice variant contains high fructose corn syrup, acesulfame potassium, and sucralose and no real sugar per se, but all that fake sugar can’t be good for you, can it? Oh well. 41 grams collectively doesn’t seem all that bad.

Conclusion:

Mtn Dew Ice Cherry 3

While not as mind-numbingly delicious as Pitch Black but way better than that DEW.S.A. dreck, Mtn Dew Ice Cherry falls somewhere in-between, leaning a little more on the plus side of the bracket.

Purchased Price: $1.29
Size: 20 oz. bottle
Purchased at: Buy for Less Supermercado
Rating: 7 out of 10
Nutrition Facts: (20 oz.) 160 calories, 0 grams of fat, 0 grams of saturated fat, 10 milligrams of cholesterol, 90 milligrams of sodium, 41 grams of carbohydrates, 0 grams of fiber, 41 grams of sugar, 0 grams of protein, and 91 milligrams of caffeine.

QUICK REVIEW: Mtn Dew Berry Monsoon

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Mtn Dew Berry Monsoon

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.

Mtn Dew Berry Monsoon 2

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.

REVIEW: Canada Dry Ginger Ale and Lemonade

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Canada Dry Ginger Ale and Lemonade

Maybe it’s just me, but I’ve always thought of ginger ale as a drink that skews toward the older demographic. I can’t say for sure because I don’t spend much time at skateparks or halfpipes, but I don’t imagine too many people under 21 grabbing an ice-cold ginger ale after doing some kind of extreme sport.

Even for the legally-able-to-drink-but-under-65 crowd, ginger ale is something that might be included in a fancy drink you order to impress a date, but not a beverage you imbibe on a regular basis.

On the other hand, lemonade is a drink for kids. Sure, adults will get a glass at an outrageously marked-up price from the neighborhood stand run by kids who always mess up the directions and either serve the strongest or weakest lemonade ever concocted. And yes, if you are of drinking age you’ve might’ve had lemonade with vodka. But if you are at a fancy dinner for a job interview — like at the type of place with tablecloths and metal utensils — chances are you are not ordering a lemonade (unless said interview is for a job at Country Time or Snapple).

So that brings us to Canada Dry Ginger Ale and Lemonade. As soft drinks go, it’s not very creative or wild. Soda flavors have proliferated over the past decade in a seemingly endless pursuit of the most extreme outcomes to the point where bacon-flavored drinks are passé. And this Canada Dry offering certainly isn’t a fancy craft soda using dragon fruit, passionfruit or other variation of fruit that I’m not certain truly exists.

Canada Dry Ginger Ale and Lemonade 2

It’s just ginger ale and lemonade, but it’s surprising this combination of flavors is really satisfying and refreshing.

The aroma is barely existent, with a faint smell of ginger ale and no lemon at all, and the color is more translucent than you might expect. But the flavor is where this drink shines, as it should. You do have to focus a little to pick out the separate ginger ale and lemonade flavors, as they meld into almost a mellow Mountain Dew-like taste with a bit less citrus kick and a touch less carbonation. Further research confirms that this also makes an excellent mixer with vodka or other spirits.

The label touts that it’s made “from real ginger and real juice,” but before you get ready to count a glass as a daily serving of fruit, take notice that it contains a whopping 1 percent lemon juice. For the mathematically-challenged, included is a visual aid showing 12 ounces of the drink with the amount of lemon juice it actually contains (about 3.5 milliliters). A juice drink this is not.

Canada Dry Ginger Ale and Lemonade 3

I guess this would be easy to make yourself by mixing ginger ale and lemonade, but why go to that trouble when the good folks at Canada Dry have already found the right flavor combination that is surprisingly good.

(Nutrition Facts – 12 fl. oz. – 140 calories, 0 grams of fat, 50 milligrams of sodium, 36 grams of carbohydrates, 36 grams of sugar, and 0 grams of protein.)

Purchased Price: $1.00
Size: 2 liters
Purchased at: H-E-B
Rating: 8 out of 10
Pros: Pleasant, mellow and refreshing flavor. Mixes well with your favorite alcohol.
Cons: Won’t count as your daily serving of fruit. Can’t be sure if this drink will make you feel old or young.

REVIEW: Mtn Dew Kickstart Energizing Original Dew

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Mtn Dew Kickstart Energizing Original Dew

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.

Mtn Dew Kickstart Ultra Energizing Original Dew

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

REVIEW: Diet Coke Feisty Cherry, Ginger Lime, Twisted Mango, and Zesty Blood Orange

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Diet Coke Feisty Cherry Ginger Lime Twisted Mango and Zesty Blood Orange

Diet soda drinkers are not exactly a fickle lot. Some people swear by Diet Pepsi without aspartame. Others with aspartame. Tab people are still kicking it like it’s 1985 and any true Texan wouldn’t be caught dead with a Mr. Pibb Zero over Diet Dr Pepper.

Which is all to say that Coke’s decision to launch a new flavored Diet Coke line is a bit of a head-scratcher.

As a diet soda drinker myself, I can understand the dividing lines of low-calorie beverages. We’re creatures of habit; obsessive compulsives; generally curmudgeonly and resistant to change. Also, we’re all going to get cancer and metabolic disorder and blah blah blah BUT STILL we’re willing to at least try a new diet soda, especially with the help of some (relatively) exotic names.

I love most orange-flavored things. However, unlike my childhood hero Kel Mitchell, I’m not crazy about the taste of orange soda, which lacks the body of a cola. Diet Coke Zesty Blood Orange cures all that; the orange flavor is robust but not bitter, lingering on as a component of the aftertaste but not stripping the soda of its cola roots. Why it took Coke this long to use orange as a flavor in a bottled or canned soda, I have no idea. But I’m happy it’s finally here.

I don’t know what twisted is supposed to convey as an adjective. Perverse? Physically contorted? Changed ever-so-slightly from the original intent that the word is basically meaningless? The last one seems to be the case when it comes to the taste of Twisted Mango. Meaningless adjectives aside, this is a good soda. Crisp, fruity but not overly tropical, with a sweeter finish than traditional Diet Coke, it just works. I can see Diet Coke with Lemon fans liking this one, which has a good mix of conservative Diet Coke appeal and unique flavor.

Moving right along, Feisty Cherry seems like a weird name for a soda. A 90s pop-rock artist or Kentucky Derby horse? Okay, I can see that. But a soda? Not really. In any event, the flavor comes across as a slightly muted black cherry, but it never really overcomes the carbonation. Where there was a distinct sweetness with Zesty Blood Orange, Feisty Cherry has a more traditional Diet Coke aftertaste, which I guess can be either a good or and thing depending on your preferences. Personally, I found it a less suitable imitator to Diet Cherry Dr Pepper, which I’m allowed to say because of the two years I lived in Texas.

Ginger Lime should have been the most exotic tasting flavor, but instead of some piquant and spicy flavor, it tastes like Diet Coke watered down with a generic (read: not Canada Dry) ginger ale. Not that I’m complaining, but the lack of ginger ale crossover makes this a disappointment.

Diet soda drinkers are not exactly a fickle lot, and because of that, I’m not sure how well received the new Diet Coke flavors will be, especially when Feisty Cherry and Ginger Lime fail to deliver on their aggressive names.

However, maybe that’s the point.

Since Diet Coke drinkers default back to the standby of Diet Coke, the generally non-offensive flavors probably won’t turn anyone off. That said, at least with the exception of Blood Orange, I doubt they’ll turn anyone on.

(Nutrition Facts – 12 oz – 0 calories, 0 calories from fat, 0 grams of fat, 1.5 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 0 milligrams of cholesterol, 5 milligrams of sodium, 160 milligrams of potassium, 44 grams of carbohydrates, 7 grams of fiber, 13 grams of sugar, and 4 grams of protein.)

Purchased Price: $3.68
Size: 12-pack (12 oz. cans)
Purchased at: Walmart
Rating: 8 out of 10 (Blood Orange)
Rating: 5 out of 10 (Ginger Lime)
Rating: 5 out of 10 (Feisty Cherry)
Rating: 7 out of 10 (Twisted Mango)
Pros: Blood Orange has a crisp, sweet finish that tastes like a natural addition to traditional Diet Coke. Twisted Mango brings a tropical flavor to cola without overdoing it. Varied spectrum of flavors for those who don’t have access to a Coke Freestyle machine.
Cons: Aside from Blood Orange, flavors don’t necessarily wow you. Feisty Cherry tastes mostly like Diet Coke with Cherry. Ginger Lime fails to deliver the long-expected ginger ale-cola hybrid. Curmudgeonly Diet Coke drinkers.

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