Every summer, drink companies try to get a few new flavors out onto the market to capitalize on a market full of caffine addicted kids and people with nothing better to do than go out and blow their money on weirdly flavored beverages. As one of those people, I went out and collected the four newest. Three offerings from Mountain Dew and one from their sister brand Sierra Mist. Let's jump to it, shall we?
The Tag: Lemon-lime soda with a splash of Mandarin orange flavor
Expectations: I've never been a big lemon-lime person, and I usually only drink Sprite/7-Up/Sierra Mist if I've got nothing else or if I'm sick. I do like Orange Sodas, though, so I'm hoping this is orangy enough for me. Sadly, you'll notice, only Steve Carell and Anne Hathaway merit can placement while everybody's favorite wrestler turned actor Dewayne Johnson is relegated to the TV spots. Also, I'm a little sad that "Agent Orange" was already taken.
Taste
Not bad, all things concidered. There's almost no orange flavoring in here. Mandarin is the weakest of the orange flavorings. The kick doesn't really come in until the aftertaste, though on subsequent tastings, I could pick it up in the first sip. You kind of have to be looking for it.
Score
Thumbs up. It's not going in my pantheon of favorite beverages or anything, but I can imagine going to the fridge to grab one of these on a hot summer day or something. I'd have loved the orange flavoring to be a bit stronger, but I'm guessing they were shooting for the subtlety on this one.
Mountain Dew Voltage
The Tag: Charged with Raspberry Citrus Flavor and Ginseng
Expectations: This is the first of our unholy trinity of "Mountain Dewmocracy" flavors. These will be available for the rest of the summer with a vote on Mountain Dew's website determining which drink stays in the Dew lineup. Sadly, there's no option to bring back the best Dew of all time, Pitch Black. Raspberry Citrus sounds kind of tasty though, so I'm looking forward to this one.
Taste
A little odd. The raspberry flavoring takes the citrus taste back out behind the woodshed and shoots it, so what you're left with is carbonated blue raspberry. I'm pretty sure this is just leftover Pepsi Blue that's been repackaged. It's not straight up awful, just not very good. A raspberry lemonade would've been much better.
Score
Ok. It's not as good as I'd hoped, but it's not as bad as it could be. If you're really deeply into blue raspberry or one of the two people that loved Pepsi Blue, this is your summer drink. Otherwise, I wouldn't lose too much sleep over Voltage. Strictly mediocre.
Mountain Dew SuperNova
The Tag: A blast of Strawberry Melon Flavor and Ginseng
Expectations: I thought, as a society, we'd moved past the whole "everything's better with Ginseng" stage, but Pepsi's still mired in it. I love strawberries and melons, but I've never been a big fan of either in beverage form. That said, there are a few good strawberry/melon juice drinks on the market, so hopefully this strikes closer to those than not.
Taste
Not bad, it kind of tastes like a carbonated version of those strawberry-melon juices. The smell is pretty awful, but if you can forge past that, what you end up with is a pretty pleasant drink. The aftertaste is not particularily pleasant either, but it's bland enough that you ignore it after a few sips.
Score
Qualified Thumbs Up. I'm not exactly jumping up and down or anything. It's an odd choice of flavoring for a soda, and I can't imagine kids will be running out in drove to get their strawberry-mellon on, but for what it is, it's fine. If you're completely adverse to strawberries, melons, or any combination therein, this drink certainly won't do anything to change your mind.
Mountain Dew Revolution
The Tag: Infused with Wild Berry Fruit Flavor and Ginseng
Expectations: Again, Wild Berry is kind of an odd choice for a drink, and I feel kind of bad for the people at Mountain Dew that this is the flavor range that people gave them with the Dewmocracy thing. I mean, I guess they didn't have to make banana soda, at least. I'm not sure what to expect here, but I do like berries, so I guess that's a start.
Taste
So yeah, this is pretty awful. It's sour and stale tasting, like they took a bunch of Wild Berry Skittles threw them in a blender and left it sit there for a month before bottling it up and shipping it out. There's almost no smell, so you can't even prepare for it like some of the choicer Jones sodas. At least you can clearly taste the flavoring.
Score
Thumbs Down. Yeah, this one's not going to be welcome in my fridge again for a long time. If they balance out the flavoring, or at least make it taste a little fresher, it has a chance to be mediocre like Voltage, but as it is, Revolution is kind of an affront to your sense of taste. Unless you absolutely must taste every new drink like me, I'd avoid it.
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I sampled the Mountain Dews a few weeks ago (oh, shit, that totally reminds me that *I* have a photo collage I need to assemble - and Kim probably has one too) and I honestly can't remember which blue one I liked and which one I hated, but that's how it went down. The non-blue one was in the middle for me.
Olde folks like myself will remember that Slice, Sierra Mist's predecessor, had a "Mandarin Orange" variety back in the day (For some reason, thinking of it always remind me of drinking it at Sea World one time in the 80's).
So what's with Slice/Sierra Mist and "Mandarin" Orange anyway?
My vote goes to Voltage. It reminds me of the blue raspberry Slush Puppies I drank as a kid. Did everyone have Slush Puppies, or was that a regional thing?
Nice article. I'm into raspberries big time right now, so I'll probably enjoy MD Voltage. As far as bad soda goes, I know now to avoid Revolution. Still, it can't be as bad as the worst soda of all time, which I had the unluckly experience to drinking: surge.
CRZ: Really? What has ginseng done for you lately?
dwaters: We had slush puppies in Minnesota, but Icees were the standard here. I'm pretty sure, though, that all blue raspberry slushes taste pretty much the same no matter who makes them.
And Pitch Black was awesome. Shut up.
Supersalvadoran: You, my friend have not tasted the worst soda ever. Back in the day they used to have a Coke museum on the strip in Las Vegas (I believe the building is still there, and owned by Coke, but the museum is gone). After you took their little tour, you got to go into their "tasting room" and sample as many different types of Coke products from around the world as you desired. Some of their Asian beverages were a little out there (Watermellon Coke? Really?), but the prize for worst drink ever comes from Brazil.
I don't remember what it was called, but I do know that I never saw a single person take a sip of it without immediately spitting it out. It was the most bitter thing I've ever tasted in my life. I must've went to that museum four times before they closed it, and I tried it every time to see if it was as bad as I remembered, and every time I nearly threw up. Good times.
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I guess Supernova gets my vote, but in my opinion none of them are worth keeping. Which Pitch Black are we talking about? I hated Pitch Black, but LOVED Pitch Black II. The Undercover Sierra Mist failed to impress me.
Thru-out my whole life it still stands as the only soft drink that I was never able to finish. I threw it away with the bottle still 2/3 full. The stuff tasted like cough medicine.
The best part of waking up, is not Folgers in your cup, but knowing that Chuck Norris didn't kill you in your sleep.
Surge was just really sickly sweet, but it had a lot of caffine, and well... it was free for me at work. I drank a lot of Surge, but I don't miss it.
Orbitz soda was pretty yucky (and the kittle blobs were really strange to drink) but it looked really cool.
None of the summer dews was REALLY bad, I mean I didn't throw any of them out, but none of them was memorable enough to make me want to try and find it again.
I don't remember what it was called, but I do know that I never saw a single person take a sip of it without immediately spitting it out. It was the most bitter thing I've ever tasted in my life. I must've went to that museum four times before they closed it, and I tried it every time to see if it was as bad as I remembered, and every time I nearly threw up. Good times.
I wonder if this is the same drink known as "Beverly" that they serve at Epcot's Club Cool. It's a Coke exhibit with soda from around the world. This one is supposedly from Italy and sounds like what you describe. (I've never tried it, but heard a lot about it.)
Originally posted by dwatersI wonder if this is the same drink known as "Beverly" that they serve at Epcot's Club Cool. It's a Coke exhibit with soda from around the world. This one is supposedly from Italy and sounds like what you describe. (I've never tried it, but heard a lot about it.)
I just looked up Beverly, and it sounds a lot like what I remember. Without having tasted it I couldn't tell you for certain, but yeah, sounds right.
It was brutal, though. I should try to get my hands on some.
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Well-done article. X-Entertainment.com would be proud.
So far, I've only tasted Revolution...and I like it. Apart from color, it tastes to me EXACTLY like the Baja Blast that you can only get at Taco Bell. (Which I've been begging for a supermarket release of for some time now.)
Excalibur05, I have to ask, where did you buy those drinks? Because for some insane reason, I can't find it anywhere. I would have thought it would be in a name brand store like CVS or Walgreens or at least in some gas station, but no luck whatsoever. It's really frustrating to see it on TV and not being able to at least try it out. It's just like when they tease me with commericals for Dairy Queen and Sonic, when they know full well neither one has a restaurant on the island or anywhere within 2 hours of it.
Originally posted by Excalibur05If you're really deeply into blue raspberry or one of the two people that loved Pepsi Blue, this is your summer drink.
Count me as half of that audience.
That's enough to get me to slip off my recent "no non-diet soda" rule to have that sweet, sweet, raspberry flavor back in my mouth again.
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Originally posted by supersalvadoranExcalibur05, I have to ask, where did you buy those drinks? Because for some insane reason, I can't find it anywhere. I would have thought it would be in a name brand store like CVS or Walgreens or at least in some gas station, but no luck whatsoever. It's really frustrating to see it on TV and not being able to at least try it out. It's just like when they tease me with commericals for Dairy Queen and Sonic, when they know full well neither one has a restaurant on the island or anywhere within 2 hours of it.
That's strange. We've got 'em in our gas stations in 20oz and 12pk, and I was at a grocery store where they were selling the 20 oz at 2/$2. I'm really surpised that you can't find 'em.
They've been difficult to obtain in our neck of the woods. We only tried them all while we were in California. Where I have seen them I've noticed they were at the bottom of the Pepsi cooler and not stocked next to the regular Mt. Dew. I also have yet to see a location around here that has all three flavors at once.
In Cali, Target seemed to be the place to pick up all 3.
"Now if you'll excuse me, I'm gonna go backstage. I'm proud of myself, I just beat Brad Armstrong!" - Arn Anderson on WCW Saturday Night in 1992, in the classiest display I've ever seen of someone putting over an underrated mid-carder that everyone in the locker room knew deserved better than the push he got.
Okay it's just passed the half way point of the year, what were your favourite movies so far. (allow some leeway if it's a foreign movie or indy film with limited release in 2001 and pushed more in 2002 which happened to a few of my movie picks)