So Mountain Dew has once again begun its annual summertime test product rollout, but this year with a twist. They have released three new flavors, each named in an X-Treme fashion, apparently suggested by Dew drinkers worldwide and in true election-year kitsch, the winner will be decided by votes entered through the Mountain Dew website. The trio are all disturbingly milky colored and contain ginseng, though you’d never know it to taste them. I figured the thing to do was to conduct my own taste test, accompanied by Connoisseur Javier for scientific accuracy, and use my superior palate to divine a winner.
Coming in at third place, a distant third I might add, is Supernova. The bottle describes Supernova as strawberry and melon flavored. This fuchsia soda tastes like sickeningly artificial strawberry, similar to Fanta Strawberry, Javier mentioned. There is just the slighted hint of melon that brings very little interest to what is an otherwise quite unimpressive offering by Mountain Dew. As would be the case with all of these flavors, Supernova is ungodly sweet. Yet, unlike the other two flavors, it still manages to taste offensively and unbefittingly bitter.
In second place is Voltage, which the label calls raspberry and citrus flavored. It is an unappealing dark toilet-water blue, whoever’s idea it was to make not only one, but two of the new flavors of Mountain Dew blue should be summarily and without fanfare terminated. This offering smells very much like raspberries and with the citrus flavor it reminds me of a very specific flavor of Kool-Aid popular in the early 90’s whose name escapes me at the moment… possibly Berry-Blue or Sharkleberry Fin. The aroma helps this flavor a great deal. Did I mention how ridiculously sweet these new flavors are?
Coming in first is Revolution, labeled simply as berry and citrus flavor. I think this unspecific fruit flavor gives this flavor an edge, as there is nothing in nature you could compare this taste too. With Revolution, Mountain Dew gave up the pretense and made a soda that tastes exactly like crushed up candy in carbonated water, specifically Smarties. The color is a milky light blue which is a terrible color for a soda, but between the candy-sweet berry taste and the pleasant tang of “citrus” flavor, Mountain Dew has mixed themselves a winner.
All that being said, give me Mountain Dew Pitch Black II any day.