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April 8, 2020 2:19 PM   Subscribe

 
Just came here to say that the green Mountain Dew Kickstart tastes just like the original with a FRACTION of the sugar. Highly recommended.
posted by whimsicalnymph at 2:22 PM on April 8, 2020 [2 favorites]


The mouse story is what makes me NEVER want to ever drink this insane carbonated drink. It boggles my mind.
posted by Fizz at 2:23 PM on April 8, 2020 [2 favorites]


Just to get it out of the way early:

Pepsi Dew
posted by JDHarper at 2:24 PM on April 8, 2020 [4 favorites]


Ah, goddammit, one day I will learn to read the titles of posts.
posted by JDHarper at 2:25 PM on April 8, 2020 [6 favorites]


I know I should trust the Canadian food scientists with regards to the mouse in a Mountain Dew can story. But that the company as a first reaction just outright says: "Our ingredients are so toxic/acidic it would destroy the mouse." it just stays with me in a way that is hard to let go of.
posted by Fizz at 2:28 PM on April 8, 2020


Never mind cake. Back in the early 90s, my college roommate (who was a huge fan of the original Transformers TV show) would make lime jello with Mountain Dew instead of water. He would then cut them up and call them “Energon Cubes”.
posted by AlonzoMosleyFBI at 2:29 PM on April 8, 2020 [40 favorites]


A definitive ranking of almost every flavor of Mountain Dew

You knew Baja Blast would be at the top of the list. It’s not even close.

Checks out.

Although, I'd rank Mountain Dew Throwback higher than #11. If you're drinking Mountain Dew, you're already there for the weird, artificial citrus flavor, not the other flavor combinations. Baja Blast is a better twist on the citrus flavor, though I prefer a 50/50 mix of original and Baja Blast, which you can do if you go to Taco Bell.

I've also had one of the weird soda-flavored cakes. Really weird and unnecessary. Says the guy with a closet full of old Mtn Dew cases, purchased whenever they're on sale, because you never know when you'll be stuck home for months.

[Except I don't drink that much Mtn Dew. I actually bought them with the misguided idea that I'd sell the old cans on eBay and make a few hundred dollars off of my initial $10 investment. But this means I need to go to the bother of actually posting sodas on eBay, and mailing them.]

[I write this while powered on 1/2 of a can of Hyde Power Potion. 350mg of caffine is too much for me, so I'll be saving the rest for tomorrow, or I might not sleep tonight.]
posted by filthy light thief at 2:34 PM on April 8, 2020 [1 favorite]


Code Red or GTFO.
posted by Fizz at 2:39 PM on April 8, 2020 [5 favorites]


> posted by Fizz

More astroturfing from Big CO2.
posted by tonycpsu at 2:55 PM on April 8, 2020 [30 favorites]


Speaking of throwbacks, in the Marianas Trench like depths of my childhood, before Mountain Dew even existed, a phosphorescent yellow-green glow is easily discerned in the inky darkness.

Hight "Green River", it was only available as a fountain drink, and I bought it at the little creamery/comic/candy store where I also bought my Mad magazines and would sit on a stool at a marble topped bar, reading and drinking either a milkshake or one of the array of fountain offerings.

Was Green River the ultimate progenitor of Mountain Dew? They sure tasted a lot alike, as I recall.
posted by jamjam at 3:02 PM on April 8, 2020 [1 favorite]


I have a sentimental fondness for Mountain Dew, because way back when it was still mostly a southern regional soda, I associated it with visiting my greataunt in North Carolina and swimming in a lake with a picnic waiting. And a little later when it started to become national, playing around with family friends at our shared beach house and Alice doing a Monster Dew mock ad. I don't actually drink it much, but the fondness remains.
posted by tavella at 3:09 PM on April 8, 2020 [2 favorites]


I mean, the stuff in your stomach would also destroy the mouse. It would be more worrying if the substance you swallowed was so basic it dissolved mice but it obviously doesn't hold a candle to good ol' HCl.
posted by Scattercat at 3:20 PM on April 8, 2020 [2 favorites]


I remember the original Mountain Dew packaging and it is nowhere near the X-Box chic they have now. Gallery of logos. Because internet.
posted by fifteen schnitzengruben is my limit at 3:20 PM on April 8, 2020


Pepsi has created Doritos-flavored Mountain Dew

Best consumed with Mountain-Dew-flavored Doritos.
posted by oulipian at 3:24 PM on April 8, 2020 [1 favorite]


Green River
posted by Small Dollar at 3:32 PM on April 8, 2020 [2 favorites]


I always thought of Jolt as the internet/hacker drink, but I guess that was more 80's/90s net culture. Mountain Dew was more of a gamer thing, or what you bought when the store didn't have Jolt.
posted by thefoxgod at 3:42 PM on April 8, 2020 [9 favorites]


Back in the good old days, my younger brother would get Mt Dew in the returnable green glass bottles. On the bottle, was painted the line “It’ll tickle your innards!” He would take something metal and carefully scrape off the “in” on the last word knowing that it would go back into circulation. Hooligan.
posted by njohnson23 at 3:43 PM on April 8, 2020 [15 favorites]


Is the association of Mountain Dew with gamers and coders and neckbeards mainly an American one, or does it play the same role in Europe, Asia, South America, Africa and Oceania?
posted by Borborygmus at 3:45 PM on April 8, 2020 [4 favorites]


You can make kombucha from Mountain Dew, as Sandor Katz points out in Wild Fermentation. You might have trouble with Baha Blast though.
posted by head full of air at 3:48 PM on April 8, 2020 [2 favorites]


I don't think they make Mountain Dew Throwback anymore, but that was actually good! Orange juice was an actual ingredient! (I know I come across Mountain Dew in the bottles make with sugar but I think that might be a different formula).

I know people who, as teenagers, brewed espresso with Mountain Dew (this was before I knew them). Luckily, they all got older and discovered alcohol and/or pot.

I was a big Mountain Dew fan in college, but I was 20 and could handle mass quantities of HFCS and caffeine. I like the taste but I don't think I can do it anymore (except for the occasional Mexican Coca-Cola, I can't really do any caffeinated soda anymore, even if it's "natural" -- as addicted as I am to coffee, caffeinated soda just does weird things to me).
posted by darksong at 3:50 PM on April 8, 2020 [2 favorites]



Although, I'd rank Mountain Dew Throwback higher than #11. If you're drinking Mountain Dew, you're already there for the weird, artificial citrus flavor, not the other flavor combinations. Baja Blast is a better twist on the citrus flavor, though I prefer a 50/50 mix of original and Baja Blast, which you can do if you go to Taco Bell like the time I did in nineteen ninety eight when the undertaker threw mankind off hеll in a cell, and plummeted sixteen feet through an announcer's table.


posted by filthy light thief u/shittymorph
posted by lalochezia at 3:57 PM on April 8, 2020 [5 favorites]


We often got a bottle of pop as a reward for behaving well on family visits. I was drinking Mountain Dew through a straw on the drive home and was nearly finished it before realizing there was a big, tattered chunk of something pale floating at the bottom. I started to feel nauseous, so we stopped at the hospital emergency. The doctor there said it looked like “debrided skin”....those words have been stuck in my head for 44 years.
posted by bonobothegreat at 4:21 PM on April 8, 2020 [14 favorites]


I've never had the Baja variety, so I can't speak to that, but I did write my undergrad thesis during a year-long bender of an alarmingly large number of cans of Code Red, and I am glad to see it finally get some Respect. It was the only Mountain Dew at the time that was worth drinking (and didn't upset the stomach like the same amount of coffee or the more carbonated colas would have).
posted by General Malaise at 4:23 PM on April 8, 2020


I did work a winter cooking in a restaurant on a ski mountain drinking nothing but Diet Mt Dew from the fountain, and tbh it wasn't as bad as the writer describes it, although that was TKTKTK years ago and also from the fountain.

Yes, the fancy ski mountain restaurant had Diet Mountain Dew on the fountain.
posted by General Malaise at 4:25 PM on April 8, 2020 [1 favorite]


Mountain Dew does not kill sperm

Darn
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 4:30 PM on April 8, 2020 [3 favorites]


a big, tattered chunk of something pale floating at the bottom. I started to feel nauseous, so we stopped at the hospital emergency. The doctor there said it looked like “debrided skin”....those words have been stuck in my head for 44 years.
posted by bonobothegreat at 4:21 PM on April 8

If it's any consolation, I've seen similar artifacts in a fair number of Dews and Diet Dews over the years and my best guess has been that some of the flavoring agents don't play well with the high citric acid content. At any rate, it seems to most often be a sort of gluey powder, like flour that's been dampened.
posted by Scattercat at 4:34 PM on April 8, 2020 [1 favorite]


I prefer a 50/50 mix of original and Baja Blast, which you can do if you go to Taco Bell.

Outstanding darkest-timeline energy, right here.
posted by mhoye at 4:36 PM on April 8, 2020 [7 favorites]


There's been a lot written about the history of Mountain Dew (including at least one 300+ page book) but for the unfamiliar this is a pretty good introduction.

There are differences in the details of the story depending on what you're reading, but the parts people seem to agree on is that it was developed in the early 40s as a mixer for whiskey, and then sold in the early 60s and reformulated to something close to what you can buy today. I've often wondered what the original, 1940s and 50s flavor really tasted like; apparently the 1960s recipe added considerably more citric acid and caffeine (which is bitter), making me think the original must have been pretty sweet.

If you want to do a throwback cocktail and put some whiskey in your Dew, do yourself a favor and skip anything that's aged enough to be brown in color, and get some unaged corn whiskey (aka moonshine) and try that. While modern oak-aged whiskey doesn't exactly partner well with the flavor of Dew (IMO), unaged whiskey—which has a slight corn sweetness that makes it distinct from vodka or neutral spirits—actually does go pretty well.
posted by Kadin2048 at 4:55 PM on April 8, 2020 [3 favorites]


Yes, the fancy ski mountain restaurant had Diet Mountain Dew on the fountain.

“Pardon me, would you happen to have any Diet Mountain Dew?”
“But of course!”
posted by Huffy Puffy at 4:58 PM on April 8, 2020 [6 favorites]


How Mountain Dew became the Internet’s signature drink.

About as much as Hot Pockets are the Internet's signature food.

It's a 'basement gamer' joke that's outlasted the both the joke and the irony, but rapidly losing ground to Twitch-sponsored energy drinks. Gamerfuel, etc.

Still not sure how Jolt missed the boat so completely, with its old skool 1337 h4xor cred.
posted by snuffleupagus at 5:05 PM on April 8, 2020 [1 favorite]


Remember Bawlz? Bawls?
posted by some loser at 5:08 PM on April 8, 2020 [3 favorites]


I know I should trust the Canadian food scientists

This may shock some Americans but Canadian Mountain Dew for a long time had no caffeine in it (there used to be a regulation about non-cola soft drinks with caffeine). But since 2012 it's been caffeinated (51mg last time I checked)! Thanks Health Canada!
posted by Ashwagandha at 5:12 PM on April 8, 2020 [6 favorites]


I will only drink Orbitz soda. Unfortunately my supplies are done and they stopped making it 20+ years ago, so I just drink water now.
posted by chaz at 5:17 PM on April 8, 2020 [2 favorites]


Jolt Cola came back, though I've only seen it in Dollar General stores around here. I bought some just to see if it still tasted like it did in high school. It didn't, but it's also been...a while...since then.
posted by jquinby at 5:36 PM on April 8, 2020 [3 favorites]




Oh gosh. In my childhood in the 70's we lived near a PepsiCo botteling plant and bought Pepsi and Mtn Dew in glass by the pallet, a humongous stack of sodas on the back porch. I preferred the Pepsi 1893 versions of my limited soda drinking nowadays. I still have a faint memory of hillbilly Mtn Dew commercials and the competitor Mellow Yellow.
posted by zengargoyle at 6:00 PM on April 8, 2020 [1 favorite]


I've developed an unfortunate addiction to Mountain Dew Sweet Lightning.

I am grateful that it can only be obtained at KFC, otherwise it would likely be my doom. The only reason I ever eat in at KFC is because I can get refills.

The only reason I'm currently off the devil's juice is because last time I went through the drive through at KFC they appeared to be taking absolutely no extra safety precautions in response to the pandemic.

None of the other peach sodas I've tried come anywhere close to the maddening tastiness of Sweet Lightning.
posted by Craven Yeti Superstar at 6:06 PM on April 8, 2020


I like Dew not only for the taste, but because I can't fucking stand coffee and am scared of energy drinks and Mountain Dew is the most caffeinated soda after that. Under normal circumstances I have to pound it at work in the mornings because they are always bitching that I am not bright eyed and bushy tailed at 8 a.m. So, yay Dew.
posted by jenfullmoon at 6:19 PM on April 8, 2020 [1 favorite]


Why the fuck did someone want to dissolve a mouse in.... I don't think I want to know.
posted by jenfullmoon at 6:21 PM on April 8, 2020


Orbitz... I loved that to try once. Anyone remember Josta Cola? 7Up Gold? I actually miss 7Up Gold. Josta was a thing I drank to be contrarian against cola flavor for a while.
posted by hippybear at 6:33 PM on April 8, 2020 [1 favorite]


jenfullmoon have you tried tea? It's delightful. Matcha has caffeine that is strong but a slower release so you get your boost longer.
posted by chaz at 6:34 PM on April 8, 2020


I do remember 7up Gold it was great. Real gold taste. For those who are curious, real gold taste was a mix of cinnamon and ginger.
posted by chaz at 6:35 PM on April 8, 2020 [6 favorites]


Mountain Dew is ok, but Donovan never wrote a song about it.
posted by TedW at 6:42 PM on April 8, 2020 [3 favorites]


pear juice, white pepper, lemon rind and crushed no-doz. mix, blend 8 drops of lime.
serve cold in Mason jar with kiwi or pearl onion.
posted by clavdivs at 6:57 PM on April 8, 2020 [6 favorites]


I posted a whole ass Ask question about this but Diet Mt Dew is the only thing I crave when I’m in other countries. Not burgers or anything else. I just want an icy cold diet mt dew. Yeah Canada I know you’ve got it, I’m talking about Europe and Asia.
posted by ftm at 7:36 PM on April 8, 2020 [1 favorite]


Was Green River the ultimate progenitor of Mountain Dew?

Dunno. However, I've tasted a Green River (with high expectation) but found the green liquid that was too sweet with no other real flavor to speak of disappointing.
posted by Rash at 7:51 PM on April 8, 2020 [2 favorites]


Nehi Blue Cream Soda

(fondly mostly consumed at the snack bar of the summer music camp I attended, in glass bottles, turned back in when done)

((It looked like windex.))
posted by hippybear at 7:53 PM on April 8, 2020 [3 favorites]


filthy light thief: [I write this while powered on 1/2 of a can of Hyde Power Potion. 350mg of caffine is too much for me, so I'll be saving the rest for tomorrow, or I might not sleep tonight.]

This explains so much that I've wondered about you.

My first brush with Mountain Dew was back when I was in grade school in the '60s. My dad owned a grocery store and he sold the Dew when Pepsi started bottling it. I remember really liking it, but my parents limited my intake. I wonder if it was spiked with caffeine back then, too?
posted by SteveInMaine at 8:35 PM on April 8, 2020


I don't know what it is about the South and supercaffeinated sodas, but Sun Drop is supposed to be to Mtn Dew as MD is to other sodas, and the first place that I had Surge was when they were giving it away on Beale Street in Memphis; I stashed a whole six-pack of the stuff in my pockets. (I had big pockets in my coat.)
posted by Halloween Jack at 10:08 PM on April 8, 2020 [1 favorite]


Pepsi has created Doritos-flavored Mountain Dew

Best consumed with Mountain-Dew-flavored Doritos.


I have long held that because so much junk food has flavours produced very very artificially, one month a year* ice cream makers and potato chip companies ought to swap their flavours. Butterscotch ripple chips! Sour cream and onion ice cream!

*February, I’d recommend.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 10:23 PM on April 8, 2020 [3 favorites]


I learned in college that Code Red comes back up regular Mountain Dew color.
posted by sleeping bear at 11:00 PM on April 8, 2020 [2 favorites]


We don't have it over here - is it any good?
posted by GallonOfAlan at 12:23 AM on April 9, 2020


Borborygmus: Is the association of Mountain Dew with gamers and coders and neckbeards mainly an American one, or does it play the same role in Europe, Asia, South America, Africa and Oceania?

European hackers drink Club Mate, or if you want to get fancy there are other brands of yerba mate based soft drinks. Most of them come from Germany.
Mountain Dew exists here, but it's not big. Personally I'm not a fan: too little caffeine and too much sugar.
posted by Too-Ticky at 12:33 AM on April 9, 2020 [3 favorites]


When you're a kid in the UK in the 90s, and the only time you see it is every several years when an American family brings a 6-pack of it from a military base to Sunday lunch at your house, Mountain Dew is delicious.

*diverts power to shields*
posted by polytope subirb enby-of-piano-dice at 2:44 AM on April 9, 2020


polytope subirb enby-of-piano-dice: *diverts power to shields*

Why? People get to like what they like.
posted by Too-Ticky at 3:02 AM on April 9, 2020


Finally, the mouse dissolving information I've been looking for!
posted by tommasz at 5:54 AM on April 9, 2020 [2 favorites]


I now only drink Mnt. Dew for medicinal purposes: the brominated vegetable oil in it (which is probably pure poison) really keeps your throat from getting dry. When I have to give a scientific talk to a large gathering I always have mountain dew handy, it really keeps you from coughing/clearing your throat. I suspect this was part of its historical role as a mixer for whiskey, between the sugar and the BVO you could choke down some really nasty moonshine, possible made in an old radiator.
posted by 445supermag at 7:09 AM on April 9, 2020 [9 favorites]


This may shock some Americans but Canadian Mountain Dew for a long time had no caffeine in it (there used to be a regulation about non-cola soft drinks with caffeine). But since 2012 it's been caffeinated (51mg last time I checked)! Thanks Health Canada!

I had an amusing exchange with some protohackers in the early 2000s where I informed them that they weren't getting a caffeine buzz off the Dew they were drinking. Took a trip to an internet cafe (remember when the internet required a hardline?) before they were convinced. Placebo is a hell of a drug yo.
posted by Mitheral at 8:52 AM on April 9, 2020 [2 favorites]


I get Diet Caffeine Free Dew in central NC. I have no idea how. I live near a wealthy town, I assume someone there personally pays to have it shipped to area stores. Why do I drink it? Good question! Yay middle age!

On the other hand, Diet Dew and Diet CF Dew are the only diet flavors I ever find in central NC. What I wouldn't give to have Diet Code Red regularly available. And oh, for the days of Diet Supernova and other experiments. Why are Diet Dew flavors so hard to find?

My new hope is that this new Dew Zero is the beginning of a new line of flavors with no calories that is somehow easier to expand to include Code Red and Baja Blast and the like.
posted by jermsplan at 9:10 AM on April 9, 2020


Someone mentioned SunDrop above, which is delicious if you get the bottle from the correct production line. So, here in the eastern part of the state, there’s a much higher citric acid content (this is information from a friend that worked at the bottling plant that used to be here downtown) and it is crisp and refreshing and enjoyable and mixes well with Jim Beam. When I drank, I called it a Sun Beam and it was the nectar of the gods.

If you cross 95, it comes in a different shaped bottle and tastes like citrus-flavored sugar lump and it is terrible. The cherry lemon variety is passable though.

SunDrop in North Carolina is the inverse of bbq, where of course Lexington style is much better than eastern.

On the subject of Mountain Dew, Baja Blast is undeniably their best product and I am very happy to find it in cans at the Harris Teeter. In fact, I chased the Pepsi delivery man down yesterday, despondent that there was no diet Baja Blast in the co-cola aisle. He told me not to worry; that it was on a display near the front of the store and I could acquire my caffeine.
posted by sara is disenchanted at 9:19 AM on April 9, 2020 [6 favorites]


Hight "Green River", it was only available as a fountain drink, and I bought it at the little creamery/comic/candy store where I also bought my Mad magazines and would sit on a stool at a marble topped bar, reading and drinking either a milkshake or one of the array of fountain offerings.

When I was living in Peoria, IL, in the early-to-mid-90s, I was able to get Green River floats at the Maid-Rite near my college campus. I loved those and haven't had one in over 20 years.
posted by dlugoczaj at 10:52 AM on April 9, 2020 [3 favorites]


Was coming to mention the brominated vegetable oil for public speaking and moonshine consuming purposes.A+
posted by hototogisu at 11:08 AM on April 9, 2020 [2 favorites]


Long before gamers and coders, in the 1960s Mountain Dew was the drink of blue collar laborers trying to get through the day. It had twice the caffeine content of Coke or Pepsi. Even though ingredients weren't labeled back in those days, laborers figured out on their own that they were getting an extra jolt from Mountain Dew and it became very popular. And the name and hillbilly logo contributed to its blue-collar, Appalachian image.
posted by JackFlash at 1:20 PM on April 9, 2020 [2 favorites]


When I was living in Peoria, IL, in the early-to-mid-90s, I was able to get Green River floats at the Maid-Rite near my college campus.

Assuming that you mean Bradley, I wasn't even aware that there was ever a Maid-Rite over there; I was only familiar with the one near University and Glen (which has since disassociated itself with Maid-Rite and now operates as the boringly-named 50s Diner), and the only other one in town closed. I do, however, remember Green River floats at soft-serve places hither and yon, although it's been a while since I've seen it offered.
posted by Halloween Jack at 2:19 PM on April 9, 2020


I have a long history with MtDew, although I have not tried most flavors.
I used to drink 'throwback' when it was just called Mountain Dew, occasionally in the 60's, but into it heavy from 1975-2002, when I switched to Diet Mountain Dew.
I really like the Diet Code Red, but I haven't seen it in over a decade. (edit- holy shit- Walmart?? I have some moral compromising to do)

Somewhere around 1985, Dew almost disappeared from grocery stores around me, which was scary (to me). I think it was saved by the Do the Dew campaign.

...and it's not twice the caffeine of Coke- more like 1.5x.
posted by MtDewd at 3:18 PM on April 9, 2020 [1 favorite]


From the candle article: Make your home smell like a freshman’s dorm room.

Accurate, I did indeed have dual Mountain Dew pyramids in my freshman dorm room.

Also, I periodically have dreams about discovering rare new Mountain Dew flavors.
posted by limeonaire at 3:55 PM on April 9, 2020


MtDewd if the WalMart in your area has it (IE: not just online) then it's likely the bottling plant servicing that area makes it and you can talk to a friendly independent grocery store/corner store/probably some restaurants (really anywhere that buys enough product to get deliveries from Pepsi) to order you a case. You'll probably have to buy a whole case but it keeps for several months. I used to order hard to get at retail stuff for my personal stash all the time when I was working in Vending.

Note however that all the reviews later than August 2018 are from people lamenting that it isn't in stock. I'd bet it isn't actually available at WalMart.
posted by Mitheral at 4:50 PM on April 9, 2020 [1 favorite]


Squirt has BVO in it too.
posted by snuffleupagus at 4:52 PM on April 9, 2020 [1 favorite]


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