Mountain Dew DEWshine

Note: This is a Presumptive Ephemeral Nom.

Product circa: mid-2015

Pepsico's Mountain Dew has long had an "edgy" image, as soft drinks go.  The product itself is fairly polarizing, with many people declaring that it's disgusting.  Marketing executives have taken advantage of this image in the last 25 years by placing the brand as a central presence in motorsports and extreme sports.

Just look at some of the names of recent Mountain Dew varieties, which almost universally invoke electricity and power overall: Game Fuel, Distortion, Fusion, Livewire, Voltage, Supernova, Ultraviolet, Typhoon, Solar Flare, and Baja Blast.

Dew is keeping up this trend with a release from 2015 which seemed to pop up out of nowhere: DEWshine.  As a portmanteau hearkening back to the days of Prohibition and moonshine, where outlaws distilled and distributed their own liquor to an underground populace, all the while being chased by police... it doesn't get edgier than that, right?  Hell, NASCAR, some of the fastest motorsport racing in the world, partly originated from the need of outrunning the police in the Prohibition era.

DEWshine's marketing material would have you believe that the product returns to its roots as a moonshine product.  While that history isn't accurate, Mountain Dew does have liquorious roots: its creators formulated it originally to be mixed with liquor.  At one point recently, one could buy a moonshine-style jug's worth of DEWshine.

The worst part of all this is that, as a product which claims to be a "clear" Mountain Dew, it's really just a taunt by PepsiCo to all those who dream of the return of Crystal Pepsi.

It's hard to review the product's taste, since it's impossible to know the thing for which the company was aiming.  Even without that target, it's easy for me to say that I'm disappointed.

Even though original Dew is known for its exceeding sweetness, DEWshine manages to capture the same but without any sort acidic balance that is at least present in traces within its forebears.  Further, its flavor seems simpler; lemon is the only thing discernible here, whereas lime and orange tend to be hallmarks of normal Dew.  This stuff is remarkably similar to modern 7-Up.  Is that a compliment?  You decide.


Mountain Dew DEWshine:- Good
Original Mountain Dew(for comparison):- Great