Surge (2014)

Product circa: 2014-2015

In my last post, I declared Crystal Pepsi as one of the most exalted discontinued food products of all time.  If there's anything that can creep higher than Crystal Pepsi on this list, it's Surge.

Surge was a soft drink created in 1997 in order to compete with Pepsi's Mountain Dew (Mello Yello just wasn't cutting it).  It took on the same tack as Dew, offering a brightly colored appearance, a mixed-citrus recipe, and a ton of caffeine.  Surge boasted an ingredients list containing maltodextrin, a substance added for extra energy from drinking the stuff.  Coke also marketed Surge using extreme sports, as have similar products.

With its aggressive marketing, energy drink-like benefits (in an era before most energy drinks), and its obnoxious green color, Surge took on a cult following more than mainstream appeal.  That fact bore out over the next few years, and Surge was discontinued in 2003.

A dull murmur for its return became a loud cry over the next few years.  Once Facebook was created, a group page was soon made to serve as a petition to bring back Surge.

A few years later, Coke created a spiritual successor to Surge called Vault.  The stuff was decidedly more like Mountain Dew than Surge, but it was delicious nonetheless.  Its run lasted over 5 years before Coke decided to fully get behind Mello Yello as their national "citrus" soda going forward.

In late 2014, Coke finally decided to bring back Surge for a time to sate the nostalgia that never seemed to die down.  It's a wonder it took so long.  How long will Surge be around this time?  I'm not really sure.  But the easiest way to get some is off of Amazon.com, and as of this posting, it's still available!

Does it taste just like it used to?  By my tongue, yes, and it seems the ingredients list is almost identical to what it used to be.  The flavor starts with a bold citrus note, just like all sodas in this category.  The mix of flavors is hard to pick out, but it most probably contains lemon, lime, orange, and grapefruit.  Surge distinguishes itself from the rest by concentrating on the flavor of lime, and "fake" lime, to be exact.  At the end of the sip you'll find a distinct sourness that really no other citrus soda has, along with a notable bitterness, most likely lent by its considerable caffeine content.  Truth be told, whenever Surge is once again no longer available, I might suggest looking toward Mountain Dew Baja Blast for a similar fix.

All in all, it's a delight to have Surge back to surf that wave of nostalgia.

Surge:- Great 

Crystal Pepsi (2016)

Few other products evoke such a bout of savage nostalgia as Crystal Pepsi.  Because it was sold for only about a year in the early 90s, whatever fill that people sought to have was clearly not sated.  I've heard people talk about Crystal Pepsi for the last 20 years.  It's a wonder that Pepsico took so long to bring it back.

Much like how some folks stick to clear liquor (as opposed to "brown" liquor) because they think it's a bit gentler on their body, so too did there exist some fad in the 90s about how clear products are better than opaque ones.  For this, Pepsi shuffled around their ingredients list a bit and issued Crystal Pepsi, a clear but otherwise unsullied formula of the original soft drink.  Initial sales were strong, but soon tapered off, and Pepsi eventually pulled the product.  Like many things, people didn't realize what they wanted until it was gone, and so I've been hearing about Crystal Pepsi yearning for most of my life.

I only recently just found the stuff in stores as of this posting, but evidently Pepsi rolled out Crystal Pepsi again starting in 2015.  How is it?  Delicious.  Why?  Because it tastes just about the same as Pepsi.  Whether they meant to or not, they did a much better job with Crystal Pepsi than with Mountain Dew DEWshine.  Btw... does clear soda always have a stronger carbonation than dark soda?  I swear it does.  Anyway....

Much like the original 90s version, Crystal Pepsi lacks caffeine.  This was initially done in the 90s because Crystal Pepsi was supposed to be a "cleaner" product than Pepsi, which contains artificial coloring and the addictive drug caffeine.  I'm pretty sure caffeine is clear also, but I imagine Pepsico kept this feature today to remain loyal to the original recipe.  Does this taste exactly like the original?  I have no idea; I was 8 years old in 1992.  Besides, I wouldn't advise you to drink a 20 year old Crystal Pepsi to compare it either (warning: vomit).

The point is this: caffeine is bitter, and any cola that is caffeine-free tastes sweeter than its caffeinated counterpart.  In conclusion, Crystal Pepsi tastes almost identical to Caffeine-free Pepsi, which you can still buy today; go see for yourself.  If I had some on hand, I would compare it, but I don't, so I won't.


Crystal Pepsi:- Great
Original Pepsi(for comparison):- Great

Pop-Tarts Frosted Cinnamon Roll

Product circa: Early 2016

Another cinnamon bun varietal, this time from Pop-Tarts.

Despite that these are Frosted® Pop-Tarts, the frosted is a slight drizzle, and not covering the whole pastry, which as you'll see, is always good in my book.

The initial bite gives you an experience similar to Pop-Tarts Brown Sugar Cinnamon (one of my go-to's).  Coming through more than the cinnamon is brown sugar and vanilla, which shouldn't be unexpected for a cinnamon bun-flavored item.  It's not too distinguishable from the Brown Sugar Cinnamon variety when eaten cold.

When heated, however, every flavor is elevated.  Best of all, the heat makes the exposed pastry take on a doughy, almost yeasty flavor that really hits the spot.


Pop-Tarts Frosted Cinnamon Roll:- Outstanding
Original Pop-Tarts Frosted Brown Sugar Cinnamon(for comparison):- Great

Cinnamon Bun Oreo

Product circa: early 2016

This is one of the few Oreo products where the cookie is flavored along with the creme.  The otherwise-vanilla cookie has flecks of cinnamon in it that are so big that they add a chewiness to the bite.  The vanilla creme, when tasted alone, has the slightest bit of cinnamon flavoring as well.  This double hit of vanilla-cinnamon makes for a complex taste, not to mention delicious.


Cinnamon Bun Oreo:- Outstanding

Original Golden Oreo(for comparison):- Great

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

Pop-Tarts Frosted Blue Raspberry

Note: This is a Presumptive Ephemeral Nom.

Product circa: September 2015

I love almost anything flavored like blue raspberry.  It's that simple.

What is blue raspberry, exactly?  It's a flavor based on a plant that is a cousin to the raspberry called Rubus leucodermis.  The problem is that the plant's fruit is not blue, and whatever blue raspberry flavor that you're used to is probably very distant to what the fruit of this plant might actually taste like.

But no matter.  Blue raspberry is a firm institution when it comes to artificially flavored foods.  The problem with blue raspberry Pop-Tarts is that it's a fairly vacuous product.  Despite the cool Solo Jazz frosting pattern, the flavor of this falls flat.  They took the average Pop-Tarts "fruit" filling, added a ton of blue coloring, and maybe the slightest bit of blue raspberry flavor.  In the end, I'm not sure I'd be able to distinguish this from strawberry if I did a blind taste test.


Pop-Tarts Frosted Blue Raspberry:-Good
Original Pop-Tarts(Strawberry, for comparison):-Good