Dump post: Oreos, Pop-Tarts, Lays, and Mountain Dew Baja Gold

 Just a post dumping old pics that I never posted.  I don't have individualized reviews of these, but I remember especially that the Oreos below were very good overall.

Sprite Tropical Mix

Product circa: Intermittent

Some folks may not realize this, but this is basically a reincarnation of Sprite’s Tropical Remix from the early 2000s.  There were 2 Tropical Remixes and, frankly, this Tropical Mix might be a mixture of the 2.

The copy says pineapple and strawberry are the main flavors, here.  I would say... pineapple, definitely; mango, probably; orange, probably.  The strawberry brings up the rear and is subtle.

This stuff is great.  It's a satisfying spiritual successor to the Tropical Remixes.  It's fantastic that Coke has made this available, and seemingly it is now a semi-permanent product.  Color this reviewer happy.

Mountain Dew VooDEW 2021

Product circa: 2021

Supposedly this was flavored like "fruit candy chews".

Ends up tasting like some sort of berry lemonade, like many other Dews have in the past.  I can taste lemon Starbursts if I try hard enough.  With that said, it’s well balanced and delicious.

Pepsi X (ULTRA THROWBACK)

 

Product circa: 2012

You may or may not know that dragonfruit, despite its striking appearance, is mostly flavorless.  Regardless, Pepsi followed a trend and made this product.

This stuff is like Pepsi with a shot of B12.  The dragonfruit adds a subtle and generic fruitiness, but in a way that makes it lighter, and tastier, than the original.  Very well done... one that I remember from time to time over the years.

 

Starburst Airs

 

Product circa: 2021

An odd but welcome variant of the Starburst candies.  These are soft and squishy, as opposed to the hard and chewy original.  Their flavors translate well into this new form, whose integrated air bubbles make it all taste almost creamy.  A nice try at a new product, though I don't think they were successful.

Mountain Dew Flamin' Hot

Product circa: 2022

Erroneously called “Hot Cheetos Mountain Dew” by some, this obviously has no cheese flavoring in it.  In what seemed like a cross-branding blitz of “Flamin’ Hot” products in 2022, Dew wasn’t left out.

There’s extra lime flavor added in to this, but no additional tartness, as some Dews have done in recent years.  This ends up being a sweet limey mix, not unlike Baja Blast.  There is a spicy kick on the swallow, which Dew has also done before.  This is VERY tasty, I might buy this more often, if I had the opportunity.

Mystery Oreo 2017 & Fruity Crisp Oreo

 

Products circa: 2017 & 2016

Mystery: This one was easy.  Upon first bite, it was overwhelmingly clear that it was flavored like Post Fruity Pebbles cereal.  The likeness is uncanny.  And also very odd paired with chocolate cookies.  But quite tasty overall.  The first of the Oreo Mystery flavors, if I recall correctly.

Fruity Crisp: Almost identical to the product above, these use vanilla cookies, which pairs much better with the cereal-accurate creme.  Absolutely delicious, and very novel.

Coca-Cola Move

Product circa: 2023

One of the weird LTOs that Coke offered in the 2023 era, all of which had concept-y names that had no bearing on the product itself.

This tastes like a fruitier Coke, and I can detect coconut, but no pineapple, as the internet had been saying.  The Zero Sugar version is a damn good approximation of the full sugar.

Coke keeps being restrained with the amount of additional flavoring that they add to the variations, while Pepsi continued to be bold with theirs.  And that's why Pepsi flavored colas are always better.

Gatorade Mashups Cool Blue + Fruit Punch

 

Product circa: 2025

Note: This is a Presumptive Ephemeral Nom.

A cool idea.  This sounds delicious, right?  For whatever reason, it's not.  They don't marry at all.  I'd rather have each constituent product individually. 

Mountain Dew Fruit Quake

 

Product circa: 2022

These are post-hoc thoughts from memory.  Ostensibly a fruitcake-flavored Dew (I love fruitcake), instead this is really perhaps the best fruit punch soda I have ever had, with a heavy concentration on cherry.  Fantastic.  I hope they re-release it with a more welcoming and crowd-pleasing name/branding.

Gatorade Passionfruit

Product circa: 2023

Note: This is a Presumptive Ephemeral Nom.

A subtle but accurate passionfruit flavor, and a bit of sourness.  Very nice.  I'd love to have access to this regularly. 

Lay's Sweet & Spicy Honey

 

Product circa: 2024

I've eaten a few bags of these already.

There is no honey flavor in this whatsoever.  Instead, the honey is simulated with a combination of various fruity flavorings.  You will get a grape candy flavor, along with maybe peach.  There is also a heavy dose of savory here, like onion, mustard, soy sauce, and MSG in general.  These are also very spicy.  Not punishing like the "red hot" snacks, but a handful of these will have your throat burning in a great way that you won't expect.

One of the oddest snacks I've ever had that is still VERY enjoyable.

Froot Loops Icee

 

Product circa: 2024

I'll usually bypass even the most esoteric of slushy products, but I had to try this one out at Target.

Unfortunately, it doesn't have the signature bergamot flavor of Froot Loops at all, and instead it tastes precisely like a melted assortment of Skittles candies.

Lay's IHOP Rooty Tooty Fresh N' Fruity

 

Product circa: 2024

The taste of strawberry candy first, and it's a little tangy.  Remarkably close to something like a pie filling.  Buttery maple comes in next, like a cheap pancake syrup.  Bacon fat is an ingredient here, which is commendable, but it's hard to detect; it takes a few bites before your tongue gets used to the buttery fruit in order to notice a light smokiness.  

The first few chips are very off-putting, but I'm embarrassed to say that after you eat a few, these become pretty tolerable.  Definitely up there as one of the most bizarre chips I've ever eaten, up there with Lay's Cappuccino and Lay's Chicken and Waffle.

Coca-Cola Dreamworld

 

Products circa: 2022

My bottles haven't aged great, but to me this tastes like Coke with an added streak of fruitness.  I've seen a few online sources claim mango flavoring has been added, along with a few others.  Not bad.  But I really just wish that Coca-Cola would dispose of these artsy names and actually tell us what to expect from the product.

Starburst Fruity Slushies and Sweet Fiesta

 

Products circa: the 2010s

There's not much to say about these.  They are very tasty, but not drastically more remarkable than the original flavors.  Though I do tend to think that the Starburst variations are always better than the original flavors, I never met a Starburst I didn't like.

Coca-Cola Y-3000 and Ultimate

 

Coca-Cola Y3000 - God, the marketing copy is so exhausting.  We get it, this is what Coke from the Future would taste like.  AI Coke.  Yeah.  After tasting this myself, it was hard slogging through the Google search results to see what others actually thought of it.  Most opinions hew close toward "fruit candy".  The closest my own brain got was "rainbow sherbet" or even blue raspberry.  Regardless, "artificial fruit" is definitely the vibe here.  It's pretty tasty, but not tasty enough that I'd want to have permanent access to this.

Coca-Cola Ultimate - Made jointly with Riot Games, the marketing says that this is flavored like "+XP", which is short form for gaining character experience in a video game.  Fine.  This stuff is very subtle, and I actually went through several bottles and a 12-pack just to research it more heavily.  The internet opinions on this product are all over the place, and frustratingly so.  My take is that this has a generic fruity flavor which I can't pin down (but leans "green"), and is slightly sour.  And it's not lime.  So the closest I can peg here would be white grape or unripe mango (if you've ever tasted one).

Mountain Dew Baja Laguna Lemonade & Baja Point Break Punch

 

Products circa: Spring 2024

Laguna Lemonade: Tasty enough, but with a fake-tasting mango flavoring that pales in comparison to the Mountain Dew Mango Gem released a few years ago.

Point Break Punch: A fruit punch that's decidedly more "tropical" in flavor than the other million fruit punch Dews that have been made.  But something is off with the balance of the sweetness... either there's too much sugar, or not enough acidic bite.  But a nice change, overall.

Mountain Dew Maui Burst

 

Product circa: 2020 and onward, only at Dollar General stores

My hype for this one didn't help.  Supposedly a pineapple Dew, the fruit flavoring here is so subtle that is tastes straight up bland.  I'll be on the lookout for more to make sure it wasn't just the can I bought.

Mountain Dew Summer Freeze

 

Product circa: Summer 2023

Not the first time a "rocket pop"-flavored soda has been released.  Unfortunately this seems to have a quality about it that I can't help describe as a "deadness".  It's missing something to make it lively.