Mountain Dewmocracy New Flavors

Firstly, I gotta thank the people at Conye PR for sending out samples of all the different flavors to try out. They sent me the three new kinds of Mountain Dew, temporarily named Typhoon, Distortion and White Out. They come in three new kinda interesting flavors, fruit punchish, grapefruitish and spritish. Their marketing idea is to have drinkers 'choose' the next exciting flavor of Mountain Dew, let the two flavors die out, and the winner join the few mountain dew regulars, like Voltage, Code Red and Livewire. Oh, yes, and Baja blast. And Throwback. Come to think of it, there are more dew flavors than Fanta...

It is not really my place to judge a marketing campaign. It is an interesting way to engage consumers in a brand, and maybe sell a couple more drinks in the process. After all, Diet Mountain Dew is the best commercially available caffeinated soda there is on the market, and Mountain Dew is one of the oldest and most successful brands there is. I don't begrudge them trying to expand their brand - as long as they still plan on doing Mountain Dew Slurpees in the summer. Don't fu*k around with my Slurpees.

Buzz:7
My teeth have rotted out of my head and my blood sugar levels have spiked like my 8 year old after a trick or treating spree. For every flavor you get the same mountain of High Fructose Corn Syrup, tons of preservatives and calories, artificial flavorings, and most importantly, a nice pile of caffeine. By a nice pile, I mean 54mg per 12 ounce can, the same found in my precious precious Diet Mtn Dew. There is enough caffeine, simple carbs and sugars to make any sane person wired and bloaty after a couple 20oz are chugged down. I really wish one of their new 'choices' were a diet version of these, as I might even vote for it to keep it around.

Unfortunately, I split these with my kids. Unfortunate, because I opened all three at once and poured them into sample cups. All the kids hated Distortion and drank only some of White Out. I guess it should say something when kids turn down soda because of the taste, but it left me with 3 full cans of soda open at one time. I could not let good pop go to waste, so I managed to consume a Big Mac amounts of calories and enough preservatives to re-pickle Michael Jackson.

The Typhoon is definitely the way to go. All my kids vote the same - that the White Out tasted too fake-lemonade, and the distortion tasted like a bad mix of sprite. The tropical punch was the most unique to the Mountain Dew line, and the least fakey.

Packaging:5
DAMN! When I heard that there was going to be some special user created art chosen for these products, I got excited. I mean, Mtn Dew knows how to do it right when they want to. These series of collectible metal art cans are actually collectible!
If you have not seen them, you really should check out Green Art, and the amazing brilliant art they get to do with Mountain Dew. Compared to those, this looks like something ripped off istockphoto.com. This is pretty standard fare from a company which certainly could outdo them selves with originality. Even the Throwback label is pretty awesome. These are really all just ho-hum.