There used to be a time when a late night D&D session involved several pots of stark black coffee and tons of sugar. This was a simpler time, before 16 ounce energy drinks packed with 80mg of caffeine and fancy additives like Taurine and Ginseng. Then the times changed, and late night D&D sessions morphed into late night Command and Conquer or World of Warcraft sessions. The brain fuel - the drink of choice changed as well. It was still before the aforementioned energy drinks and way before such trendy items like 5 Hour Energy. That new drink of choice was Mountain Dew.
With a healthy 54mg of Caffeine per 12 ounce can, and that wonderful Yellow #5, Mountain Dew has been the game fuel of choice for gamers and geeks for quite a while now. While it was invented in the 1940's and released across the United States in 1964, only in the last 20 years or so has it reached its full potential in the collective taste buds of gamers and geeks. It has become the definitive game fuel, and now finally it has been recognized by PepsiCo as such.
If you go to the Mountain Dew website you'll notice that they have a new promotional tie-in with the World of Warcraft empire. They are giving away tons of prizes and have introduced two new flavors of Dew. Those being "Alliance Blue" and "Horde Red" and they encourage drinkers to "choose a side." As an aside, this post is not a paid advertisement for Mountain Dew. I'm actually drinking a can right now.
In celebration of the two new flavors, I've composed a short list of the best and worst of the many different iterations of Mountain Dew over the years.
Worst Flavors of Mountain Dew
"Horde Red" - It's new, but mixing citrus and cherry never works.
"Supernova" - One of the "DEWmocracy" flavors, it rightfully lost to "Voltage." It was purple.
"Code Red" - Terrible tasting cherry flavored Dew.
"Cherry Rush" - Even worse than "Code Red." Thankfully it's only available at Wienerschnitzel restaurants.
"Pitch Black II" - Sour grape. Seriously? Sour? Possibly the worst flavor overall.
Best Flavors of Mountain Dew
"LiveWire" - Orange flavored Dew. I love Orange Soda, so mixing it with Mountain Dew was pure genius.
"Pitch Black" - Limited edition grape flavored Dew released for Halloween. Was also released as "Darth Dew" in 7-11 stores as a Slurpee flavor.
"Baja Blast" - Only available at Taco Bell, it's a delightfully strange mix of pineapple and lime.
"Original Dew" - Can't beat the original, except with only one other flavor.
"Diet Original" - All that sugar can't be good in the long run. After "doing the Dew" for over 20 years, it's time to switch to diet.
What's your favorite or least favorite flavor of Dew?
