Ha! I made you think I wasn’t gonna be writing about the hard Mountain Dew! Gotcha!
Ok, so I’m visiting a friend in Florida, one of the few states that actually have it in stores, so I made him drive me around town until we found it. First we went to Wal-Mart, because we heard that some Wal-Marts had it, only to find out that that specific one didn’t, but then we checked online and found a liquor store nearby that did, only to spend 5 minutes walking in circles around the building, struggling to find the front door. But these were all but temporary setbacks in our righteous quest, and now it’s time to crack these bad boys open.
Regular
Unsurprisingly, it tasted a lot like Mountain Dew Zero Sugar, although, surprisingly, not quite as flavorful? That might’ve been just the fact that we drank it on ice, though.
My friend noted the straight-up-grain-alcohol aftertaste was reminiscent of Four Loko, something that I’ve never partaken in and, at this point, am just too damn old to. It’s not bad, but we both ended up regretting dedicating ourselves to drinking the entire can, knowing there were better flavors in store, but it was easy enough to chug down before moving on.
Watermelon
I don’t even like watermelon. There, I said it. Whenever I eat any melon, the second the taste of it enters the back of my throat, my throat seizes up, as if to say, “NO! Get that foul fruit OUT OF HERE!” (Am… am I allergic to melons?) I will admit, however, that this was a much more flavorful beverage than the last one. The watermelon taste also does a better job of masking the alcohol taste, so, again, as much as I don’t like watermelon, I have to admit this is a slightly better tasting drink- perhaps, even, my 2nd favorite of the batch.
Black Cherry
First thing I noticed as I poured the contents of the can into a glass was that it was the same pale pink as the watermelon, which I found alarming for superficial reasons I can’t really put my finger on. Anyways, if you’ve had black cherry White Claw, you pretty much know what this tastes like. The only real difference is that it’s slightly sweeter (in that “Zero Sugar” aspartame-y kinda way… Side note, there’s no ingredients label anywhere, so I’m assuming it’s aspartame.) and doesn’t have quite as much alcohol aftertaste. My only question is… why didn’t they try to brand this one as Code Red? Or the watermelon one as Major Melon, for that matter? I literally JUST wrote about how strong the Mountain Dew branding is, how could they betray me like this?
Baja Blast
Ah, yes, the moment we’ve all been waiting for. It smells like Baja Blast. It looks like Baja Blast. And goddamit, it tastes like Baja Blast (Zero Sugar). Admittedly, we did get a little hungry at this point and each had a “palate-cleansing” donut that may or may not have de-aclimatized our taste buds to the aspartame (?), throwing this tasting out of whack. I’d say this one probably had the 2nd strongest alcohol taste to it. But, there’s just something so soothing about that pastel teal hue we’ve all come to know and love that you can’t not love it. It’s Baja Blast, baybee!
In my opinion, the Baja Blast and, surprisingly, the watermelon were more or less tied for best, with the black cherry being just alright and the original being pretty tasteless. The only real complaint I have at the end of the day was that they were only available in Zero Sugar, and not the full sugar that my taste buds crave, but, they ultimately are trying to cash in on the hard seltzer craze, so it makes sense that they want to limit the calories.
None of this really matters, of course. They’re literally only available in the variety pack, you can’t just pick and choose your favorites.
Donut palate cleanse FTW