Mountain Dew Kickstart Energizing Limeade

You wake up in the morning and what is the first thing you crave? Water? Cereal? Juice? Hell, even coffee would be an acceptable answer. If you said a nice tall can of Mountain Dew, or any other soda for that matter, you live a sick sad life. There is really no reason to be drinking pop as soon as you wake up. I see no difference in downing a can and pounding a giant Pixie Stix. I don't care if a percentage of it is juice. That does not make it acceptable. While we're at it, can we acknowledge that 5% juice does not really count as it being juice, 5% is nothing.

Mountain Dew (or Mtn Dew as the can proclaims) may have realized their marketing folly, or perhaps they are just trying to expand their reach, and released two new Kick Start flavors that are meant for nighttime consumption. Now that seems a bit more reasonable (as long as people are planning on staying up awhile after drinking it and not go to bed 30 minutes later. From what I can gather these new sodas are Mountain Dew original with minimal juice mixed in and some electrolytes added “to taste.” Do electrolytes even really have a taste?

This variety certainly does taste like regular ole Mountain Dew with a bit of extra lime in the mix. I find it to be an improvement from the way people expect this beverage to taste. The downfall is that they used sucralose as well as high fructose corn syrup. While I appreciate that they are trying to lower people's sugar intake, the flavor definitely suffers. I didn't notice it at all at first, but the deeper I got into the can the more prevalent the gross diet flavor became. I'm not sure if my taste buds were picking it up more, or if it settles, either way it wasn't good for anyone.