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Official M&C new 'Dew' taste test, Supernova wins the soda competition

By April MacIntyre Jun 5, 2008, 3:46 GMT

PR firms send me all kinds of press kits, but the one that took the cake this week was the three can neatly boxed set of Mountain Dew’s latest ginseng-infused new flavors.

The latest Dew concoctions are for you, the end users, to decide which one to keep, and which to jettison this summer.

In full disclosure, I am not a soda drinker, not even the diet stuff. Gave it up many years ago along with coffee. No mom, I did not convert to Mormonism. So with these limitations, I enlisted my 16 year-old son and some of his fellow wrestlers on the Calabasas Varsity Wrestling Team to do the first official Monsters and Critics controlled taste test, replete with careful notation of the top notes, tongue burn, after taste and post-ingestion malaise each drink may or may not offer.So the story goes that earlier this year, Mountain Dew decided to create “The People’s Dew” by inviting consumers to determine the flavor, name, and look of the next drink. Now, consumers are campaigning for the final three candidates.

Supernova (Dew with a blast of strawberry melon flavor and ginseng)

Voltage (Dew charged with raspberry citrus flavor),

and Revolution (Dew infused with wild berry fruit flavor and ginseng)
These three flavors will hit shelves for a limited time this summer to give consumers the opportunity to try them out and cast their vote for their favorite. Once the election results are in, the ultimate winner, the People’s Dew, will be officially recognized as an honored member of the Mountain Dew lineup. LINKOkay then. We pour small shots of each chilled soda into three shot glasses, changing glasses between each can so no comingling of flavors occurs. There are Oyster crackers to cleanse the palates of the 135, 145 and 127 weight class Calabasas Coyote wrestlers agreeing to do this.Let’s start with “Revolution.”Color: Light violet blue
Smell: “Sour blueberries” comment heard the most
Top note: “Berry flavor pops, not very sweet”
Initial reaction: Positive, thumbs halfway up.Next is “Voltage”Color: Light Blue
Smell: “Sour”, “bogus” “like a sweaty sock”
Top note: “Bland” “Boring” “What the hell is this?”
Initial reaction: “Hopefully the next one will be better…”Next is “Supernova”Color: Magenta purple
Smell: “Bubblegum” “Sweet”
Top note: “Sweetest of the three,” “Not bogus,” “Can I have more of this one.”
Initial reaction: “Unanimous Supernova pins the competition. Wins”Now, the thing about wrestlers, in case you never saw the film “Vision Quest” with Matthew Modine, is they are quite calorie and nutrient aware and scan food labels like anorexic teenage girls. Weight classes are unforgiving and the last thing you need is to be bumped up into a class where you may get your clock cleaned.Out of nowhere my son bellows, “Holy crap there’s 46 grams of sugar in this one,” and it was followed by his friend, “dude, high fructose corn syrup is like the second ingredient.”This drink is loaded with caffeine and ginseng, and everyone who swigged the taste test samples had a bit of Red Bull-itis acid burn tummy after the fact. Plus, these already too energetic guys were bouncing off the walls and beyond hyper-verbal. Son says he would still go for “Supernova” again despite the sugars and caffeine. I pull a classic "mom block" reversal and tell him he can have all the tap water he can drink, starting now.