because of this post, I purchased the Fruit Quake Dew
now, I shall describe the Experience
First of all, it smells very strongly of nutmeg, with notes of ginger and mace, which is. unexpected. Not the sort of thing one associates with Mountain Dew.
Gimme a minute. Itās familiar, but I canāt pinpoint it yet.
So the main point is that it tastes absolutely nothing like Mountain Dew; if I were blind taste testing this and someone told me, āThis is a seasonal flavor of a major soda brand,ā I would never guess what brand itās supposed to be, and I have been a regular consumer of various flavors of Mountain Dew for over twenty years. (Come at me brah, Code Red is delicious.)
Iād quickly rule out Pepsi, Coke and Dr. Pepper, because it doesnāt have the typical carbonated cola afterburn mouthfeel I get with those, but my mouth is still very much like ā?????ā
After drinking more of this than Iād care to admit, I think Iāve nailed down the taste: it tastes like they used the flavoring syrup from Robitussin and added it to slightly-flat ginger ale.
This tastes like the kind of thing you have to drink when youāre ill in the winter and yarfing up a lung while battling a sour stomach at the same time, but without the vile semi-metallic medicinal taste to it.
There is a strong fruity flavor, but itās that cloying artificial cherry-grape mashup particular to every childrenās cough syrup my parents ever had to force down my throat, with maybe a hint of cranberry. Once the forward assault of the fruit flavor starts to subside, the nutmeg and ginger come in, and they linger in the mouth, in a way I personally find unpleasant, but somebody else might enjoy.
(Side note: I truly cannot communicate how powerfully the Fruit Quake Dew is scented, Iām sitting two feet away from the open bottle and can still basically taste it, thatās how strong the smell is.)
CONCLUSION: Iām sorry to report, there are people that will probably enjoy this. This tastes like Mountain Dewās attempt to court the folks who like cranberry ginger ale. This tastes like if a tryhard youth pastor tried to reverse engineer a straight-edge version of Lean for a ācommunity outreachā holiday party in a middle school gymnasium.
Somebody, somewhere, somehow liked this enough to greenlight it for production; there must be a market for it beyond curious masochists.
I am not the market for this beverage. I will not be putting this in my mouth ever again, but. I would consider buying another bottle specifically to force friends and loved ones through a blind taste test, because I believe the resultant face journeys would spark joy for me.
gummygunk
yousharknotpass
blakekathryn
prguitarman
s-u-f-j-a-n-s-t-e-v-e-n-s
