This Is What I Drink : 38

DEWMOCRACY '10!

There are many important decisions to make in this election year, but is there any more important than deciding what the next Mountain Dew flavor will be? Not by my standards. Dewmocracy is one of my favorite soda marketing gimmicks of all time. If there's anything I love, it's weirdo flavors that only exist for a limited time. It's pretty rare that a company will put out three brand new flavors at once, with one of those actually staying on the shelves. So who will win my official endorsement? Read on.

Distortion ("Lime Blasted" Dew)

Hmm, this one looks suspicious from the get-go. It looks exactly like regular Mountain Dew. That's not my kind of gimmick. According the bottle, all of the packaging was designed by "Dew fan" so and so. I'm not really impressed with any of the designs. They're just really tame. As for the taste of Distortion, well it certainly isn't exactly like regular Mt. Dew, but it's not different enough. It has a harder lime edge than the standard, but I've had other lime-based sodas that have brought more flavor than this. I just can't throw my support behind this candidate. It's a little bit too much of the same. We need change in Dewland.

Typhoon ("Tropical Punch" Dew)

Okay, by the looks of this it has potential. I feel like design is still nothing special but at least the color is different from standard dew although Code Red has been red before obviously. I couldn't quite put my finger on exactly what this was supposed to be, but my colleague Joe put his nose to it and it smelled a lot like former limited edition Taco Bell only flavor, Baja Blast. And voila, that was it! I think this stuff is a covert slight recreation of Baja Blast which I unceremoniously dismissed as awful a few years ago. There's something chemical twinge to the flavor that just isn't appetizing. This is like a president running for a third time, sorry Baj...Typhoon, you're finished.

White Out ("Smooth Citrus" Dew)

Here we have The Great White Hope. First of all, the bottle design is slightly more interesting here. It's still nothing special, but what I like even more is the actual color of the soda. The cloudy white is something fairly unique to soda, especially the mainstream. Taste-wise, I knew exactly what this was. It's a grapefuit/lemon-lime combo in the vein of Fresca or Squirt. That isn't really original in any fashion, but I'll say that it's a surprise and a fairly subtle flavor from the Mountain Dew brand. They're usually too bold and extreme for my taste, but White Out is not so heavy handed, so it's pretty enjoyable.

So you might have already guessed, but This Is What I Drink is officially endorsing WHITE OUT for Dewmocracy. Go out and vote because I told you so! Actually, I don't care that much. I really don't drink that much Mt. Dew anyway, so I probably won't buy this stuff. Oh well, voting is fun.