Mtn Dew VooDew III (2021) | Soda Blog Review

Let’s not beat around the bush: 2021 has been a bad year for Mtn Dew. Sure, the mainstay sodas are still great, and the new flavors that they keep grinding out are impressive. DewSA came back for the Olympics, and a couple of wide release flavors have turned heads with some fresh ideas. All that said, far too much of what Mtn Dew has been up to caters only to the scalpers, or to the mind-bogglingly lucky. This very week Mtn Dew released another one of their circus flavors, Flamin’ Hot, to online sale exclusively on their own internet store. Within minutes of coming online for sale, the website slowed to a crawl and the limited release product was sold out. eBay was promptly flooded with new product listings of single cans sodas going for over double their face value, and 6 packs reaching into the three figures. There’s less concern with providing product to consumers than to make a WILD AND CRAZY FLAVOR OMG and let the reactionary normie internet community do the rest of the work for dirt cheap publicity. Seven new flavors out of ten are released either to pathetically limited online sale, or prohibitively specific exclusives to stores or restaurants. Jesus, I might even have to go sit down at an Applebee’s to get a new Dew flavor, which is a new brand of punishment I didn’t think they were capable of. Still, despite all that consumerist bile, Mtn Dew hasn’t ruined everything quite yet, and as August turns to September, we can take in another chapter of one their finest new traditions.

Mtn Dew VooDew III (2021 edition) has hit store shelves and is a brand-new mystery flavor that will no doubt keep the public guessing on the taste profile until the big reveal around Halloween. Since 2019, it’s been a refreshing bit of good clean fun to talk with your soda drinkin’ buddies and speculate about what the unique flavor or flavor(s) might be. I’ve been dead wrong both years, but 2019’s Candy Corn and 2020’s Fruit Candy “Explosion” were enjoyable soda pops and 2021’s should be some more of the same. The cool blue color label is probably going to throw off my taste buds and make it imagine things that aren’t there but screw it, let’s have some fun. How is it, and more importantly, what does it taste like?

Verdict: Mtn Dew VooDew III starts off with a pleasant, not quite over the top fruity smell that is purely artificial but reminds me of the childhood days where fruity syrup drinks were the norm rather than the exception. As usual, the translucent white of the liquid was done on purpose to cloak the mystery, but it matches up to the new cool blue label quite nicely. One of our TehBen writers (I’ll let you guess which one), made reference to the VooDew liquids looking too much like frosted <bodily fluid redacted> and that it freaked them out. I don’t know what to do with that observation, but the fact that I heard it from a dear friend and respected writing colleague means you must deal with the brunt of that pronouncement too. Unless my taste buds have been knocked stone dead, VooDew III is a little less sweet than the first two, and I could imagine myself drinking this outside the scope of Halloween if it were ever rebranded into a new flavor. I said last year that VooDew II was a cotton candy flavor, but I think I may have just been a year behind. As stated before, the blue label is probably just screwing with me, but I distinctly feel this is like one of those blue cotton candies you get at the carnival or a ball game. Mtn Dew is getting a little more subtle with their mystery flavors, and it’s a welcome change to this tired old Dew connoisseur. Maybe I’ll just keep guessing cotton candy no matter what the flavor ends up being for VooDews IV, V, and so on. A broken clock is still right twice a day, and we could all use an easy W as we coast through to our inevitable, universal, soda drinking demise.

Stay happy y’all!

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