Mountain Dew - Code Red
(Pepsi)
There's been a lot of hype surrounding this release, and with good reason as it's the first time in modern history that a carbonated citrus beverage has had a spinoff flavor. The beverage's maker, Pepsi, even reports the beverage "scored in the top 5% of all new product concepts ever tested among teens by A.C. Nielsen, a leading international research firm." This beverage has gotten so much hype that even a computer virus has even been named after it, the Code Red worm that hit web servers this summer, the programmers who worked on stopping the virus claiming that the Code Red beverage provided them with the fuel needed to perform their work.
But does the Code Red beverage live up to its hype? Unfortunately, it doesn't. The concept behind Code Red, of course, is to add a "blast of cherry flavor" to the regular Mountain Dew formula. However, this burst of cherry flavor only counteracts the natural citrus flavors in Mountain Dew. Unlike cherry colas, where the cherry flavor acts only as nuance to the inherent cola flavors, the cherry flavor in Mountain Dew Code Red overpowers the citrus flavors. As a result, the beverage ends up tasting not like Mountain Dew with a hint of cherry but rather as a standard cherry soda. Several companies have tried to market cherry sodas, from Fanta to Dr. Browns, thus, a cherry soda is nothing new. In effect, this beverage should not be treated as a derivative of Mountain Dew, but rather as a brand new line of Pepsi-made cherry soda; it simply has that much cherry flavor in it.
The ingredients of Code Red are about what you'd expect from a Mountain Dew-derived beverage. There's carbonated water, high fructose corn syrup and/or sugar, and orange juice from concentrate. As always, there's plenty of caffeine (74 mg in a 16 oz. serving), and a beverage diet of Code Red only is sufficient to feed anyone's caffeine addiction. Also, Mountain Dew continues their exclusive use of gum arabic as a stabilizer, again refusing to accept the more popular guar gum. These levels of gum arabic along with the standard brominated vegetable oil are the reason why Code Red keeps the classic smoothness of regular Mountain Dew. Code Red goes down easily, however, it's the cherry-centric taste that keeps one from wanting to keep drink large quantities of it.
Mountain Dew Code Red is a disappointment. While the smoothness of normal Mountain Dew is kept in tact, the added cherry flavor acts not as an enhancing secondary flavor but rather as the lead flavor. Code Red is plain and simple no longer a citrus-based beverage. Drink Code Red only if you are looking for a cherry-only beverage. Perhaps the only way to truly improve the delicate balance of flavors in standard Mountain Dew is to add pulp.
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