Mountain Dew Pitch Black

[Andrew Fenton]

It's only on sale for the next ten weeks, and evidently, it tastes like grape. And it's black: black as night, black as coal.

I haven't seen it yet, and I'd be tempted to try it because, hey, it's black.

But on the other hand, it's still Mountain Dew.

[Jim Cotter]

Why on God's earth would some goofball decide to make the dreaded Mountain Doo black? Why? Is this part of this extreme sales pitch where everything has an extreme X on it all the time? Or is it to remind you that if you drink the doo you are hurtling towards the void faster than you think.

[Jason Perlow]

The important thing is the taste. If it tastes as good as LiveWire does, it should be a success.

[wnissen]

You could mix this stuff with Blavod and have a pitch black sugar, caffeine, and alcohol mixed drink!

[Jason Perlow]

You could mix this stuff with Blavod and have a pitch black sugar, caffeine, and alcohol mixed drink!

Or Gosling's Black Seal Rum. You could call it the "Dark and Grapey"

[Jim Cotter]

And don't forget Adult onset of Diabetes in thirty days or your money back.

[Mayhaw Man]

Last night, after a conversation with Jason P that started out as business and eventually collapsed into a discussion of our common love of grocery store ice cream sandwiches and the grapey deliciousness of some of our favorite sodas (once again, we like alot of grocery store brands-something about those delicious artificial flavors not being screwed up by any "natural flavorings" ) I realized that we were out of coffee. Well, I don't live in New York where I could just run down the stairs from my stylish Manhattan apartment to an all night coffee retailer or some well stocked corner store-I live in rural South Louisiana where anything after 11 is going to involve a 25 minute drive to Wally World. So, I hopped in the car and off I went.

After selecting a bag of CC's Columbian Dark Roast, a quart of milk. and some leche con azucra in the Mexican aisle I headed for the checkout stand. Now, as many of you know, late night shopping at Wal Mart can cause one to develop a powerful thirst- What with the dodging of the many stockers loading the shelves with supplies of bargain priced goods for the convenience of the next day's mass of bargain minded shoppers-so I was looking in the end cap fridge by the checkout for a refreshing beverage and lo and behold THERE IT WAS! The exact drink that had been the subject of such heated debate (all 6 posts worth) all day on eGullet(soon to be .org ) Mountain Dew Pitch Black Soda. I grabbed one and anxiously awaited the checkout process so that I could rip open the cap and try out the new drink to satisfy both my own curiosity and also in order to be able to tell my friends all over the world about this fine new beverage.

Well, I held my curiosity until I returned to the safety of my vehicle and cracked open the top. I held it to my nose and noted that there was something familiar, very familiar about the aroma eminating from that bottle. In the back of my mind I thought that I could identify the odor, and then I tasted the dark beverage. Then I knew!

The Fine Folks at Montain Dew have recreated-exactly- something that those of you who are now about 40 or a bit older probably remember very very well. Remember that all purpose cough syrup that pediatricians used to push for all manner of maladies-the purple stuff? It was loaded with codeine and alcohol and if it didn't cure you it would at least shut you up, thereby making both you AND your parents feel better. It is EXACTLY like carbonated cough syrup. If it had alcohol and codeine in it it WOULD BE cough syrup, or a Flaming Mo (or as we call it here in So. La.- A Flaming Meaux

This, my friends, is a good thing if you are looking for a delicious cough syrup, but a very bad thing if you are searching for a great soft drink. I suspect that this limited run will be very, very limited. It may appeal to some, but it didn't work very well for me. I would be very interested to see what others think about it.

Incidentally, I suspect that it was on the shelves at Wal Mart here because we are almost always a test market for new soft drinks. The Central Gulf Coast rates way in the top range of per capita soft drink consumption and we get alot of test beverages. Last year we were the test for the highly delicious Barq's Root Beer Floats-a root beer with a hint of vanilla. Glass bottles only. It was really good. I wish they would put that stuff out nation wide.

[Jim Cotter]

Interesting post. Now I will have to try the Barq's root beer you speak of. It is something how big of a difference glass bottles make to soft drinks. I bet the coca-cola people could sell alot more of their product if they re-released it in those

large thick glass bottles from the sixties.

I can remember going to Hockey camp in Canada in the early seventies and there used to be these freezer box type of soda bins with all types of soda in long glass bottles, that stuff was great. Alas no more.

[tommy]

And it's black: black as night, black as coal.

like texas tea.

[Stone]

The important thing is the taste. If it tastes as good as LiveWire does, it should be a success.

Someone told me that Pepsi Clear tasted just like Pepsi.

[Tracy K.]

1) My grandfather used to work in a "pop shop" bottling soft drinks, my uncles worked for Owens-Illinois and Libbey Glass--and boy did we hear it if there were beverages in cans around. Glass definitely is the way to go; however, what do you do if the case falls and breaks...and the floor gets sticky...and you have to clean it up.... Oh, I know, do what Grandpa used to do when a keg "accidentally" fell of the wagon...go upstairs early and go to bed.

2) Do not even think about ruining the mighty Gosling's Black Seal. However, keep in mind that you can get a reasonable facsimile of a Dark and Stormy using Vernor's (another topic entirely...mmm, Vernor's). However, you cannot get a reasonable facsimile of Bermuda from a ziploc bag of pink sand.... (On our first, of many, visits there our cab driver gave us a mini Chivas bottle filled with sand--now there's class for you.)

3) "Tastes like chicken"

[tryska]

Someone told me that Pepsi Clear tasted just like Pepsi.

you know i was at a bp yesterday, and decided to get a beverage. i don't normally do gas station fountains, but this time i decided to live ont he edge and got some iced tea (i think it was nestea) anyways....i pushed the fountain thingy, and out came this clear stuff thatg looked like thick water. hmm. i smelled it and it smelled like iced tea. i even tasted it, and it tasted like what fountain iced tea would taste like if it was brown.

but then i thought...hmm..i could be drinking cleaning solution that's got leftover iced tea in it. so i asked the conveninece store clerk, wondering if this wa some sort of XTREME iced tea. he said no - the fountain wasn't working right. i left it at that, and got a free cup of ice and some orange juice instead.

[Mayhaw Man]

Actually, in this day and age of centralized bottling plants the biggest issue for beverage bottlers is weight. While cans are certainly a bit (not much, interestingly enough) cheaper, the real deal has to do with how many cases you can shove into a truck with a 55,000 lb. limit for federal highways. A truckload of glass is heavy BEFORE you put the beverage in it, and a truckload of cans weighs almost nothing. Cans are so light that they are not even put of pallets, but on plastic slides called 'skids' and they are more or less jerked straight out of the truck by hand and onto the line. You can pack alot more beverages into a truck when it is full of cans.

This was not of much importance when every town had a contract bottler plus maybe a coca cola bottler as well. Now that plants may be several hundred miles from the point where the drinks are being sold, and everything has to go by 18 wheeler, weight is a major cost concern.

Everybody, including especially the beverage industry, knows that bottles are better in terms of flavor (although with beer, the tradeoff between glass and cans is a bit more complicated as light is harmful to beer, although less so in brown glass-but that's another discussion) as glass imparts no flavor whatsoever. And with the development of oxygen absorber crowns the issue of air in the headspace of the bottle has been solved-so it comes down to cost. Cans are cheaper to buy and cheaper to ship. And they are less costly to recycle as someone else does the work for them. Returnable bottles involve cleaning and that used to be a whole part of a packaging plant and an entirely seperate dept. in most cases. Giant machines, lots of wastewater issues, and some safety issues as well (have to clean with sodium hydroxide-caustic soda- and that stuff can be a pain (literally) to work around.

[Jason Perlow]

The important thing is the taste. If it tastes as good as LiveWire does, it should be a success.

Someone told me that Pepsi Clear tasted just like Pepsi.

It did. And it was a gimmick -- the only gimmick the product had.

Truth be told there hasn't been a successful grape soda on the market for a long time. Mountain Dew has been taking a lot of risks -- with Code Red, Livewire, and now Pitch Black. So far though, they've been very successful.

[Mayhaw Man]

I like Code Red.

I miss Barq's Red Creme Soda.

Big SHot Red Creme is close, but not the same, IMO

[jhlurie]

I miss Barq's Red Creme Soda.

Big SHot Red Creme is close, but not the same, IMO

Have you had Boylan's Red Birch Beer?

[lesfen]

My brother pushed his can of Pitch Black on me the other day, and I have to say that I don't think it's going to make it into my beverage rotation. It was a little too tart, at first. The first taste made me think of a Jolly Rancher, actually. As I kept drinking, it mellowed and wasn't bad at all, but it could never replace the greatest grape soda of all time... GRAPE NEHI (bottles, of course)!!

Altho', I may have to send the baby to grandma's this weekend and indulge in a little experimental mixology with this stuff. Could be interesting...

[johnnyd]

Saw Pitch Black for the first time today... almost went for it... but then I remember how grape lollipops turn my tongue purple and how my wife laughed so hard tears ran down her cheeks...

[Jim Cotter]

I knew there had to be reasons aplenty why glass got phased out of the mainstream, but with what seems a healthy population of "Pop" afficinados out there, I would think a limited edition run of some drinks , at a higher cost i.e. gourmet market would be worth a go. Like Blenheims and Barritts.

Have not tried Barrits in a can yet wonder if it is different?

[donk79]

Ok, I was at the gas station this evening, and decided that I would take on for the team. So I reached for the bottle of black stuff, with horrid flashbacks of grape Dimetap tasting soda flashing through my mind. I put on a brave face as I went through the line at the register, returned to my car, and cracked the seal. I could have sworn I head an evil cackle as a darm mist swept from the bottle an swiftly began to fill the car! I reached for the door handle to try to escape, but it wouldn't open. I tried to roll down the windows, but couldn't find my keys in the deep dark haze. I began to turn purple myself, holding my breath, frantically searching for a way out, when suddenly the air I had been holding in exploded from as though i had been punched in the gut. With a deep feeling of dispair, I began to leave my Clintonesque refusal behind and slowly inhail.

And then things began to get pretty. The stars began to dance, and the gas pumps were slowly joining in. The fellow in front of me somehow was managing to revolve slowing around the handle of the gas pump as he poured lucious liquid into his vehicle. Then the most beautiful face I have ever seen came near, and held up a shiny badge. I was examining the badge closely, marveling at how it caught and refracted the neon lights in the stores window. It was positively amazing! first they twisted one way, then the next. Then with a flash and a jump they were gone as if they'd never been there before. Then there was the beautiful face again, and it looked like it was trying to say something. Unfortunately nothing but gibberish was coming out. I afraid the person wearing that beautiful face must have been either a raving lunatic or fresh out of their mind. Anyhow, they were nice enough. They helped me out of my car, and into another one. It must have been some kind of a limosine, because there was a barrier between the front and back seats. THey took me to somekind of high-scale hotel that even provided me with a change of clothes, when they realized I had none with me. They gave me a quiet room, which was rather unfortunate, because I rather felt like some excitement at this point. So instead I just laid back on the cushioned floor to rest...

Ok it wasn't that bad. But it wasn't that good either. It was just kind of there, in the same way that soda from a fountain is just kiind of there when the syrup tank needs to be changed. I wouldn't refuse one if I was thirsty, but I wouldn't go paying for one either.

Edited August 26, 2004 by donk79 (log)

[Tracy K.]

Have not tried Barrits in a can yet wonder if it is different?

I have a full can of Barritts but you can't have it.

I have an empty bottle of Tropical Fantasy (Pineapple)...that was the one bottled in the NY/NJ area that got embroiled in an urban legend dispute that it was designed to make African-American men sterile. So I drank some...but I'm a girl....

I have a bottle of Pepsi that was bottled in the Soviet Union when Pepsi first started selling there under 'peristroyka'--it is slowly evaporating. (Ah, that Soviet technology....)

Boylan's used to be sold only in the Patterson, NJ area, but I think they sold out or sold the bottling rights, so you can get it in a lot of places. It was always a hoot to go in and simply order a "birch".

And to think that as my husband was enjoying his diet Orange Crush (which he loves) a few days ago, I was lamenting the lack of any grape soda anymore. I lived on grape soda and Faygo Red Pop when I was growing up. Then this topic arrives. Egulleteers are omniscient!!!!

However, I don't think I'll be searching out nor trying the Mountain Dew Black whatever...these line extensions are messing with too many good things.

[Jim Cotter]

Donk79 you sound alot like Hunter S Thompson.

"Better get out of here this looks like Bat Country"

[donk79]

Hunter S. Thompson? Was she (he?) also tortured by fizzy dimetap tasting stuff as a child?

[Jim Cotter]

If he was you can be sure there was a generous portion of Wild Turkey mixed in the fizzy drink

[Carolyn Tillie]

Okay, for you folks who have tasted this bizarre concoction, I think you have all missed the point. From as near as I can tell, you all tasted it straight from the container in which it is sold. Having me chuckled about the existence of this thread, Shawn brought home a bottle this evening.

He opened the plastic bottle and we both sniffed. Yeah, there was that syrupy grape smell. "Pour a little in a glass over ice, please" I asked. "In an absinthe glass?" Shawn joked.

Well, as I sit here and peruse this thread, he walks in with the small glass and I can see the bright purplish hue glisten through the light. However, atop the sparkling hue of amethyst was BRIGHT BLUE FOAM!

You know that hideous blue food coloring so frequently acquainted with raspberry? Yep -- THAT color blue. Slurpee Blue.

And the flavor? Well, as most people have already described... grape lollipop is a good attribute. In fact, it tastes a great deal like a melted slurpee.

Edited August 31, 2004 by Carolyn Tillie (log)