New Choice for Dew Lovers

Ladies and gentlemen who desire the yellow and green elixir known as Mt. Dew have a new choice for a limited time. PepsiCo has created a natural sugar version of Dew called Throwback.

The limited edition -- eight weeks to be exact -- citrus-drink has been sweetened with a combination of cane/beet sugar instead of high fructose corn syrup. One of the biggest selling points of the novel drink is the loss of HFCS. Publicly, PepsiCo does not acknowledge the debate over HFCS and notes these types of products are not created due to health concerns.

Good to know.

Aside from the trip down memory lane with the 1980s designed cans of Throwback, I was not impressed with this new Dew. There is quite a flavor difference between the two drinks.

Is it the lack of concentrated orange juice or am I just reading too much into it?

One notable element of Mountain Dew Throwback is the aftertaste, which has a certain element of crispness, but at the same time, harkens back to perhaps Diet Mt. Dew with a lingering, non-attractive flavor similar to an artificial sweetener.

I wonder if this is how Dew originally tasted and that any negativity aimed at the Throwback flavor is simply today's generation reacting to something that doesn't taste like the HFCS Mt. Dew they are so familiar with.

The world may never know.

But, what we do know is Mt. Dew is currently the No. 4 best selling brand, according to Beverage Digest's "Top 10 CSD Results for 2008" report released back in March. (And you have to admit, Pepsi has owned this category for a long time with Mt. Dew's citrus dominance.)

Diet Mt. Dew grew in volume by 4 percent, which is really good considering that the carbonated soft drink market has been shrinking over the past four years. Coke has tried to confront Dew over the years with Mello Yellow, Surge, and probably most successfully with Vault.

As Dew fans long know, the popular drink has been leveraged quite a bit lately with numerous flavor extensions, including, but not limited to:

* Mountain Dew Code Red

* Mountain Dew LiveWire

* Mountain Dew Baja Blast

* Mountain Dew Pitch Black

* Mountain Dew Pitch Black II

* Mountain Dew MDX

* Mountain Dew Game Fuel

* Mountain Dew Supernova

* Mountain Dew Revolution

* Mountain Dew Voltage

They all may be fantastic, but I am going to stick with the HFCS Mt. Dew. However, for the sake of innovation I encourage everyone to try the limited Mt. Dew Throwback or its sibling Pepsi Throwback.

Share your opinions on the new-fangled drinks.