Mountain Dew Voltage

New blue Dew number two: Mountain Dew Voltage. Voltage is a slightly different shade of blue than Revolution, a little bit darker, tending toward indigo. If Revolution is the shade of twilight just after the last sliver of sun has vanished over the horizon, Voltage is the sky about a half hour later. Still not really dark, just not as light. It's actually quite beautiful.

The label describes it as, "charged with raspberry citrus flavor and ginsing." Yep, ginsing again.

And I've never understood how blue came to be the color associated with raspberry flavor. All the raspberries I've ever seen have been red. I hear tell that there are black raspberries and gold raspberries, but I've never heard of a genuine, bona fide blue raspberry plant. Maybe someone thought there was too much confusion with cherry and strawberry also being red. Or maybe someone just wanted to make a blue soda and couldn't find a real "blue" flavor and picked raspberry randomly. I have no idea what the first "blue raspberry" pop or candy was, but it's taken root throughout all the junk food industries.

Anyway, on to the drink.

As I open the bottle, the smell is unmistakably raspberry, with a zing that tickles my nose before I even take a sip.

Hmm. Unlike Revolution, where the berry flavor dominated, in Voltage, the berry flavor seems secondary. The citrus taste overwhelms it. Rather than "raspberry citrus" I would probably call this "grapefruity with a hint of raspberry." This is not to say I don't like it. Actually, I think I prefer it to Revolution. I might even prefer it to Code Red, my longstanding favorite Mountain Dew.

Very nice.