Review: Mountain Dew Baja Midnight

In 2004, a new addition to the Taco Bell menu proved so instantly successful and enduringly popular that it grew too big for the Mexican-inspired fast food chain. Mountain Dew Baja Blast, a lime-centric spin on the original citrus-flavored Mountain Dew, staked out a permanent spot on the Taco Bell menu. It would eventually make its way into bottles and cans sold in a general retail environment, but Taco Bell remains so proud of its cross-company collaboration that it decided to do it again.

For the first time in more than two decades, another new, permanent Baja-branded beverage will debut as an exclusive to Taco Bell. Mountain Dew Baja Midnight combines new and familiar flavors to create a unique, colorful, and potentially refreshing soda fountain choice. Also available is the Mountain Dew Baja Midnight Freeze. It's everything from the Baja Midnight soda, rendered extra-cold, icy, and in slushy form. Here's everything you need to know about Mountain Dew Baja Midnight, including a thorough taste test.

The flavor of original Mountain Dew is a combination of lemon, lime, and real orange juice. When creating the Mountain Dew spinoff Baja Blast product in the early 2000s, the food and beverage scientists at Pepsi downplayed two of the three main flavoring agents, concocting an intensely lime-dominant soda. In 2025, Pepsi, in conjunction with Taco Bell, is expanding the Baja Blast sub-line of Mountain Dew flavors with another new concoction: Mountain Dew Baja Midnight. It's a standard-bearer of the lime-forward nature of original Baja Blast while also featuring a new taste very rarely seen in mainstream soda and fast food fountains. What makes Baja Midnight its own thing is the addition of passionfruit.

At its March 2025 Live Más LIVE promotional event, Taco Bell announced that it would be retiring one of its purple-colored fountain drink options, Brisk Dragon Paradise. Mountain Dew Baja Midnight will fill that particularly hued niche, as the drink in its fully liquid and frozen forms arrives in a rich purple shade, simultaneously evoking a feeling of the dark night while also remaining colorful and bright. Available as a soda, and as Mountain Dew Baja Midnight Freeze, the new lime-passionfruit beverage is part of Taco Bell's aggressive move into drinks in the summer of 2025, and it comes on the heels of its Agua Refrescas line.

The original Mountain Dew Baja Blast began its existence as a Taco Bell exclusive flavor. It has since inspired numerous variations, including a zero sugar edition, a "dirty" version prepared with cream, and a slushy, semi-frozen Freeze. For 20 years, the only place where Baja Blast of any kind could be acquired was at Taco Bell, until the chain and Pepsi started bottling it in 2024.

The newest Baja Blast, Mountain Dew Baja Midnight, will take up the mantle of being a Taco Bell-exclusive product. Both in its soda and Freeze iterations, the lime-meets-passionfruit drink will exist only in the taps at Taco Bell. Not at risk of becoming a discontinued Mountain Dew flavor, the fountain beverage Baja Midnight will be a permanent addition to the lineup of Pepsi and Mountain Dew options available chain-wide. The Freeze, where available, is being promoted as a limited-edition item. At any rate, both Mountain Dew Baja Blast choices officially go on sale at Taco Bell on August 14, 2025. The drinks can be purchased on their own or as part of a combo meal at Taco Bell's drive-thrus, at the counter, or via the restaurant's stellar mobile app.

Manufactured by Pepsi, the standard Baja Midnight in its fountain drink form is available in just one, full-calorie variety. It's made with carbonated water, high fructose corn syrup, citric acid, and various unlisted natural and artificial flavors to give it those lime and passionfruit flavors. The soda also utilizes the preservative sodium benzoate, the flavor saver calcium disodium EDTA, added caffeine, and the dyes red 40 and blue 1 to make the whole thing purple. 

Nutrition wise, the smallest Baja Midnight sold at Taco Bell is a 16-ounce size. Such a serving adds about 220 calories to one's daily intake. It's free of fat and protein and contains a modicum of sodium, at 65 milligrams, and a substantial amount of caffeine: about 70 milligrams. The majority of its calories come from carbohydrates, as there are 59 grams in a 16-ounce serving, all of which are added sugar.

While I got to taste the fountain drink, I didn't get to sample the Freeze — it seems to be emerging a little slower than its fountain drink counterpart, but looks to be made with the same ingredients and offer a nearly identical taste, albeit with a different texture. Presented in a clear plastic Taco Bell cup to show off all of that light purple color and bubbles, Mountain Dew Baja Midnight is immediately intriguing and appetizing. That's quickly offset by the soft drink's off-putting medicinal smell, which quickly leads to a change in perception. No longer is the purple color that of rare fruits, but one of cough medicine. And that, unfortunately, is what Mountain Dew Baja Midnight most resembles in its overall flavor profile.

But it's not like it feels that way throughout the entire experience of consuming a Mountain Dew Baja Midnight. Upon first sips, the taste is rather mild, and surprisingly not overwhelmingly sweet despite the abundance of high fructose corn syrup. Initially, notes of fruit punch with a little bit of grape come through, although much tangier; that would be how the passionfruit presents itself. It doesn't seem like much lime comes through, although that might be a contributor to Mountain Dew Baja Midnight's strong aftertaste. It's bitter, unpleasant, and lingers in the mouth and throat for minutes after swallowing. That, combined with the cough syrup through-line, makes it clear at this point what Mountain Dew Baja Midnight is most like: a weird energy drink.