10 Mountain Dew Flavors, Ranked Worst To Best

Mountain Dew (often stylized as MTN Dew) is America's sixth-favorite soft drink. According to a 2024 ranking by Beverage Digest (via LiveNow From Fox), it's slightly less popular than Diet Coke in terms of sales, which might reflect Mountain Dew's acquired citrusy flavor. That signature tang was originally developed in the 1940s, but it underwent a few tweaks over the following decades. That included a revamp in 1974 when PepsiCo, which owns the recipe, added concentrated orange juice to the mix.

Since then, Mountain Dew has become a well-stocked line of beverages among fun-food lovers who appreciate its caffeinated side effects. PepsiCo continues to expand the brand with a variety of new flavors, even asking fans to choose its next mass-produced soft drink. 

But can a 78-year-old soft drink still stay relevant after tweaking its recipe so many times? We tasted some variations of the beverage, including the original, to find out which Mountain Dew flavors impress (and which ones don't).

My theory is that whoever gave this product the green light at PepsiCo just underwent oral surgery and couldn't taste what they were approving because this is just an awful experience. To bolster that point, drinking this concoction was a bit like sucking on flavored baby aspirin.

I was really looking forward to tasting this beverage. I had just sampled the Diet Mountain Dew option (more on that in a bit), and my previous experience with "zero" labeled sodas has been very good. The difference between "diet" and "zero" Mountain Dew is calories. The former contains 5 calories per serving, while the latter quite literally contains zero.

I tasted this one directly after the Diet version to ensure a quick contrast between the two. My first impression was a citrus flavor so fake that I could envision the lab in which it was created, right down to the test tube. If you're lost in the desert and have nothing but Zero Sugar Mountain Dew in your backpack to drink, wring out your headband and consider drinking that instead.

The regular Mountain Dew Baja Cabo Citrus drink is one of my favorite selections in this product line. It's crisp, satisfying, and tastes and smells as close to real oranges as you can get. For that reason, I was really excited to taste the Zero version of Cabo Citrus.

But once again, Mountain Dew fails with its sugar-free varieties. When you open the bottle, you get that familiar hiss, a primer to the thirst you want to quench. However, the similarities to full-sugar Mountain Dew stops there.

Upon first sip, the artificial sweetener quickly takes over, and all hope is lost on the flavor front. I'm not a diet drink naysayer, and I can even understand the obsession with Diet Coke. Even if it tastes just like flavored water to me, at least it's got personality. Zero Sugar Mountain Dew Baja Cabo Citrus is a bitter, fake-tasting beverage that serves as an average replacement for the diet beverage-loving crowd. It's not as bad as the regular Mountain Dew Zero option, but it's not too far off.

I'm not into diet drinks. Yes, the purpose of them is to give you an alternative to sugar, but it's ironically often the case that the diet version tastes sweeter than the original. Such is the case with Diet Mountain Dew.

It tastes as if it overcompensates for the lack of sugar by using too potent sweeteners. The citrus flavor is there, but in an uncanny valley way. Yes, it's still refreshing, but it's no sugar-free dupe in the way diet root beer, or Diet Dr. Pepper, is.

When I took my first drink of Diet Mountain Dew for this review, I was hopeful because the first sip was reminiscent of the original. It's only as the syrup seeps into your taste buds that it goes downhill. The citrus blend dissipates into an aftertaste that I can only describe as taking the soul out of the soda and turning it into a saccharine-like plasma. It got a little better — maybe because my mind had experienced beverage Stockholm Syndrome — however, this will probably not enter the soda rotation at my house any time soon.

It's amazing how such a delicious drink as regular Mountain Dew Baja Blast can fall so hard when its sugar is replaced with sucralose. Zero Sugar Mountain Dew Baja Blast is not the worst in the Mountain Dew lineup of diet drinks, but it still pales in comparison to something like Diet Orange Crush or Coke Zero. Sucralose has a bitter middle, meaning it doesn't really hit you until after you take your first sip and just before you swallow.

Baja Blast is something of a modern soft drink phenomenon. To butcher it with a diet variety seems inevitable, but that doesn't mean it's good. This is a passable version of the real thing. I didn't strictly hate it, and I can maybe see how it is a hit among those who can't or don't want to drink added sugar. Still, Baja Blast is best in its purest form, and it belongs in the archive of soft drinks that changed the world in terms of junk food. Zero Sugar Mountain Dew Baja Blast does not.

What can you say that hasn't already been said about the flavor of this classic energizing soft drink? It's got that recognizable neon color, that crisp sweet citrus flavor, and a signature kick that gamers crave at 2 a.m. I've been a Mountain Dew drinker since I was in my teens. My family wasn't very health-conscious, so soda was a household staple, despite the fact that this one contains 91 milligrams of caffeine.

The original Mountain Dew flavor is surprisingly not the best variety in its lineup. There is a nostalgic factor that harkens back to family summer picnics or birthday parties in the park, but I wouldn't consider it a must-have on a hot day or something to reach for in a movie theater or a fast-food combo meal.

Conversely, the flavor is refreshing. It's a blend of citrus flavors that not only permeates your taste buds but also provides a familiar, enticing aroma. For me, this is not an "ice in a glass" kind of soft drink because it's just so sweet that it feels like you're sipping chilled medicine.

Mountain Dew added orange flavoring to its original recipe starting in 1974. Ordinarily, I can't really taste it. But that all changed with the Mountain Dew Baja Cabo Citrus – an orange-flavored beverage that is, dare I say, one of the best products in its line.

I unscrewed the cap of the Baja Cabo Citrus bottle, and it hissed at me without overflowing. We were off to a good start. The aroma was a pleasant orange smell as if someone had just squeezed an orange rind in front of my nose, and it made my mouth water as I inhaled its essence.

My first sip was a surprise because I only got a slight hint of the signature Mountain Dew flavor. The orange really comes through here, and it's so pleasant that my mind tried to coax me to chug it. This isn't a flavor that tastes akin to aspirin, nor does it taste like freshly squeezed orange juice. It all comes together in a thirst-quenching, highly craveable beverage that's arguably better than the flagship recipe.

I think Mountain Dew is trying to be to the soft drink world what Skittles is to the candy world. In other words, they want the full rainbow of flavors. That was my first thought after laying eyes on Mountain Dew Code Red, its cherry-flavored option. When I first saw this beverage, I thought it was trying to be Big Red, the bubble gum-ish flavored soft drink that sounds like it shouldn't work, but absolutely does.

The fact that Mountain Dew Code Red is cherry-flavored concerned me at first. In my experience, artificial cherry flavoring has to be carefully used in nutritionally void food items. When used incorrectly, it ends up tasting like over-the-counter cough syrup, and I don't particularly want NyQuil as a thirst quencher.

But I have good news. Code Red only hints at cherry — it doesn't go full throttle, and for that I am appreciative. Instead, what I got was a super-sweet base of carbonated sugar water. After a few seconds, this bloomed into a very subtle cherry flavor that didn't trigger my mind's imposter syndrome control panel.

Live Wire seems like Mountain Dew wants to squeeze in on the Orange Crush or Sunkist soft drink market, just with caffeine. There isn't anything here you probably haven't already tasted elsewhere. I opened the bottle and was instantly hit with an orange aroma, but it smelled more like orange drink mix than actual oranges.

I'm not against a product that wants to weaponize the flavor of Tang with caffeine and carbonation. That's exactly what I got — a very strong artificial orange flavor that brought me back to old-school drinks from the 1970s when my mother used to repurpose plastic milk jugs to make a gallon of Tang.

Mountain Dew Live Wire feels like drinking pure nostalgia. It's not bad and might be the perfect morning pick-me-up or a lunchtime indulgence for a midday boost. It's nothing special in today's market, but it gets points for evoking memories I haven't thought about in years.

In my experience, Mountain Dew does a great job creating new flavors, except when it comes to sugar-free varieties. Thankfully, Mountain Dew Voltage doesn't come in a lighter form, which means I didn't have to taste it. That's also good news for Mountain Dew fans who just want great flavor with caffeine. It was one of the options in the 2008 DEWmocracy contest, a campaign run by the company where customers voted on a new permanent flavor to be added to store shelves.

Voltage subdues the original citrus recipe and hides it behind berries. To be specific, raspberries. You're still getting a sweet hint of original Mountain Dew, but the raspberries come through strong, and it's a delicious surprise.

I don't think this is as refreshing as Mountain Dew Cabo Citrus. It's not a summertime grab out of the cooler. Instead, it offers a warmer flavor that would pair well with road trips or a tuna sandwich. Sweet and tasteful, Voltage hits you like a velvet glove. I liked its soft delivery, and I could see this making for a reliable mixer in a bartender's refrigerator.

Mountain Dew Baja Blast has become a pop culture sensation. From a brand deal with Taco Bell, which has since expanded to a limited-edition pie, Baja Blast might be one of the newest soft drinks to earn cult status since Cherry Coke was added to the Coca-Cola lineup.

It's a well-deserved accolade. Mountain Dew's iconic Baja Blast offers a tropical lime flavor that is a pleasure to experience, especially on a hot day when you pull one out of the ice chest and guzzle it down fast enough to nearly freeze your vocal cords.

Baja Blast is sweet, but not too sweet. The lime flavor seems to cut the sugar in half, making for a palatable sip that keeps you wanting more. It also retains a smidgeon of the signature Mountain Dew flavor, which boosts the nostalgia factor while also proving that some flavor innovations are better than the original.

Surprisingly, some Mountain Dew flavors are harder to find than others. You have to shop around. Between Safeway, Walmart, and Fry's, I found and purchased all of the products I tested for this review. I found some on store shelves and had the rest delivered via Instacart. They were chilled for the taste tests.

I ranked each one on flavor and originality. Admittedly, nostalgia also played a role, since original Mountain Dew has a very distinct recipe that can get buried behind newer formulas. I tasted everything twice, with a palate cleanser of water between each beverage to give every variety a fair shot.