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Hey! This one is NOT an energy drink this time! This is Mountain Dew Black Label. What is it? Well, I have no idea in all honesty. I saw this awesome looking cart of them and was like “Hmm. Might as well give it a go.”
Here it is. Black Label.
Thankfully this isn’t a Kickstart so I’m expecting a more soda taste to it.
The can is pretty darn sleek. It is jet black and has cool looking words and design. What would I call the design? It kind of is a throwback to the Gatsby era with the lettering, but the wooshy lines behind it is way more modern.
What Mountain Dew is pushing for this is that it is dark and black. You can see near the top that it is described as “deeper darker dew” and at the bottom it says it is with “crafted dark berry.” What in the world does this mean? Well, if this drink isn’t black or darn close to it, I’m calling shenanigans. What is a dark berry anyway? I mean, I’ve heard of blackberry and I’ve seen pretty dark looking berries in mulberries and I guess blueberries, but this specifically says dark berry.
Let’s see if Bing can guide me.
Nope! It sent me to the Mountain Dew Wikia and it said it is for Dark Knight Rises. Apparently they have used Dark Berry before but it is a different drink and it was more blue than anything.
From what I gather, it is probably a derivative from a blackberry or an elderberry. Dark berry is a bunch of codswallop.
Well, what else can I say about this? Nothing because I don’t even know what’s so special about this can of Mountain Dew other than it is a made up flavour and it is supposed to be dark.
At least they are honest. It may say “crafted dark berry” but underneath it say “flavor with other natural flavors.” They know its not a real thing.
Oh wait, shocker right? Mountain Dew uses a strange name for something and then uses grape juice? That’s totally never happened before! Yeah!
Okay, there’s no description of this so let’s jump right into the nutrition facts.
Serving size is 1 can.
210 calories, 0g total fat, 85mg sodium. 54g total carbs. 53g sugars. 0g protein. Nothing else. I told you it wasn’t an energy drink.
Ingredients!
Thankfully it isn’t an energy drink so this should be quick.
Carbonated water, sugar, grape juice concentrate, citric acid, natural flavor, sodium benzoate, concentrated orange juice, caffeine, gum arabic, red 40, sodium citrate, calcium disodium edta, blue 1.
83 mg of caffeine. Hold up! This has more caffeine than Übermonster?!Übermonster had the warning and everything. What the heck?!
Oh. I get it. It is caffeine content. It measures only caffeine. Got it. This misses the B Vitamins.
So, I bloody told you right? Grape freaking juice. Interestingly, this has orange juice too. What is that all about man? That’s certainly not dark.
Also RED 40 CHAS RAD APPROVED! KIDS OFF THE WALLS!
So, I’m really expecting this to taste like a better version of Midnight Grape Kickstart since this lacks the crappy sucralose. I thank you with my entire heart, Mountain Dew, that this doesn’t have any of that terrible sucralose. Heck, this may even be Harold approved with the lack of high fructose corn syrup.
Well, let’s have a taste then.
Well!
It is pretty dark, but not black. It is more of a deep purple than anything. This is what I’d expect Pinot Noir to look like if I drank wine. It has a tiny red hint, but I’m pretty sure it is mostly purple.
The scent is pleasant. It smells mostly of citrus (orange) with a hint of grape. So uh, dark berry is actually orange+grape. Okay. I’m on board with this. I don’t know why it is that name, but whatever. I’d call this Oragpe or Grange. Yeah Grange!
Let’s have a sip.
Hmm. Hmm. Hmm.
Well, it is very fizzy. This is a soda isn’t it? It mostly taste of fizzy water for a while but then the mix hits. The acidity of the orange juice is very apparent. It mixes with the tartness of grape, but neither fruit is really that dominate. I mostly get a tart acidity. It kinda works, but it is odd. Now that I have let it sit, the after taste is a bit like if you drank some orange juice and grape juice. Why would you do that other than curiosity?
I don’t know man. This might work for some, but I’m not really getting it. Grape flavoured orange juice? Orange flavoured grape juice? The way the taste of this drink is, I’d say it is more orange flavoured grape juice. I taste the grape mostly with the orange kind of taking the passenger role. At least it all tastes pretty good, right? Right.
The taste itself is decent. There’s nothing that makes me go “ew” so that’s like already better than 90% of the drinks I write about here. It is just, odd is all. Like, why is this even a thing? It has a sort of fruit punch vibe, but it’s missing a bunch of other flavours to make it a punch. It is like you are having a party, invited all your friends, but like only one of them comes and so does one random dude who only came because he had nothing better to do.
I’ll give this a birthday party at an Arby’s out of Rad. Not horrible, but just why is this a thing? If I had a choice, I wouldn’t bother with this again. I’d prefer the original Mountain Dew over this.
Deeper and darker? No. This is more sunny than anything. Partly cloudy if I’m being nice.
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