New Taco Bell Mountain Dew flavor Sangrita Blast isn’t the star I expected

I’d recently heard of an upcoming flavor of Mountain Dew (I don’t want to abbreviate it MTNDEW because!) exclusive to Taco Bell. A sangria flavor, an obvious match for pseudo-Mexican food.

Now, you don’t need to tell me about Mountain Dew and it’s various incarnations and exclusives over the years. I’m well aware I’m part of the reason there is a mythos behind Pitch Black, which I still hope will grace my lips in the future. But I’m not going to blindly love Mountain Dew flavors. They have to prove themselves.

Yesterday I stopped by Taco Bell to try the new quesaritto (why did I think there was an auto-correct for that?), and was pleasantly surprised to find the new Mountain Dew flavor available. I got a cup and poured some in.

It was a deep red/almost black-cherry color (picture) and that matches my memories of Latino-store non-alcoholic sangria purchases. The flavor wasn’t as strong as I expected. It was more like a white grape that wasn’t as sickly sweet as Welch’s, lightly carbonated with a bit of pear or green apple bouquet. I enjoyed it, but would go back to Baja Blast in a heartbeat. Give it a try, it might be a better breakfast pairing (though, really, soda in the morning isn’t a good start…).

Now, what further piqued my interest was the Manzanita SOL flavor adjacent. I didn’t know what to expect. It was a cold, crisp apple cider flavor, with a bit of a spice to it. This wasn’t as delicious as my neighbors home-pressed cider, but the best apple-flavored drink I’d ever tasted outside of that. I was expecting a watered down vitamin water, but got this. It was surprising! I do recommend it.