We Tried Mountain Dew Baja Deep Dive. Here's How It Went
What's that mysterious, dark purple, menacing object emerging from the sea? Is it the fabled Kraken? Or perhaps a siren like the ones that once nearly drove Odysseus to madness? No, it's a can of the new Mountain Dew flavor that's apparently inspired by the darkest depths of the ocean: Mountain Dew Baja Deep Dive.
Despite the pictures of anglerfish, eels, and other ocean life on the can, Baja Deep Dive is not seafood-flavored. What flavor it is, however, isn't entirely obvious. Much like the contents of the Marianas Trench, the flavorings used to create Baja Deep Dive are something of a murky secret.
Fortunately for us, Mountain Dew sent us a can of this limited-edition flavor so we could play the part of deep-sea scientists and try to discover more about this elusive, exotic form of Mountain Dew. If you want to learn what we think the mystery flavor is, where to find this new soda, and whether it's worth the fuss, jump into the deep end of the pool with us as we explore Mountain Dew Deep Dive.
What's in Mountain Dew Baja Deep Dive?
According to the can, Baja Deep Dive is a "mystery flavor Dew with natural and artificial flavor." The company won't say what the mystery flavor is, but it included some clues printed both on the can itself and on the accompanying card.
The old-fashioned deep-sea diver on the label clearly is designed to look like he has a pineapple for a head with his cross-hatched diving mask crowned with pointy green leaves. Additionally, the bubbles surrounding him kind of look like they might be grapes. That's less obvious than the diver, but the case for grape being a part of this flavor is strengthened by a little Easter egg on the bottom of the image. Next to the treasure chest sits a soda bottle with the initials "PB" written in the font used for the Mountain Dew Pitch Black logo. Pitch Black was, at least until it was reformulated, grape-flavored. Since it's pitch black at the bottom of the ocean, the nod to this now-discontinued soda fits the undersea theme.
Elsewhere on the can, there's a fish that appears to be some kind of berry. Maybe it's blue raspberry? There's also a deflated ball with a tentacle poking out of it that might be trying to look like a cherry, as well as an eel with skin printed in a possible passionfruit pattern. We can safely guess that this soda is pineapple-flavored with other mixed fruits.
It's only available if you win a contest
If you're the type of person who wants to snap up every new flavor of Mountain Dew that the company releases, you're going to have to get a little bit lucky to score a can of Baja Deep Dive. This limited-edition Mountain Dew flavor is not available in stores; the only way to try it, for now, is to enter to win the Lost Treasures of Baja Island Sweepstakes. The winner of that contest gets a case of Mountain Dew Baja Deep Dive.
If and when this flavor ends up in stores, it won't be for very long. The company said in a press release that it was only making 18,000 cases of this flavor. That might seem like a lot of soda, but in comparison to how much Mountain Dew is sold every year overall, 18,000 is a tiny number. Per Statista, Mountain Dew claimed around 7% of the U.S. soda market 2020. Grand View Research reported that the total U.S. soft drink market was valued at $132.6 billion that year. With Mountain Dew selling billions of dollars worth of soda every year, the 18,000 cases of Baja Deep Dive will probably disappear quite quickly.
How does it compare to other Mountain Dew flavors?
Baja Deep Dive falls into the Mountain Dew Baja Blast lineup of products, which the company temporarily expanded this summer. The original Baja Blast is a zesty lime-flavored soda that was born as part of Mountain Dew's partnership with Taco Bell. It makes occasional limited-time-only appearances in stores, as it is this summer.
Joining the original Baja Blast on store shelves are Baja Gold, which is pineapple-flavored, and Baja Gem, a mango soda. All follow the original Baja Blast's lead by mixing up Mountain Dew's original flavor with additional fruit (via PR Newswire).
Mountain Dew has a history of making its products difficult to find and releasing limited-time-only sodas that disappear quickly. You used to have to drive to a Taco Bell to get the original Baja Blast. Earlier this summer, we tried the limited-edition Mountain Dew Flamin' Hot flavor. The brand seems to enjoy using scarcity and off-the-wall flavors to make fans excited and keep people talking, and releasing Baja Deep Dive as a mystery flavor that you need to win a contest to taste falls neatly into that pattern of behavior.
The nutrition facts in Mountain Dew Deep Dive
The nutritional information for Mountain Dew Baja Deep Dive isn't pretty. It's a 16-ounce can of full-sugar soda, so you shouldn't really expect any health benefits. It proudly declares that it "contains 0% juice," which actually means it has less fruit in it than classic Mountain Dew, which is made with concentrated orange juice (via PepsiCo). Of course, all the high fructose corn syrup in Mountain Dew probably negates any of the health benefits of orange juice, but it's notable that Baja Deep Dive has no juice at all.
One can contains 59 grams of added sugar, which the label hopefully points out is 118% of the recommended daily value for added sugar. There's not much else going on from a nutritional perspective other than 3% of your daily value of sodium.
This drink's brilliant blue-green color is achieved with the use of yellow 5 and blue 1, two types of food dye. Per WebMD, some research has suggested that Yellow 5 may pose hazards to respiratory health. A study in The Lancet found that artificial colors might contribute to hyperactivity in young children.
How does it taste?
The first thing we noticed when we opened up the can of Mountain Dew Deep Dive was the smell: It was remarkably similar to gummy bears. Considering all the different fruit flavors the label hints are in this soda, that's not terribly surprising. Gummy bears smell like a vague mix of a bunch of different fruits.
The soda is an alarming shade of teal. If Mountain Dew keeps making it, it could easily be the official drink of the Jacksonville Jaguars. Flavor-wise, pineapple was the strongest fruit note we picked up. There was also a sort of generic berry/dark fruit flavor that could have been grape or blue raspberry. We also thought we could taste some coconut, but we're not sure if our minds were being tricked by the fact that the color was somewhat similar to Sonic's Ocean Water. Compared to Mountain Dew Baja Gold, the other pineapple-forward Baja flavor, we enjoyed Baja Deep Dive more. It was less acidic and had more of an enjoyable fruit punch-like sweetness.
Overall, this is a fun soda flavor, but we don't know if we'd go to the trouble of entering a sweepstakes just to win a chance to try it. If we saw it in the cold case at our local convenience store, though, we'd probably buy it.