Mountain Dew KICK START Energy Drinks

Man, was I tired when I got up today. 

Is there anything in the fridge that will wake me up?

Ohhhh snap! Mountain Dew Kick Start!

This'll do it! I'll be doing backflips out my window to dubstep in no time!

Like the classy gentleman I am, I poured some in the most badass pint glass of all time. 

And what's this? A second can? The King will take care of this one. 

TIME TO WAKE UP!

Eh... It's alright. Irwin, do you want some?

Ouch. DISSED. Irwin decided to ignore it and go back to sleep. 

I think I agree with him. 

my basketball pillowcase rules

Mountain Dew Kick Start is Mountain Dew's attempt to make the perfect mix of a juice and soda into some weird, less sugary version of an energy drink. But this, unlike me, is made for the morning. It's got enough crispness that it's sort of soda, and small enough amounts so that it's sort of juice. They call it a "sparkling juice beverage," and that's pretty accurate I guess. It does contain a whopping 5% juice (amidst lots of chemicals) too, so it counts as juice. 

After some research and some math, based solely on the nutrition facts, this is technically better for you than mountain dew. A 16 ounce can of mountain dew and these are drastically different. 

Calories- Dew: 226 / Kick Start: 80

Sodium- Dew: 140 / Kick Start: 170

Carbs- Dew: 61 / Kick Start: 20

Sugar- Dew: 61 / Kick Start: 19

Caffeine- Dew: 72mg / Kick Start: 92mg

SO, if you're a really weird person who pays attention to nutrition facts when drinking Mountain Dew products, this is way better for you (other than sodium) AND has more caffeine, as well as fruit juice and vitamins C and B6, and Niacin, which I'm choosing to believe is good for me. 

Of course, you can easily get into the debate of high fructose corn syrup and sugar vs. artificial sweeteners- the old diabetes vs. cancer debate, and this may technically lose out. But then again, I have no idea what the hell any of the chemicals in Mountain Dew are either. Maybe a scientist can help. 

But who cares, this is FATGUYFOODBLOG. All that matters is the following: Were they good? 

Sort of. The orange citrus one tasted pretty much exactly like a less sweet, sort of soda-bubbly Sunny D. It had a weird artificial sweetener aftertaste though, kind of like the weird flavor in Sobe's Life Water (stevia and erythritol). It doesn't show either of those on the cans though, so it's something else. I'm not a big fan of Sunny D (is anyone, really?) so this one got poured down the sink. I'll give it a C- though, since it wasn't horrible- just not for me and the aftertaste ruined it.

The Fruit Punch was much better- tasting like Mountain Dew's own Code Red, if it was watered down with Hawaiian Punch. The aftertaste was there too, but it didn't seem as prominent. I think the fruit punch flavor was just much better tasting than the citrus. I drank most of this one while eating other stuff, and it was solid. I'll give it a B.

The question remains though, did this supercharge me and make me want to bust through the day doing a billion things with high energy? 

Actually, yea, it did. I like to pretend that caffeine doesn't have much effect on me- I am not a coffee drinker and if anything, will have a soda a few hours after I wake up. But I definitely noticed I had a lot more energy today, and I think I'm gonna have to attribute that to the KICK START I got when I woke up. I mean, jeez, look at how scientific I got in my above ramblings... that's gotta say something. 

WOUND. UP.

These aren't incredible, but for the very small target audience of non-coffee drinkers who don't drink energy drinks and either don't drink soda in the morning or want to avoid soda for health reasons, but still want a super sweet soda-like beverage made by Mountain Dew, this stuff is PERFECT for you. 

-review by Mike

Burger King ULTIMATE soft drink dispenser

I awoke this morning to a text from local wrestling superstar Brian Fury stating how his sister told him about this mega touchscreen soft drink dispenser, with over 120 different drink combinations at the Burger King down the road from me. I'm not much for soda, but I am a FATGUYFOODBLOGGER so I felt it my duty to arise, and take to the mean streets in search of this to dance in a fountain of pure sugar bliss!

I was hesitant to go here. I've been here before and a kind, respectful gentlemen had gotten into the managers face about how he had treated his girl in the drive through. Stating he'd never come back to this "Raggedy Ass" Burger King again, as well as insulting the managers position and life and pay grade. But noon on a monday, has a very different crowd and atmosphere.

much smaller than i anticipated

This glorious machine sat a little out of place, haphazardly thrown in place of the old trough style soda dispensers. Ladies and gentlemen, it's 2011.

simple, organized. i seem to notice how unattractive the "water" button was made. 

As a first taste test I decided to hit up Coke Zero, not the fattest of choices I know, but I wanted something familiar to taste test this black beauty.

After selecting a main cola base, there arises a sub menu in which you can choose from Cherry, Orange, Vanilla, Raspberry, Lime, Lemon, and Cranberry. Noodling through the menus, this is the standard for most drinks on the menu, tossing in a strawberry here and there. I think this is a step forward in the consumer actually having a choice in what kind of flavored drinks they can order to quench their multiflavored thirst. Bravo BK. 

So I got vanilla, and cherry, and orange Coke Zero. as well as an orange Vault, vanilla Vault, and then topped off the decadent soda orgy with a strawberry lemonade.

As far as flavor, the soda flavors overshadowed any of the flavor shots in the ones that I tried, leaving only the faintest of aftertastes of whatever additional flavor you chose. The only spot I found this not to be true is in the lemonades, which were absolutely fantastic. Dare I say rivaling any of the flavored lemonades you can acquire from your chain sit down restaurants? DARED.

A+ for innovation and letting my brain marvel at the possibilites
B- for flavor (but what did i expect)
A+ at forcing me to try different flavors and making me gut wrenchingly sick
-Josh

thank you King for giving me more choices, this machine still needs further exploration but the only two suggestions would be to up the syrup count for a more noticeable flavor burst, and the ability to mix said flavors.

careful, use both hands