SodaStream Mountain Dew Review: Original Falls Flat, But Diet And Zero Work Well

SodaStream revolutionized the home soft drink industry with its fizzing machines that make it easy to add carbonated sparkle to your beverage situation. The fact that you can find syrups that replicate your favorite brand-name sodas is a bonus that lets you control the sweetness while making your soda money go further than buying bottles and cans. So imagine how Mountain Dew fans will feel knowing their favorite drink has become the latest SodaStream syrup sensation. Concocting a custom-carbonated version of Mountain Dew is now as easy as blasting a bottle of water with as much fizz as you favor and adding a capful of Mountain Dew magic. And it's not just the original version you can experiment with; there are also Diet Mountain Dew and Mountain Dew Zero Sugar available for SodaStream users to enjoy.

How does the groovy, juice-tinged tingle of canned and bottled Mountain Dew translate to a home syrup mix? Is it possible to capture the classic essence when you're in full control of the bubbles and the flavor concentration? We rounded up the full mountain range of SodaStream syrups that are currently available to put that to the test with our very own taste buds.

Anyone who's tasted Mountain Dew in any form knows how supremely sweet it is. The ingredients list depends heavily on sugar in various forms, as well as fruit juice and citric acid to create the trademark zing you feel as you sip. Where the original bottled formula uses a combination of high fructose corn syrup and concentrated orange juice, the SodaStream version boasts real sugar as the first ingredient on its ingredients list, followed by concentrated orange juice and citric acid. Caffeine also features in both iterations, as well as yellow 5 dye to give the beverages their distinctive yellow-green Dew hue. 

The SodaStream version also includes sucralose and acesulfame potassium, two artificial sweeteners usually found in diet sodas. Here, both are also part of the original, full-sugar flavor, theoretically tripling the sweetness factor.

As for Diet Mountain Dew and Mountain Dew Zero Sugar, the bottled versions both use aspartame, sucralose, and acesulfame potassium as sweetening agents. The SodaStream versions of these two Dew variants omit the aspartame. Both bottled and SodaStream varieties include concentrated orange juice, just as the original flavor does.

SodaStream prices its entire Mountain Dew collection at $6.99 per bottle. That may sound pricey at first glance, but this falls in line with prices for the company's other syrups, so there's no premium here for a premium brand. Meanwhile, depending on where you shop, you could easily pay twice that for a 12-pack of Mountain Dew in 12-ounce cans. Each bottle of syrup allows you to make 24 12-ounce servings, which splits the price even further. Moreover, you can control the amount of syrup you use to make it somewhat less than the suggested serving, giving you a highly cost-effective version of a soda.

To save yourself even more money, look for coupons and other deals, as retailers like Walmart and Kroger occasionally offer discounts on bottles of SodaStream syrup. While it may be too early to find all three Mountain Dew varieties on shelves around your town, keep an eye out for them if you're hoping to make your soda money go as far as possible.

Just as Mountain Dew is a mainstay of the soda scene, SodaStream's Mountain Dew collection looks to be a permanent addition to the company's syrup line. This makes sense when you learn that PepsiCo acquired SodaStream in 2018, making it especially easy for the company to introduce Pepsi-branded syrups. Knowing that Mountain Dew in diet form expands the market and satisfies more Dew drinkers, bringing out all three versions at once is a wise and considerate move for the company.

What's more, Pepsi acquired Mountain Dew way back in 1964, which means a SodaStream version of the soda was all but written in the stars. Yes, it took a while to get things fizzing, even with changes to the original Mountain Dew formula. But now that the moment has arrived, Mountain Dew lovers have a home version to splash about in their spritzing machines for the foreseeable future.

Mountain Dew in all its forms is the latest in an ever-expanding line of syrups offered by SodaStream. The Mountain Dew collection fits nicely next to other name-brand sodas that SodaStream aficionados can recreate at home. Seltzer stunner Bubly, another Pepsi product, also appears on SodaStream shelves, as well as an array of energy drinks and signature label takes on Dr Pepper, root beer, ginger ale, and even kombucha.

While the list of SodaStream syrups is impressive, Mountain Dew stands out as one of the more anticipated brands that have been brought into the fizzy family. The subject has been a source of conversation bubbling among social media users for years, who have continually asked when this citrus-adjacent soda would appear in the SodaStream line-up. Over the years, helpful commenters have recommended other flavors and combinations of existing syrups that approximated Mountain Dew in hopes of providing one that satisfied the cravings of fellow SodaStream users. Now that there's real Dew, the search is finally over.

The best anyone can hope for with soda where nutrition is concerned is that it does as little damage as possible. That may not be an easy accomplishment when drinking a can of Mountain Dew. Due to its high sugar and caffeine content, it's widely considered one of the least healthy sodas out there. Original Mountain Dew has 170 calories per 12-ounce serving, as well as 46 grams of sugar (close to 20% of the recommended daily allowance). Then there are 60 milligrams of sodium in each 12-ounce can, which gives you a tremendous 17% of your daily recommended allowance. Diet Mountain Dew and Mountain Dew Zero Sugar remove the sugar and the calories from the equation while also reducing the sodium.

But SodaStream's version of the original Mountain Dew redefines the nutritional value of the classic. In each 12-ounce serving, you get 45 calories, 11 grams of sugar, and 50 milligrams of sodium. That's a serious reduction compared to the bottled version. Diet Mountain Dew does even better, coming up with zero calories and zero sugar, though it still incorporates 15 milligrams of sodium. Mountain Dew Zero Sugar makes the most dramatic changes concerning nutrition, offering zero calories, zero sugar, and a relatively small 10 milligrams of sodium.

There's no artificial sweetener in the original Mountain Dew, but there's plenty in the SodaStream version. That's in addition to sugar (listed as the first ingredient) as well as orange juice concentrate, which is arguably just more sugar. Adding two artificial sweeteners certainly helps to reduce calories while making sure the sweetness comes through even if users overdilute the syrup. But even when you follow the directions, you create a soda that smells like the bottled version but fails in flavor. Even the citrus zing feels muted and overpowered by the cloying chemical ick of all those sweetening agents. The result is a too-sweet twist on a classic that weakens the experience for die-hard Dew fans.

It's not all bad. Diet Mountain Dew and Mountain Dew Zero Sugar both come closer to the original flavors, which are already dependent on artificial sweeteners. The tastes of both are close enough (both to the originals and each other) that you won't be disappointed by either one, even if you switch one for the other. Only the original version that falls short of the standard.

Ultimately, if you're a SodaStreamer and Dew is what you do, these syrups may be close enough to the bottled version to work for you.