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How Much Caffeine is in Mountain Dew?
You may have heard about this mythical gamer fuel. The drink of the gods is chugged down by e-sports players and wannabe twitch streamers to keep them alert during long gaming sessions. But what exactly is “Mountain Dew”? Let's explore and find out.
Published March 17, 2022
Chandra Melo
Coffee experts@The Coffee Lab
Mountain Dew is a carbonated soft drink brand. If you’ve never seen Mountain Dew, you may believe it’s radioactive and unsafe to push down your throat. The taste is tricky to describe, with most people describing it as a citrusy-lemon flavor with a kick of caffeine at the end. While it may look and sound unappetizing to you personally, many people of all ages are completely hooked on this stuff. Their primary demographic seems to be young people who are into video games and extreme sports, as evidenced by the number of video game tournaments, x-sports tournaments and professional e-sports teams sponsored by Mountain Dew. (Mountain Dew | GosuGamers Mountain Dew Announces Expanded Partnership With PUBG Mobile – ARCHIVE - The Esports Observer)
The History of Mountain Dew
Currently, it is produced and owned by PepsiCo. It was originally invented in the 1940s by beverage bottlers Barney and Ally Hartman in Tennessee but the recipe was revised and a new formula was created in 1958 by Bill Bridgforth, the rights of which were ultimately obtained by the Tip Corporation, based in Virginia. The owner of the Tip Corporation liked the drink a lot but felt it was lacking a certain “oomph”. So, he experimented and refined the formula further, launching the next version of Mountain Dew in 1961, which is not much different from what we have today. In just three years, the soda brand caught the attention of the Pepsi-Cola company, and they acquired the brand and production rights from the Tip Corporation and started distributing the beverage across the United States and Canada.
The primary ingredients for Mountain Dew consist of carbonated water, high fructose corn syrup (which is replaced by sugar in limited edition promotional runs), concentrated orange juice, citric acid, natural flavors, caffeine and a bunch of proprietary flavors and colorings. However, there are some exceptions to this ingredient list around the world. For example, in Canada Mountain Dew was caffeine-free until 2012. However, Mountain Dew contains a noticeable amount of caffeine in the other areas it is sold in.
Caffeine Content In Mountain Dew
A 12 oz serving of one can of Mountain Dew contains about 54 mg of caffeine in it, which is amongst the highest for carbonated beverages. However it is still dwarfed by the amount of caffeine in a normal cup of coffee, which comes out to about 136 mg of caffeine for a 12 oz serving. Even black tea has more caffeine than Mountain Dew at 63 mg.
The only caffeinated beverages Mountain Dew beats are green tea and decaf coffee. So if caffeine is what you’re looking for, sticking to coffee or even tea would be a better bet. However if you’re looking for the extra caffeine kick and it’s too late to drink coffee, Mountain Dew might not be such a bad idea. Although we do recommend you moderate your intake as it’s very high calorie thanks to the added sugars and artificial flavors.
Mountain Dew Partnerships and Variants
There are other flavors of Mountain Dew as well, such as major melon, dew voltage, diet Mountain Dew, Mountain Dew code red, and live wire. While they may be of different colors and have different packaging, all of them have the same aftertaste, almost identical ingredients and the same amount of caffeine throughout, which is consistently at 54 mg of caffeine for a 12 oz serving. Interestingly one night while researching a computer worm, three programmers were chugging cases of code red Mountain Dew and named the computer worm after the beverage flavor!
Along with the standard Mountain Dew and its variants, PepsiCo has also partnered with other brands to launch novel Mountain Dew flavors. One of the most prominent partnerships was with Taco Bell back in 2004. After conducting extensive research to develop a beverage that could complement menu items at Taco Bell, they exclusively sold the flavor “Mountain Dew Baja Blast” in Taco Bell restaurant chains. While Baja Blast has a teal-blue look, and the flavor is claimed to be a derivative of “tropical lime” overall the drink seems to be mostly similar with the ingredients and the caffeine in Baja Blast being largely consistent with standard Mountain Dew.
Like Baja Blast there are other partnerships Mountain Dew has picked up over the years. For example, there was a limited time partnership where Mountain Dew, teamed up with the marketing team of Warner Bros. and created a flavor to complement the movie “The Dark Knight Rises” in 2012, which was essentially a dark berry flavor of Mountain Dew.
Mountain Dew has also partnered with Call of Duty to launch a new line of sodas with up to 90 mg of caffeine in a 16oz can called Game Fuel. Three flavors named cherry burst and berry blast along with the original dew flavor have been launched. (Game Fuel® - Designed To Give You An Edge – GAME FUEL®)
Entering The Energy Drink Market
However PepsiCo and Mountain Dew have been leaning into the most caffeinated soda title and have been slowly expanding into energy drinks. This matches up with the demographic they are targeting, and seem to be positioning themselves as an alternative to RedBull. Mountain Dew has tried twice to break into the energy drink market, with a soda/energy drink hybrid. Their first attempt was Mountain Dew Amp, a decent first attempt, where they were selling a soda with about 142 mg of caffeine in a 16 oz serving. However Amp Energy was rebranded in 2012 and lost the Mountain Dew tag.
In 2013 they tried to enter the market with Mountain Dew Kickstart, a drink with three parts, juice, caffeine and soda. This wasn’t too bad either, a soda with 90 mg of caffeine in a 16 oz serving. However it turned out to contain brominated vegetable oil, a food additive that causes severe health effects if taken in excess, and thus the Kickstart drink had to be withdrawn from the market.
(Flame Retardant in Your Mountain Dew? Yep - ABC News (archive.org))
In 2021 Mountain Dew announced a new line of energy drinks called Mtn Dew Rise. It has spent a year in development and is basically Mountain Dew with micronutrients such as zinc, vitamin A, vitamin C, and extra caffeine going from its paltry 54 mg per 12 oz serving to 180 mg per 16 oz serving, which is equivalent to 2 typical cups of 8oz coffee. It also contains a supplement called citicoline which is used to improve mental clarity in Alzheimer's patients. While PepsiCo claims it wants to make a new market segment, now that soda consumption is down, while energy drink consumption is holding steady, only time will tell if this offering by Mountain Dew will be accepted by the general public.
(Mountain Dew debuts Rise, an energy drink designed to replace your mor (fastcompany.com))
Not one to shy away from interesting concepts and no doubt trying to capitalize on the popularity of carbonated alcohol beverages like White Claw, Mountain Dew is also expanding its catalog to include soda with alcohol content marketed as “hard mountain dew” launched recently on the 22nd of February 2022. The soda is supposed to be 5% alcohol, so like a weak beer.
Mountain Dew is a decent source of caffeine but we don't recommend everyday consumption of their product due to the large amount of food additives and sugar. Unless you want to try their new chemical soup with the Alzheimer's supplement, we recommend sticking with good ol’ coffee if it’s just caffeine you’re after.
About the author
Chandra Melo
Marketing as job, barista as passion. An authentic coffee lover, looking for the next fantastic cup of coffee that I will fall in love with. Coffee, for me, is more than a beverage. It's about community and connection - how can all the world consume the same fruit? And differently? How can we have so many different tastes? I also don't know. And because of this, I feel in love each day more for this world. Happy to share and make a change in the coffee community.
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