Since nothing screams "High Class" like Mountain Dew, Pepsi has decided to step up their game and make the Dew even more fancy.

When Mountain Dew's Dew Shine was announced, the term "craft soda" kept getting thrown around.    I figured calling it a craft soda was an easy term to use, for a soda that will surely be made in smaller batches and with slightly higher quality ingredients than usual.  Or, very likely, it's being called a craft soda because it comes in a nicer bottle.

I don't think this particularly qualifies as a craft soda, since personally I wouldn't consider a product from a gigantic beverage company to be "craft".  But maybe it is, I don't actually know.  Or care, really.  I'm happy enough to call it that because that's easier that coming up with a better term myself.

There will be two things you notice right off the bat.  First, the Dew's trademark Nickelodeon slime coloring is absent.  The second - more alarming - thing you will notice is how terrible the name is.  Unless Pepsi is going out of their way to make juvenile jokes, it's an unfortunate result that the majority of the name is pronounced as "douche".  Maybe Pepsi got the idea for the name watching Beavis and Butthead when Beavis mentioned that "I do shine my pants."

Name aside, the bottle design is nice, implementing the Throwback aesthetic.  Just... thrown back even more.

Dew Shine's new, clear color will bring obvious comparisons to Crystal Pepsi.  However in this case, Dew Shine seems to simply be an attempt to improve the quality of Mountain Dew, including removing the "stigma" of the fake coloring.  As opposed to whatever was going on with Crystal Pepsi.

Taste-wise, Dew Shine is... okay.  It removes the fake "citrus" (in heavy quotation marks) of Mountain Dew, and replaces it with more of an actual citrus flavor.  Though I mostly just get lemon.  The allure of "real sugar" isn't attractive to me for Mountain Dew.  I never found Mountain Dew Throwback as successful as Pepsi Throwback, because I didn't think the "real sugar" had as much impact on the Dew recipe.

Pepsi succeeded in making what they were trying to make - a soda that tastes like Mountain Dew, but not exactly.  Is it better?  I don't think so.  But I think I'm too attached to loving chemical sweeteners and artificial coloring.

It's enjoyable, and arguably a good soda, but I won't be buying it again.  I think I'm just too low class for this.