Mello Yello vs Mountain Dew
A big thank you to my cousins in Georgia who kindly played along and shipped up a bottle of Mello Yello for us to evaluate.
It’s been a long time since Mello Yello was available in the Northeast and while their logo has changed through the years, I think they had it perfect with the first one. I’d say the same goes for Mountain Dew. I don’t know about Mello Yello, but from my observations, Mt. Dew is mostly popular with males who are under 30 years old. I’m not sure what it is: the intense sweetness, the elevated caffeine, the vibrant yellow #5?
I also thought it was kind of interesting that Mountain Dew’s angle for a while was “Do the Dew!” which included skateboarding, mountain climbing and riding sharks. In comparison, Mello Yello does indeed seem more mellow as the commercials I found are uncomfortable situations between males and females asking “How would you stay smooth?”.
Ethan and I tasted this and then I brought the rest of the Mello Yello bottle into work to be tasted by our resident everyday Mt. Dew drinker, (who is a 24 year old male) Brendan.
Mello Yello:
We were out of our usual plastic tasting cups so we used wine glasses. It’s kind of funny how this almost looks like chardonnay (or pee).
The color was a little brighter yellow than how the picture came out. Ethan and I felt this was extremely sweet and syrupy. Brendan’s notes on this were the same, he felt it was okay but also said it was more syrupy than Mountain Dew and that dominated the flavor. I thought it tasted a lot like sprite and wondered if that is the base for this soda.
Mountain Dew:
This was very similar to Mello Yello, almost undetectably different but it does has a very lemony flavor that I felt tasted like those free lollipops you get at the bank.
Ethan said this was very citrusy but didn’t really see why he used to like it so much in college. I guess its worth noting that both drinks have orange juice in them too which probably helps add to the strong similarities between them.
Wrap up:
We really didn’t notice much difference between the two and I can see why in some areas of the country only one of them is offered. I will say that Brendan, being a hard core “Dewer” prefered Dew and felt Mello Yello was sweeter but he didn’t say he would never drink it again, if offered. In fact, he finished the rest of the bottle. I’d be interested to know which is more popular in areas where both of these are sold, which as the Coca-Cola distribution rep told me, is only in the south.
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November 3rd, 2008 at 3:00 am
as a child we always drank mellow yellow, however we were in Wisconsin, hardly considered ‘the south’
November 3rd, 2008 at 7:25 am
I’d rather have neither as I don’t like citrus flavored soda!
November 3rd, 2008 at 2:02 pm
DEW DEW DEW! Then again I live in VT and have never had Mello Yellow before…but the song is nice! “They call me mello yellow…”
November 3rd, 2008 at 4:50 pm
jdeuel: I occasionally drank Mello Yello as a kid too, in New England. As Michelle says though, it’s not available here anymore. I think if you looked now, you’d have a hard time finding Mello Yello in Wisconsin too. But who knows, maybe the Coke rep was wrong.
November 3rd, 2008 at 10:35 pm
I like Diet MD best. It really is quite remarkable how undiety it tastes! This blog is great, I can’t wait for the Jif vs. Skippy debate.
November 4th, 2008 at 2:32 pm
The wine glasses were a really nice touch. Well done.
November 4th, 2008 at 8:43 pm
Both sodas are available in Indiana so I don’t know what that Coke rep is talking about! I won’t drink either of them but my husband is addicted to Diet Dew. Bleh!
November 4th, 2008 at 8:57 pm
We’ve had Mello Yellow in MN for a very long time. I like neither.
November 4th, 2008 at 9:40 pm
I grew up in Minnesota and I remember drinking both a lot as a kid (I remember the old labels, too!) … but now that I mention it I hadn’t seen Mello Yello for a long time. I remember I liked both and thought they pretty much tasted the same.
November 5th, 2008 at 2:00 am
I’m a 34 year old woman. In my adolescence and early adulthood my favorite soda was Dr. Pepper. Later I became more and more fond of Mountain Dew. And with Kroger being the main grocery store here in my part of Ohio, I’ve learned something interesting.
I like Kroger’s version of Dew better than Pepsi’s. Compared to the Kroger brand, Pepsi’s Dew looks like vitamin B piss and doesn’t taste so hot either.
BUT. In the last year or so I’ve switched to diet soda; my system can’t take all that liquid sugar anymore, it makes me sick. As it turns out, Pepsi’s Diet Dew contains sucralose in addition to ace-K and aspartame sweeteners. This makes it taste about a hundred times better than Kroger’s diet version.
I’m kind of annoyed, because the price difference is pretty drastic and I’d rather be buying the store brand. But man. I can’t choke the Kroger diet stuff down. Ew.
November 5th, 2008 at 2:04 pm
one of my favorite sayings is
“Like a spider monkey jacked up on Dew” Every heard of a spider monkey jacked up on Mello Yellow?
November 5th, 2008 at 4:11 pm
There’s something strangely beautiful about seeing Mountain Dew in a wine glass.
November 6th, 2008 at 5:38 pm
Both Mello Yello and Mountain Dew are available in Michigan. I’d say Mt. Dew is more popular.
November 6th, 2008 at 9:47 pm
We drank gallons of Mello Yello as children in south Georgia; it paired well with the classic chocolate MoonPie. We called it Meller Yeller though. No lie.
November 7th, 2008 at 4:17 am
i’m from GA and both are readily available, but i never drunk mellow yellow until i got to college and all they had were coke machines on campus, but i still prefer the dew over the mellow
November 7th, 2008 at 4:19 pm
I can’t believe you drank Mountain Dew and Mellow Yellow out of wine glasses!! That is seriously classy!!
November 9th, 2008 at 10:12 pm
Am I the only one who noticed Mello Yellow contains the word “mellow”, while Dew is always marketed as “extreme”?
November 9th, 2008 at 10:24 pm
Did you read the whole post Red? It touches on that briefly…
November 11th, 2008 at 11:33 am
Sorry, all this sugar and caffeine is giving me the shakes! Love the blog.
November 12th, 2008 at 2:08 pm
I grew up in Wisconsin as well, and while I never considered myself a conosseiur of the shocking-yellow-indeterminate-citrus-soda genre,* I always thought of Mello Yello as the low-rent version of Mountain Dew. Basically,
Alec Baldwin : Billy Baldwin :: Mountain Dew : Mello Yello
At least in my head.
*I also enjoy the names of the store brands of this genre, my favorite being MOUNTAIN FURY.
November 12th, 2008 at 8:56 pm
I think my favorite store brand knock-off name is MOUNTAIN LIGHTNING by Wal-Mart (even though I dislike Wal-Mart).
November 24th, 2008 at 9:57 pm
Mello Yello is the only soda for me - WI, MI & IA have it. When on vacation, I take along enough to last until I get home. We have at least 6 - 12 paks in the larder in case they stop production.
Daughter & husband are also into it.
Do not like Dew any more. Very discerning taste. In ny pre-new coke phase, I could distinguish between Coke, new Coke, Pepsi (blah), and all of the other brown drinks. Cherry Coke is made with the new Coke formula.
November 25th, 2008 at 7:04 pm
I’m in NC, and remember when my GA cousins (who worked for Coke at the time) brought up a new drink to our house–Mello Yello. But, here in my neck of woods, a drink called Sun-Drop kicks the butt of both Mello Yello and Mt. Dew. It’s the same type of drink, but not quite as sweet. Try it if you find it.
November 26th, 2008 at 8:09 pm
To me, If I had to choose, I would always pick Mountain Dew over Mellow Yellow. For some reason I felt that Mellow Yellow had more fizz and more syrup. Mountain Dew was a lot smoother and has less viscosity thus deeming it more “chugable.” Which is the reason why on hot, humid Indiana days I would always grab a mountain dew.
December 13th, 2008 at 4:58 am
If you go to a restaraunt, its always either coke products or pepsi products (at least it is here in MO), which meant if you liked green citrus soda, like me, it was either mellow yellow or mountain dew, and because of my experience with that everytime i go out to eat, theyre completely inter-changable for me, they are a bit different but oddly enough i like both, sometimes i want mellow yellow and other times i want the MD.
December 15th, 2008 at 7:10 pm
Mello Yello is only available in the midwest, not in the south.
December 30th, 2008 at 5:37 pm
Like ‘em both, prefer Mello Yello. When I was in high school the corner store down the street from my job had a vending machine stocked full of Mello Yello cans for 25 cents each. That’s all any of us ever would drink. I got hooked. Now I wait for a sale before buying it…which is what I did last week, and why I’m on this site now because I’m enjoying a Mello Yello with my lunch. Great site!