Go wild on spring break with Mountain Dew Baja Cabo Citrus

I’m old enough to remember that if you wanted a Mountain Dew, your choices of flavors spanned the wide gamut of regular Mountain Dew to Diet Mountain Dew. The summer when Mountain Dew Code Red hit stores blew my soda-loving mind. I first found it at a Toys R Us — a concept that made absolute sense back in the early days of the 2000s.

The Mountain Dew portfolio would quickly balloon from there. LiveWire. Voltage. Pitch Black. Seasonal flavors. Limited flavors. Flavors that celebrate democracy. Sorry, DEWmocracy.

One of the biggest — and most influential — new Mountain Dew varieties is without a doubt Baja Blast. The flavor was long exclusively sold only at Taco Bell before recently becoming available in cans at stores year round. (Mountain Dew Baja Blast Gelato was the first food ever reviewed over here at Snackology.)

Pepsi knows the value of the Baja Blast brand, and they’ve been finding ways to expand it this year. In addition to Mountain Dew Baja Midnight hitting Taco Bell locations later this year, Mountain Dew Baja Cabo Citrus is now popping up in stores.

Available in both regular and zero sugar varieties, Pepsi promises that Baja Cabo Citrus delivers “a zippy new twist on the legendary Baja Blast taste fans know and love.” Is Cabo Citrus worthy of the Baja Blast legacy?

Where I found it

Walmart was the first location I found Baja Cabo Citrus in the zero sugar version.

What I paid

A 12-pack of cans cost $7.88.

My thoughts

I’m always on board to try a new flavor of Mountain Dew. Since switching to diet soda a few decades ago, though, it’s sometimes harder to find the zero sugar version of a new Mountain Dew flavor — if one even exists — and Pepsi made it even harder to track down that version of Baja Cabo Citrus by not prominently branding it as Mountain Dew Zero Sugar. Instead, there’s a tiny “Zero Sugar Dew” disclaimer at the bottom of the can.

Shortly before I stumbled upon Baja Cabo Citrus on Walmart’s website, a friend had sent me a social media post that gave the new flavor a poor review. I wasn’t going to be swayed by social media, though. (Never!) I cracked open a can of the zero sugar Baja Cabo Citrus and was surprised as I poured out a very orange soda into my trusty Genesee Spring Bock glass.

Huh. I had to look at the can to remind myself that Baja Cabo Citrus is supposed to be a “Tropical Citrus Punch Flavor,” and there’s also definitely an orange on the label. And according to Pepsi, this Mountain Dew flavor is a “delicious tropical citrus punch with notes of mandarin and lime flavors, [with] this limited-time offering perfectly captures the essence of spring break.”

My spring breaks in college were spent working at CVS, so I can’t tell you if Mountain Dew Baja Cabo Citrus brings back memories of appearing on MTV during spring break. I can tell you, though, that the orange flavor — slightly syrupy, but in a good way? — brought back memories of when I first discovered Mountain Dew LiveWire back in 2003.

Final verdict: BUY

Yeah, this one is absolutely a buy. I quickly finished the can I had poured and had to show some restraint to not grab a second serving. I’m going to hold onto some cans so that I can follow the advice on the box and cans and see if Mountain Dew Baja Cabo Citrus really is the “perfect pairing with Doritos” and maybe even some Taco Bell too.