Let me prefix this review with the disclaimer: I'm not a Mountain Dew fan; never have been and probably never will be. Its flavor is unique. No other drink can replicate its flavor though many have tried. From the PepsiCo camp they pitched both Vault and Mello-Yello as Mountain Dew killers but neither succeeded.

To begin, this is not much of a soda nor much of an energy drink. It has 80 calories, which is awesome, but it also has only 92mg of caffeine, which is meh. The caffeine content is a bit less than double the caffeine of the Pepsi Max of old, itself a zero-sugar alternative to Pepsi that PepsiCo discontinued in the US in favor of Pepsi Zero which has less caffeine, and which is less than the traditional energy drinks it tries to displace who have a batting average of ~120mg in their 16oz cans. And Pepsi Max is just a soda. Mtn Dew Kickstart is an energy drink.

On the nose this is redolent of an orange Fanta or a Crush. The middle is empty, devoid of anything discernible aside from the vague taste of orange, closest in comparison to how the middle of a generic orange soda is: uninspiring and flat. The finish is heavy on the artificial orange. Carbonation is light, almost non-existent. If this were a nitrogenated soda I'd say the weak carbonation is expected and trademark but it's very much not nitrogenated. It bubbles in my mouth almost like flat soda. Very underwhelming.

One nice thing is that, as part of the Kickstart line, it and its brothers lack a substantial amount of added sugar. Considering it has a bit of caffeine and tastes similar to an orange soda that has 4x the amount of sugar this is a good substitute.