The ComicsAlliance Batman Mountain Dew Taste Test

Here's the thing about being the World's Foremost Batmanologist: Occasionally, someone will make a movie about Batman -- in this case, The Dark Knight Rises -- and someone else will decide that it's a good idea to make a new flavor of Mountain Dew to go along with it. Then, someone else will decide to send you a bottle of it to sample. It's a weird job, but it's nice work if you can get it.

That's how I wound up getting my first ever advance review copy of a drink, which in this case was Dark Berry Mountain Dew, set to hit shelves next month. So join me now, as I taste test Batmountain Dew.The Dew arrived in a black box that invited me to "Rule the Streets With Dew," which I still think sounds like something that a unicorn princess would say to her subjects. Admittedly, though, I probably think about unicorn princesses way more than Mountain Dew's usual target audience. Inside, there was the new Batman-themed can of regular Mountain Dew, as well as a bottle of the Dark Berry flavor, seen here with a copy of 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand for scale:

Unsurprisingly, the Batman pint glass in the first photo was something I already owned.

In what I can only assume is a tribute to mankind's greatest invention, the Hypercolor T-Shirt, the can is meant to change color when it gets cold, turning the bat-shaped logo from regular aluminum to a pale green:

To be honest, it's not really that noticeable. The press release in the package refers to it as "glowing," but that might be overstating things just a little.

On to the Dark Berry! Despite the name, it's not really that dark, especially if you throw some ice in there. It's actually a pretty pleasant blue that matches Batman's classic costume, and for me, that's a plus. It does make me wonder if, in order to go along with the movies they're tying into, they mean "Dark" as in "morally challenging." I don't think that's likely, but there's definitely a part of me that would like to see what it would look like if Mountain Dew was holding a city in the grip of terror.

Even though I'm not much of a soda drinker anymore, I have a long history of loving Mountain Dew's novelty flavors. Back when I worked at the comic book store, we once hung up a homemade sign declaring that we "Proudly Served" Mountain Dew GameFuel, for the one summer when that was actually a thing you could do. I once even tried a bottle of Pitch Black well after the expiration date, so I like to think I'm qualified to judge Dark Berry.

The judgment: Not bad! It's insanely sweet -- moreso than even regular Dew, in fact -- and almost tastes like carbonated berry Kool-Aid. For me, it ranks well above Pitch Black and Code Red in the hierarchy of Mountain Dew Novelty Flavors, but it doesn't quite get to the level of GameFuel. But then, what could?

Of course, it's not exactly the sort of thing I can picture Alfred bringing to Batman after a long night of crime-fighting, but given how jittery I am from just the taste-test, I can definitely see a henchman slamming a bottle to get motivated.