Sometimes Foodie: Pin-pointing 2022 Voo-Dew's Flavor

Hello, I just woke up from an unplanned post-work couch-nap and now I'm about to drink a bottle of Mystery Mountain Dew at 11:45PM on a work night.
In other totally great life-decision news, I still have an unopened bottle of 2021 Voo-Dew in my fridge that I never tried! It's over a year old at this point, but I'm sure it's probably fine, should I still review it?
One bad decision at a time, tonight, let's crack open the 2022 Voo-Dew and see what it's all about!

Each year we switch up the color scheme and add a few details to the label. The colors typically coincide with the mystery flavor, but it's not super obvious.
Year 1: Purple background, yellow moon, and an orange-robed reaper.
Flavor: Candy Corn

Okay, we had yellow, white and orange on the label, but the majority of the design was purple and orange. The hint is there, but it's far from obvious.

Year 2: Red background with yellow moon and a reaper with a blue-purple, red, and green robe.
Flavor: Fruity Candy, AKA Skittles

Again, Skittles are red, yellow, green, orange, and purple and original mix comes in a Red wrapper. The idea is there, but again, not super obvious

Year 3: This year the illustrations are getting more elaborate, we have a teal background, spooky haunted house, green and yellow accents, yellow moon, and a teal, blue, and yellow reaper.
Flavor: Fruit Chews, AKA Starbursts

I haven't personally tried this one yet, but judging on the artwork and the colors, I would assume it's the Tropical variant of Starburst? That would make color-sense and change things up after having the Skittles-flavor in year-2.

Which brings us to...

Year 4: Keeping the illustrations going, we have a graveyard surrounded in rod-iron fencing, trees, pumpkins, and tombstones with I, II, & III indicating the deaths of flavors past. The background is bright orange and this year our Skeletal-fingered-friend is wearing a purple, pink, blue, and orange-colored robe and rocking brass-knuckle-like jewelry with a '4' on it instead of holding up his fingers to indicate the edition.

Based on it's colors, I'm guessing Pixie Stix? With purple, orange, pink and blue it was the first thing that came to mind. But, as we know, the colors aren't a great indicator, so let's open it up and take a sniff.

Opened, it smells sugary, sweet, a little tangy, but immediately familiar. I know I have smelled something like this, but nothing highly specific comes to mind. I'm getting creamy, tangy, citrus-vibes.

Taking a sip, my brain immediately says that this tastes like freezer popsicles, the kind that come in the clear plastic pouches that used to cut the sides of my mouth as a kid. More specifically, the blue ones. It looks clear-ish and foggy, but tastes like "blue."

Several sips in and the popsicle-effect starts to fade. I'm having a hard time placing if it is actually meant to taste like a particular candy or not. I don't think my Pixie Stix guess was too far off, but that could be the power of suggestion swaying my tastebuds. I could also see this being marketed as like, Sweet-Tarts, which are basically a tablet form of Pixie Stix. But, since every year has been generic takes on iconic candies (i.e. fruit chews) what would the generic term for that even be? "Fruity sugar sticks?"

There is a sour aftertaste that lingers, and it seems to get more intense after swallowing. (Giggity?) Not intensely sour. It's more like the fizzy centers of certain hard candies, lemony and tart, but it's still Mountain Dew so it's practically hummingbird nectar.

Since this is more sour than any previous Voo-Dew flavor, it must be intentional. This has a sour-candy-counterpart, but which one? It's not sour enough for Warheads, too many fruit flavors going on to be Lemonheads. We already had a Skittles-esque flavor so doing Sour Skittles so soon after that would be a little lazy.

As of writing this post, the official flavor has yet to be revealed, if I had to guess I would go with my original inkling that this is Sweet-Tarts. Fun fact, Orange Sweet-Tarts were discontinued? I actually hadn't noticed at all since they are still in the mini chewy version, which is my preferred way to consume SweetTarts. Lime has also been swapped for green apple these days? Shows how often I've been snacking on the OG version.

We're 4 years into Voo-Dew, and I am still completely in love with the branding and the gimmick. I hope to see it again next year!

Today's ramble is to let you know that...

This Sunday, October 30th from 2-5pm EST/US

I'll be guesting on my friend, QueenzDragon's, Twitch stream!

We'll be eating junk food, talking Halloween candy, and drinking Voo-Dew (she never even heard of it before!) and, most importantly, we'll be trying to raise money for a sick kitten named Goose!

I got into TNR (Trap Neuter Return) and fostering kittens last year and it was really rewarding. All my little bathroom gremlins got off the streets, treated for medical conditions, socialized and now they are happy, healthy, and they all have wonderful forever homes. AND I was able to adopt my precious-wonderful-perfect-baby-angel (and former feral), Winnie, and her kittens, Pru and Zelda. (My girls are all named after witches, of course.)

If you're around, tune in or spread the word and help us raise some funds for Community Cat Club! We'll see you there!