Apparently Mountain Dew drinkers were looking for something to drink in the morning, but they weren’t interested in coffee, tea, or juice. “Alas,” they cried, “where is the product that is marginally appropriate for breakfast, yet tastes enough like Mountain Dew that I feel comfortable drinking it?” And thus, Kickstart was born. (If we were Kickstarter, we’d sue.)
Kickstart has even more caffeine than its parent soda — 92 milligrams compared to the 72 in regular Mountain Dew. But it’s healthy, because it has B and C vitamins in it, and juice, but not too much of it, just the 5 percent juice that would make it technically qualify as juice.
Kickstart has less caffeine than energy drinks or coffee, and it’s bound to taste foul, but PepsiCo hopes that consumers will like it anyway. How could they not? They asked for it. And Mountain Dew delivered. It’s a beautiful world. It kind of makes us want to get all hopped up on Kickstart and go jump off a cliff with 15 of our closest Kickstart-drinking friends.