5. Flamin’ Hot 

I’ll have to admit, I never actually tried this flavor. However, I don’t think I really need to drink this to call it bad. It’s just one of those things you truly know should’ve never existed. This was a weird novelty flavor released to stores in April 2022. I remember seeing it on shelves, but I couldn’t bring myself to spend a single dollar on a soda that tastes like Cheetos. From what I’ve heard about this drink, though, most people describe it as “liquid acid reflux.” I will never willingly put my lips on a bottle of carbonated hot sauce, not in this lifetime or the next.

4. Thrashed Apple

I don’t know what I expected from a Kroger-exclusive Mountain Dew flavor, but Thrashed Apple is more than disappointing — it’s depraved. Throughout my time as a Mountain Dew connoisseur, I have never once understood why PepsiCo. keeps its worst flavors on store shelves. Meanwhile, I have to wait eight months each year until I see Baja Blast again. I’m beginning to feel like a divorced father with limited visitation rights, and I don’t particularly like it. I’m trying to learn to love the mediocre flavors of Mountain Dew, I promise I am. Thrashed Apple just doesn’t do it like Baja Blast or Pitch Black.

3. Major Melon

I’m a major hater when it comes to Major Melon. When I first took a sip of Major Melon, I was hit with visions of violence, war crimes and savage brutality. I laid in bed that night and wondered why PepsiCo. would forsake us like this after so many years of doing the dew. They made this lackluster flavor a permanent addition to their Mountain Dew lineup. Is it an attempt to make other flavors look better in comparison? Do they want us to feel so brutalized and abused by a watermelon soda that we’re forced to buy Baja Blast by the truckload as a means of recovery?

2. Fruit Quake

I’ve heard many people recommend drinking this soda with rum mixed in. That’s because being so sloshed you can’t see straight is the only way someone can effectively enjoy this drink. This flavor was a 2022 holiday exclusive and started on the right track with fruit; it just takes a stark and brutal detour when you add cake into the mix. I often praise Mountain Dew for being inventive and outlandish with their flavors, but this drink genuinely tasted like an act against God. I don’t know who at PepsiCo. conjured this idea, but I know they’re not making it into heaven.

1. Gingerbread Snap’d

When I first tried Gingerbread Snap’d, it made me legitimately want to seek therapy for the first time in my life. It was released in 2021, and all-in-all, it felt like some sick Christmas joke. This flavor didn’t taste like a whisper of ginger. It tasted like gnawing on a ginger root directly from the dirt. It was a miserable attempt at a beverage, and quite frankly, I’m surprised it didn’t single-handedly ruin Christmas for me. If I see it on store shelves again, neither Santa nor his 100,000 elves will be able to stop me from expunging the entire holiday season from all corners of this earth.