PepsiCo Inc. is concocting a version of its Mountain Dew soda flavored to taste like cheesy Doritos chips, the company stated Friday.
The soda and snack giant said it tested the new flavor, dubbed “Dewitos,” on college students. The company did not reveal which colleges participated in the test, but at least one Reddit user, who goes by the username joes_nipples, posted a photo of the taste test on Friday, saying the soda did, in fact, taste like Doritos.
“We are always testing out new flavors of Mountain Dew, and giving our fans a voice in helping decide on the next new product has always been important to us,” a spokeswoman for PepsiCo said in a statement to The Huffington Post. “We opened up the DEW flavor vault and gave students a chance to try this Doritos-inspired flavor as part of a small program at colleges and universities.”
This isn't the first time PepsiCo has combined the highly caffeinated soda and the cheese-dusted nacho chips. PepsiCo also owns Frito-Lay, which makes Doritos, and the company has a long history of linking the two brands through new flavors or joint promotions. In 2008, PepsiCo released Doritos Quest, a sweet chip with a mystery flavor that was later identified as Mountain Dew.
The company has also long promoted Doritos and Mountain Dew, together enshrined in video gaming culture as the ultimate snacking cuisine, in marketing campaigns promoting the release of games on Microsoft’s Xbox.
Earlier this year, PepsiCo began printing special codes on bottles of Mountain Dew and bags of Doritos that can be used to unlock gear and increase experience points in “Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare,” which was released this week.
It’s unclear whether the Doritos-flavored soda will ever reach store shelves. But there's evidence to suggest that the Doritos and Mountain Dew combination is popular: In June, YouTube chef Rosanna Pansino introduced the world to Mountain Dew-flavored cupcakes topped with a Doritos crumble. And interest in the two brands, as shown by this Google Trends graph, seems to be on the rise:
This story has been updated.