Review: Little Caesars And Mountain Dew Team Up For A Fabulous New Flavor In Mango Rush

Little Caesars Pizza and I go way back. A dancer most of my middle and high school career, I was in constant need of fuel, especially on long dance days. Thankfully, there was a Little Caesars pizza joint right down the way from my dance studio. We all stopped in regularly for Crazy Bread and its accompanying tomatoey sauce (one of the most underrated fast food sauces). There was no better dance fuel, except maybe Mountain Dew. Like any good teen of the early millennium years, my after school activities were absolutely fueled by a mix of Mountain Dew or Red Bull, depending on the day. In those days, Code Red was my favorite, but the original Mountain Dew did just fine, too.

So, when I heard that Little Caesars, a popular pizza chain, was teaming up with Mountain Dew to bring a unique flavor to my one-time favorite pizza stomping grounds, I was so excited to take a drink. Admittedly, I approached the sip with a little bit of trepidation. Whoever heard of mango with pizza or Mountain Dew, but I was actually surprised by what I found. Hot on the heels of its success in 2023 when Little Caesars and Pepsi teamed up to offer Pepsi Pineapple, maybe it was just a matter of time before Mountain Dew Mango Rush hit stores.

Scott Finlow, Chief Marketing Officer of PepsiCo Away From Home, explains that Mountain Dew and Little Caesars share something in common, stating, "One thing Mountain Dew and Little Caesars fans both share is a thirst for adventurous flavors. With Mountain Dew Mango Rush, our goal was to collaborate with Little Caesars to create a new, refreshing beverage that pizza and Dew enthusiasts will love." This new flavor is a combination of heat and mango, a different spin on the classic Mountain Dew flavor composition.

It's said to be a fruity pairing to Little Caesars pizza with a color that reminds me of a slice of pizza like you see in the Little Caesar's logo. The soda comes in larger cans, sized at 16 ounces. Although I never tasted Mountain Dew's Game Fuel in Mango Heat, the flavor seems to bear some resemblance to this older flavor.

Mango Rush is far from the first time Mountain Dew has offered an exclusive flavor to a particular restaurant. Perhaps the most popular of these is Taco Bell's iconic Mountain Dew Baja Blast. While Baja Blast has been around for over 20 years, only the first 10 years of that were limited to Taco Bell before it began to make bottled appearances in 2014.

Compared to a typical can of Mountain Dew in its original flavor, the Mango Rush is a slightly lighter offering. A regular 16 ounce can of Mountain Dew has 230 calories in it, while the Mango Rush has 210. Carbohydrates are lower as well, with the original offering 62 grams of carbohydrates and the new zesty flavor having 57 grams. The sugars for each match the number of carbohydrates, which takes up over 100% of the recommended daily allotment of sugar. That is: Mountain Dew gives 123% of your daily sugar, while the Mango Rush has 114%.

As with many sodas, the nutritional information is full of ingredients that sound more like items you'd find in a lab than ingredients you can purchase from your grocery store. It also ends with a coloring element. Mango Rush is colored with yellow number 6.

Instead of finding this new flavor in stores, you'll need to head to Little Caesars. Beginning May 5, 2025, Little Caesars will be selling 16 ounce cans of the Mango Rush-flavored Mountain Dew. The drinks will be available for a limited time, though there's been no specified date. I imagine it's one of those when-they-run-out-it's-gone deals.

In terms of the can, the design on the label is a celebration of the partnership between Little Caesars and Mountain Dew. You see the Mountain Dew logo as well as the Little Caesars mascot chomping down on a piece of pizza that's incredibly similar in color to the drink itself. The design on the can has a woodcut sort of look to it, with Little Caesars even appearing in a small black heart off to the side. The Little Caesars "pizza, pizza" phrase also appears in small words on the can.

To taste test, I poured the Mango Rush over crunchy pebble ice in a glass to give it the full refreshing soda experience. While the flavor of Mountain Dew can sometimes be really intense, even a little of a punch in the mouth, the Mango Rush didn't have this same intensity. It was just as delicious as the original flavor, but offered a far more smooth and tropical feel.

I love the idea of pairing this with some tequila or another spirit, like rum. Other than its color, I failed to see exactly how it goes with Little Caesars, but I could enjoy this any time of day, whether I'm eating pizza or not. I also noticed that the carbonation bite is a little less substantial than the original Mountain Dew. Instead, it's closer to Code Red (just one of the many MTN Dew flavors out there), which has always seemed a little weaker to me.

While the can advertises a spicy sort of flavor, I don't really get sweet heat; rather, it's just sweet. Maybe some of that heat comes from the tickle and fuzziness of the carbonation, but it just really tastes like a mango soda. Admittedly, I tend to like sweet heat items, so I do wish there was just a little bit more zesty flavor to round out that aspect.

Unequivocally, yes. I wish I had a little Caesars closer to my house to make us more frequent visitors, but if you happen to be picking up a pizza at Little Caesars, you should most definitely grab some Mango Rush. I'm willing to bet that if you like fruity beverages, you'll enjoy it quite a lot.

The pairing isn't so distracting that it will keep your mouth too busy from tasting all the flavors in both your pizza and the soda. As a pretty and flavored drink, it's much more substantial than a seltzer, which I feel so many companies are heading towards, but I've never been a big fan of. Instead, it's nice to see a fun flavor of soda come to the table. One thing is for sure: I want to try more exclusive Mountain Dew flavors, including the new Baja Blast flavor hitting Taco Bell menus in 2025.

That said, I'm not really buying into the whole collectible can angle that Mountain Dew and Little Caesars are promoting. Yes, the can does have a cool decoration around it, but I'm far more likely to recycle my cans rather than keep them up on a shelf.

I was sent a sample of this soda to try before it hit shelves in Little Caesars locations. To decide if it was a soda you needed to sample, I based my decision pretty much entirely on how enjoyable the flavor was. I also took into account whether the fizziness worked with the flavor, Mango Rush.