Combine lemon with lime and you get Sprite. Combine every soda flavor and you get Dr. Pepper. Combine anything yellow with fructose and you get Mountain Dew. Combine Mountain Dew with blue raspberry and you get Voltage, a bubbly, sticky nightmare.

First of all, blue raspberry is just another joke from the smug suits at the advertising companies. It’s nothing but a color to offset whatever red or pink nonsense flavor happens to be shelved next to it.

You’ll never see a standalone blue raspberry candy. Also, every product that calls itself “blue raspberry” tastes like the same thing: non-raspberries. I’ve never eaten a blue raspberry (they actually exist), but I’m sure they don’t taste like watermelon Splenda.

However, if you’ve always wanted to drink a Jolly Rancher, Voltage is for you.

The Voltage logo is honestly more annoying than the flavor. Beside the fact that they abbreviated the word “Mountain” wrong, there is a crack of blue lightning behind the mighty peak of Mount Dew. It had to be lightning — like Gatorade — instead of maybe a raspberry.

If kids chug this horrible substance at soccer practice like they do Gatorade, the outcome won’t be good. Mountain Dew Voltage, the drink that makes fat dreams, should be illegal.

Mountain Dew seems like the first step toward the future we see in horror films. I don’t mean like “The Road Warrior.” I mean the advanced future where everyone wears the same clothing and feeds on the same protein liquid.

Mountain Dew is well on its way to becoming humankind’s sole nutrition. If you love Mountain Dew, you need to try it sober.

In Voltage’s favor, it is fun. If I saw Voltage on the shelf when I was 9, I would have lost my mind. It looks cool. It looks extreme. I even felt a slight giddy delight when I watched the blue liquid cascade across the ice in my cup. But when I tasted it, the fun ended.

Some rules are timeless. Don’t talk to strangers. Don’t eat yellow snow. And never drink blue soda.

Rating: D