Earlier this week, a Mountain Dew collector shared some sad news with the Mountain Dew subreddit: A huge chunk of his collection of sodas was ruined by a single leaky can. After he shared photos depicting the aftermath of the leak, which damaged a wall and destroyed 60 cans of Mountain Dew Thrashed Apple, a discontinued and sought-after variant, I reached out to the collector about the situation.
For those who aren’t aware, collecting Mountain Dew is a popular hobby among the biggest fans of the soda. On the Dew Drinkers Discord and Mountain Dew subreddit, you can often spot people sharing photos of their collections. Because there are so many variants of Mountain Dew and some of them are rarer than others, collecting all of them, just the super-rare versions, or simply one’s personal favorites has become a big part of the community.
Some of these collectors empty the cans and bottles out, displaying them like figurines or pieces of art. But others keep the liquid in the containers, sometimes drinking them years later with mixed results. And one of these collectors, West_Yogurtcloset497 on Reddit, had the worst thing happen to him recently when a single, unnoticed leaky can caused a devasting chain reaction.
On March 9, West_Yogurtcloset497—who has been collecting Dew for about three years—checked on his collection of Mountain Dew cans still sitting comfortably in their boxes. What he discovered was horrible. The boxes were soaked and dozens and dozens of cans were leaking.
“There was a pool of [Mountain Dew] Maui Burst on the floor,” West_Yogurtcloset497 told Kotaku via DMs. “I thought my cat had peed there. I cleaned it up and went about my day. The next day, the [puddle] was there and I investigated.”
However, it wasn’t cat urine that he had found. Instead, his collection of Mountain Dew cans were leaking soda all over each other and the wall. According to the collector, he’d had most of those cans for about a year and had been storing them in his room while he went to college about two hours away, which made it hard for him to check on the collection. And despite keeping the cans upright, a tactic used by many collectors to avoid blowouts caused by weight crushing the weaker sides of the cans, a leak ruined everything.
“Presumably, one can from the very top was faulty out of the factory, and leaked,” explained the collector. “The acid decayed the other cans causing them to leak, which exponentially killed more and more cans over the months.”
After discovering the soda destruction—the collector says he lost about 100 to 125 cans—and cleaning up the sugary mess, West_Yogurtcloset497 posted images of what happened on the Mountain Dew subreddit, adding: “PSA Check up on your cans frequently and make sure they are stored correctly.”
In the comments below, people commiserated with the collector about his loss and shared similar stories of times they were screwed over by a leaky can or bottle. There were also arugments about how long soda cans can last and if it’s safe to drink them years later. One user replied:
“Back in January 2020 I drank a can of Halo 3 Game Fuel from 2007. It tasted like metal and got flu like symptoms a day after.”
I asked West_Yogurtcloset497 if he drank any of the leaky cans before throwing them away. “Nah. No telling how long some of them were open.” He did try some of the cans that survived the Dew-pocalypse and says they were still carbonated and tasted “fine.”
Thankfully, due to cold weather, his room wasn’t filled with ants or other bugs and there wasn’t a nasty smell. However, he did confirm that his wall is ruined and will need to be cleaned and fixed up. As for the future, the collector tells me that he will continue to store cans, but has learned a valuable lesson in how to do so properly.
“[I won’t] keep the cans in the boxes anymore,” said West_Yogurtcloset497. “And make sure to check on them frequently. I knew cans eventually leak, but I had no idea that a single leaking can could kill most of my can collection.”
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