I’ve been seeing a guy for about a month now (yay); it’s non-exclusive and pretty casual, but I have decided that it’s probably going along well enough to warrant the old Christmas gift exchange. He hinted as such as well. I take gift giving extremely seriously and prefer to give things that are unique or difficult-to-obtain whenever possible.
One thing I would really, really like to be able to pull off for this guy: obtain a large quantity of Baha Blast Mountain Dew. It’s his favorite and, unfortunately, is only available at participating Taco Bells, in fountain drink form. I’m considering writing a heartfelt letter to either Taco Bell or Mountain Dew to see if they could be swayed into giving me the hook-up. Or, alternately, assembling an Ocean’s Eleven-esque task force, and hijacking a Baha Blast delivery truck (cos the only thing cooler than a girl giving you a keg’s worth of exotic soda for Christmas would be if said girl procured it via heist).
Anyone have an in with either corporation that they would be willing to exploit for a fellow doper? Or at least have thoughts on the best way to make this a reality?
Your best shot is with Taco Bell store management. However, it’s not a very good shot. They’d had to sell you the syrup and you’d need a machine to dispense it, if they could even get it for you.
Selling it exclusively at TB is a very intentional marketing strategy to increase beverage sales for TB, as their beverage sales lag behind other fast-food joints.
It’s not bottled or canned, so you need to be crafty to secure the syrup bags from a store manager and/or a distributor. Both would be risking their jobs, so good luck with that, and good luck buying a dispenser that mixes in C02 with the syrup and water.
Well, you can get home-use soda fountains. There’s a booth at the state fair every year that sells them (and I’m sure there must be a website that does so), so that part isn’t terribly difficult.
Alternatively: I wonder if the formula is duplicatable? That is, is Baja Blast simply regular Mountain Dew with an infusion of blueberry syrup or something similar? Do some taste testing, and you might be able to replicate it at home.
Perhaps I’m naive, but for the purposes of this one-off syrup usage, couldn’t you just mix it with seltzer?
Get a drive thru order and some patience. Park your car at the spot nearest the dumpster. Call over one of the minimum wage employees as s/he takes out the trash. Tell him/her that the next can of garbage has to have a brand new box of the baja blast syrup on top. Palm him $20 if you’re willing to take a chance. $50 if you want to be certain.
Pretty sure Baja Blast has lime flavors where standard MD has lemon. You could try approximating it with lime cordial, but I’m dubious.
Show up early in the day (or possibly right before closing, though there’s usually less tolerance for shenanigans when everyone just wants to clean up and go home) before there’s much of a crowd, and ask if your can fill up a number of 2 liter bottles with those pump pressure cap doohickies. Offer to pay for whatever that number of comparable large drinks by volume would be, and you should be set. (Worse comes to worse, you could buy the cups and funnel their contents into the bottle, though that’d take longer and draw more attention than just filling the bottles.)
Try your local homebrew store - they probably won’t have the syrup, but they’ll have a host of other syrups, as well as all the stuff needed to carbonate it again. You could get a cornelius keg (a 5 gallon keg that’s about 10" in diameter and maybe 3 ft tall; it’s what’s commonly used in bars and restaurants for carbonated beverage) a container of carbon dioxide, the required tubing, and Bob’s your uncle.
After you get either the syrup or the Baja Blast itself, pour it into the keg, hook up the CO[sub]2[/sub], and let the gas flow into the keg. In a few days, bingo bango - carbonated soda! You can speed up the carbonating process by rolling and shaking the keg, if you like.
Anyway, go to the homebrew store and they’ll hook you up and give you the information you need to pull it off. It’ll cost you, though - I don’t remember how much, but the keg and carbon dioxide bottle will probably be $100 or so.
Hm, I used to work for a food service provider that handled a number of fast food franchises, you might try contacting a local one and see if they would sell you a bag of syrup.