Wendy's Rick and Morty drinks taste like candy, interdimensional adventure
Season 5 premieres Sunday. Hope you like Mello Yello.
You see a vat of acid. I see a vat of Portal Time Lemon Lime.
As a portal opens to Rick and Morty's fifth season, fans can head to Wendy's to try one of two drinks inspired by the Adult Swim show.
Both "Mello Yello BerryJerryboree" and "Mello Yello Portal Time Lemon Lime" are available at more than 5,000 US Wendy's locations. So of course I had to swing by a Texas Wendy's close to me and have a swig or two of the bright orange and lime green-colored drinks.
The drinks are concoctions involving different flavors of the caffeinated soda Mello Yello. BerryJerryboree combines the Mello Yello flavors strawberry orange, cherry and limeade. Portal Time Lemon Lime is a mix of Mello Yello limeade and citrus twist. So yeah, if you try these, you're in for a lot of Mello Yello.
Both taste like liquified SweetTarts candy, but the Portal Time Lemon Lime drink is, surprise, more lemon-limey. (Both also come in zero-sugar variations.) The drinks weren't immediately easy to spot on the Coca-Cola beverage dispenser -- I had to click a button on the main screen to view the "Only At Wendy's" options, which then took me to a screen with a small, circular image of one of the show's titular characters, Rick Sanchez. Pressing Rick's head took me to another screen with all four Rick and Morty-themed options.
This isn't the first time Wendy's and Rick and Morty have teamed up. The brands collaborated last year on a commercial for Wendy's breakfast menu that featured the show's stars running from a menacing Frosty-ccino, Breakfast Baconator and Honey Butter Chicken Biscuit.
This is the menu you'll see when selecting your Rick and Morty drink.
Rick and Morty, an animated show chronicling the outlandish intergalactic adventures of Rick and his grandson, Morty, premiered in 2013. Since then, the show has garnered plenty of die-hard fans and won over critics (the show sits at an 86 Metacritic score across all its seasons). It was renewed for 70 episodes in 2018, and 60 of them have yet to air. Season 5 will include 10 episodes and bring back familiar faces Rick, Morty, Summer, Beth and Jerry. According to the season 5 trailers, the new season will be true to Rick and Morty form, including one-liners, weird aliens and brainy inventions.
The Rick and Morty-inspired drinks will be available through Aug. 22. But that's not the only way Wendy's is prepping for the show's season premiere. From June 18-20, a pop-up at Wendy's Panorama City location in LA promises an LED drive-thru experience, show-themed menu and limited-edition Pickle Rick Pickle Frosty.
For those outside of LA, or perhaps many hours away (as I am in Texas), consider hyping yourself up for a cross-state road trip the Rick Sanchez way: "Morty there's a plasma shard in the Abadango cluster, a princess has it... let's go, in and out, 20-minute adventure."