Dust Cutter: Iced Tea Lemonade (2014)

Now in its second rendition, the premise of Dust Cutter is slightly revised. This time around, you’ll still find a mainstream-oriented, sugar-sweetened (with a touch of stevia) beverage at the product’s core, but the added ginseng and B vitamins have been removed. This leaves the product focused exclusively on refreshment, which is certainly what it does best. On the surface, the execution of the product is a success, with classic “half and half” flavor that’s pleasing to the palate. It’s balanced and clean, although it is, despite the use of stevia, a full-calorie product (160 calories and 40g of sugar per 16 oz. bottle). That said, we’re still not convinced that adding stevia was the best investment. On the outside, we like the cowboy-style branding of the product and it seems like a logical choice for a company from Jackson Hole. Fortunately, the company has done it exclusively with text and illustrations (versus images of mountains or whatever else you’d use to signify that it’s from the West) and the package, which, while slightly busy, has a good vibe to it. The use of a metal bottle is also a nice point of differentiation. However, to expand upon our prior comment about removing the stevia, it does seem slightly confusing that the product highlights “with pure cane sugar” on the front of the bottle. If Dust Cutter sticks with stevia, we’d recommend killing that entire line rather than replacing it with text to fill the space. Overall, it’s a good mainstream product that is still our favorite flavor of the lineup.