alt.fan.dr-pepper FAQ v. 2.12
From: chrisf@pipeline.com (Christopher Flaherty) Newsgroups: alt.fan.dr-pepper Subject: alt.fan.dr-pepper FAQ v. 2.12 Date: Mon, 23 Aug 1999 04:15:00 GMT Message-ID: <7pqhsu$hoq$1@nntp4.atl.mindspring.net> Reply-To: chrisf@pipeline.com X-Server-Date: 23 Aug 1999 04:15:26 GMT Summary: Answers to most questions about the soft drink Dr Pepper. Archive-name: drink/dr-pepper Posting-Frequency: trimonthly (more or less) Last-modified: 1999/08/23 Version: 2.12 URL: http://www.pipeline.com/~chrisf/dpfaq.html The Highly Unofficial alt.fan.dr-pepper FAQ compiled by Christopher Flaherty from various sources version 2.12 August 23, 1999 List of Questions: a. What's a FAQ? b. Where can I find the latest version of this FAQ? c. What are the sources for this FAQ? d. What changes have been made to this FAQ? e. Why did you put this FAQ together? 1. Who invented Dr Pepper? 2. Is Dr Pepper older than Coca-Cola? 3. Was there ever really a person called Dr. Pepper? 4. Is there now a town named Dr Pepper? 5. What's the connection between the Beatles and Dr Pepper? 6. Does Dr Pepper contain prune juice? 7. Okay, so what's in Dr Pepper? 8. What's the recipe for Hot Dr Pepper? 9. What Dr Pepper imitations exist, and where can you find them? 10. What's the difference between Dr Pepper made with Imperial Cane Sugar, and Dr Pepper made with high fructose corn syrup? 11. How can I get some cane sugar Dr Pepper? 12. How can I get some caffeine-free Dr Pepper? 13. Why drink Dr Pepper at 10 o'clock, 2 o'clock, and 4 o'clock? 14. What happened to the period after "Dr" in Dr Pepper? 15. Who owns Dr Pepper? I heard it was owned by Coke/Pepsi/7-Up/etc.? 16. Is there a Dr Pepper museum? 17. Where can I buy Dr Pepper merchandise? 18. Where can I find this Dr Pepper collectible? Who can I contact to have this antique Dr Pepper item looked at? 19. What books have been written about Dr Pepper? 20. How can I contact The Dr Pepper Company? 21. How can I contribute to/make suggestions/submit corrections to this FAQ? And now, the questions with the answers: a. What's a FAQ? FAQ stands for Frequently Asked Questions, and there are several of them that pop up in alt.fan.dr-pepper all the time. b. Where can I find the latest version of this FAQ? This FAQ is posted to alt.fan.dr-pepper, alt.answers, and news.answers as often as it may be necessary (at least once every three months). The latest version can always be found on the World Wide Web at http://www.pipeline.com/~chrisf/dpfaq.html. The following mirror sites (or, more accurately, mirror sites for the newsgroup postings of the FAQ) also exist: http://www.cs.uu.nl/wais/html/na-dir/drink/dr-pepper.html http://www.cis.ohio-state.edu/hypertext/faq/usenet-faqs/bygroup/alt/fan/dr-pepper/_drink:dr-pepper..html http://src.doc.ic.ac.uk/usenet/news.answers/alt.fan.dr-pepper/ http://ftp.eu.net/ftp/documents/faq/drink/dr-pepper http://ftp.lth.se/cgi-bin/gfaq?drink%2fdr-pepper.gz http://www.lib.ox.ac.uk/internet/news/faq/archive/drink.dr-pepper.html (this site doesn't seem to get updated as often; it was displaying a copy of version 2.02 when I was already up to version 2.06) And, as of 11/12/98, a link to this FAQ can finally be found on Yahoo! in the Home : Society and Culture : Food and Drink : Drinks and Drinking : Dr Pepper category (as opposed to the more corporate Home : Business and Economy : Companies : Beverages : Soft Drinks : Dr Pepper category). It took a while, but hey--what's five months between friends? Anyway, there was an additional happy side effect to the Yahoo! listing besides increased traffic, but I'll elaborate on that in question 9, so stay tuned. c. What are the sources for this FAQ? This particular FAQ was first put together in its present form by Christopher Flaherty (chrisf@pipeline.com). A smaller FAQ was previously compiled by Max Arbogast (marbo@erath.net) and can be found at http://erath.net/marbo/faq.htm. Major web site sources include pepper.doc (http://erath.net/marbo/), the corporate Dr Pepper site (http://www.drpepper.com), Old Doc's Soda Shop (http://www.drpep.com), and the Dr Pepper Museum and Free Enterprise Institute of Waco, Texas (http://www.drpeppermuseum.com). Many old posts to alt.fan.dr-pepper were retrieved via DejaNews (http://www.dejanews.com), so thanks to them also. Other sources are also quoted and attributed throughout the FAQ. d. What changes have been made to this FAQ? The chronology of this particular FAQ's development is as follows: 11/8/97 -- Version 0.001: First preliminary version; questions only. Did not include answers. Not distributed. 6/2/98 -- Version 0.002: Included answers to questions as well as a chart listing 38 DP clones. Not distributed. 6/15/98 -- Version 0.003: Eliminated chart/list of DP clones. Expanded and renumbered questions and answers. Not distributed. 6/28/98 -- Version 0.004: Included personal comment about book availability in my hometown. Limited distribution through email for proofreading and corrections. First HTML version created. 6/30/98 -- Version 0.005: Corrected number of flavors in answer to question 7. HTML publication only. 7/2/98 -- Version 1.00: First plain-text version created. First submission to alt.fan.dr-pepper, alt.answers, and news.answers newsgroups. 7/7/98 -- Version 1.01: Added information about Houston Collector's Club (question 18) and ingredients in UK Dr Pepper (question 7). 8/6/98 -- Version 1.02: FAQ approved for posting to alt.answers and news.answers newsgroups. Specified posting frequency in question b. Modified question 3 and question 8 to address the "love story" rumor. 9/27/98 -- Version 1.03: Added two more sites to question 9. 9/29/98 -- Version 1.04: Corrected stock symbol for Cadbury Schweppes (question 15). Not distributed. 10/2/98 -- Version 1.1: Added new question about the Beatles (question 5) and rearranged the others. 10/12/98 -- Version 1.11: Added another site to question 9 and META tags to HTML version. 10/28/98 -- Version 1.12: Added ingredients of Australian and Canadian versions of Dr Pepper (question 7). 11/7/98 -- Version 1.13: Added list of "mirror sites" to question b. Corrected name and address of source of Canadian ingredients (question 7). Added information about year of origin and distribution of Mr. Pibb (question 9). 11/14/98 -- Version 1.14: Added information about Yahoo! link (question b); updated URL of Mr. Pibb site, updated name of Wouldn't you like to be a Pepper too... site (formerly known as Impostors, Pretenders, and Frauds), and added information about new Yahoo! category (all question 9). 1/31/99 -- Version 2.00: Added ingredients for Diet Dr Pepper to question 7. Changed question 8, eliminating the question "Who started the prune juice rumor?" Added international distribution information to question 15. Added information about eBay to questions 17 and 18. 2/20/99 -- Version 2.01: Added more information about flavors and changed one email address in question 7. Added more information about Hot Dr Pepper to question 8. HTML publication only. 2/23/99 -- Version 2.02: Added facts about Cooking With Dr Pepper to question 19. 3/4/99 -- Version 2.03: Added more information about Cooking With Dr Pepper to question 19. Added more contact information to question 20. 4/4/99 -- Version 2.04: Added information about catalogue from Dr Pepper Museum in Waco, Texas (question 17). Added information about potentional new clone from Coca-Cola (questions 9 & 15) and corrected release year of Mr. Pibb (question 9). Added note about 25-case limit on sales of cane sugar Dr Pepper (question 11). Revised book information and availability in question 19. 4/22/99 -- Version 2.05: Added information about caffeine content to question 7. Revised addresses in questions 11 and 16. Added soda jerk lingo to question 14. Added toll-free Museum number to question 17. 5/2/99 -- Version 2.06: Corrected bad HTML code in first link to question 5. HTML version only. 6/12/99 -- Version 2.1: Added 3 more "mirror" sites to question b. Added information about Straight Dope Online article to question e. Corrected bad HTML code in question 10. Added new question about caffeine-free Dr Pepper (question 12) and rearranged the others. Negligible change to question 19. 7/9/99 -- Version 2.11: Added extra disclaimers to question e. Added more flavor information to question 7. Added three more "clone" sites to question 9. Changed wording of question 12 to match its wording in the list of questions, and made small grammatical correction in question 12's answer. 8/23/99 -- Version 2.12: Added info about prune juice rumor to question 6. Reformatted part of question 7. Added 6 more "clone" sites and information about dmoz.org to question 9. Added phone number for Bottling company to question 11. Added fax numbers for museums to question 16. e. Why did you put this FAQ together? There seemed to be a calling for one, and no one else was posting a Dr Pepper FAQ in the newsgroups (or at least not in alt.fan.dr-pepper), so I figured I'd give it a shot. I must be doing something right because this FAQ was cited as a reference in the June 10, 1999, edition of the Straight Dope Online, in an article so generously cribbed from the FAQ that they might as well have asked me to write the thing myself. Example: My sentence: "The most famous (or is that infamous?) imitation, Mr. Pibb, is Coca-Cola's unsuccessful effort to drive the good Dr out of the market." Their sentence: "Mr. Pibb is Coca Cola's unsuccessful effort to drive the good Dr out of the market." Coincidence? Judge for yourself at http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mdrpepper.html. Anyway, the other thing I can't figure out is why they supplied a link to a mirror site of the FAQ (and an old mirror site at that--version 2.02), and not a direct link to the HTML version of the FAQ itself--especially when there was information in the article which had to have come from the most recent version (2.06) at the time. Oh well. At least now everyone will know where to go for the very latest info: right here of course. "Get a life," indeed. Right now I'd like to stress that this FAQ is UNOFFICIAL, meaning that it is not endorsed or authorized by The Dr Pepper Company, Dr Pepper/Seven Up, Inc., or any other corporate or business entity connected with Dr Pepper. Dr Pepper/Seven Up, Inc. owns all Dr Pepper copyrights and trademarks. Additionally, I'm not employed by Dr Pepper, nor do I work for the Dr Pepper Company in any capacity, and Dr Pepper does not compensate me for the time I dedicate towards writing this FAQ (though I probably wouldn't stop them if they did). I just put this together in my spare time for the purpose of providing quick answers to common questions about Dr Pepper which appear frequently on alt.fan.dr-pepper. So, in other words, please don't sue me. I'm too broke as it is. Let me know if you like it! 1. Who invented Dr Pepper? Dr Pepper was first created in 1885 by Charles Alderton, a pharmacist who was working at Morrison's Old Corner Drug Store in Waco, Texas, at the time. 2. Is Dr Pepper older than Coca-Cola? Yes. Coca-Cola was not invented until 1886, making Dr Pepper the oldest of the major-brand soft drinks in the United States. (For the record: Pepsi was created in 1898 by Caleb Bradham in New Bern, North Carolina; 7-Up a.k.a. "Lithiated Lemon" was "introduced" by Charles Grigg of St. Louis in 1929; and Sprite was created by the Coca-Cola company in 1961. For the really curious: Moxie was invented by Augustin Thompson of Lowell, Massachusetts, in 1886 as well.) 3. Was there ever really a person called Dr. Pepper? Yes. Before Wade Morrison (the owner of the drug store where Alderton worked) moved to Texas, he had lived in Virginia, and worked there as a pharmacist for a drug store in Rural Retreat owned by a Dr. Charles Pepper. Dr. Pepper had given Morrison his first job, so Morrison returned the favor by naming the new drink after him. (There is a rather persistent rumor that alleges Morrison invented the drink and named it after Pepper so that Pepper would approve of his daughter marrying Morrison; but since all the "official" sources agree that Alderton was the one who invented the drink, and Dr. Pepper's daughter was "only about 8 years old" when Morrison moved out of Virginia, I think that story can safely be classified as an urban legend. The Soda Fountain [http://www.sodafountain.com] explains the matter quite concisely on their Dr Pepper page [http://www.sodafountain.com/softdrnk/dr_pepper.htm].) 4. Is there now a town named Dr Pepper? Yes and No; it depends on the time of the year. Rita Reed of the Dublin, Texas, Chamber of Commerce told me on 6/8/98 that every year for the last 4 or 5 years (she wasn't quite sure) the town has renamed itself "Dr Pepper, Texas" for one week in June to celebrate the anniversary of the opening of the Dr Pepper plant there (which, by the way, is the oldest Dr Pepper bottling plant in the world, having been in business since 1891). So, for one week out of the year there is a town in the US named Dr Pepper. On the bright side though, for the rest of the year you still have Dublin. 5. What's the connection between the Beatles and Dr Pepper? It sounds pretty obvious once you know it, but I never would have guessed until someone pointed it out to me: The original title of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Heart's Club Band -- one of the Beatles' most popular albums (and consequently one of the most popular albums period) -- was Dr. Pepper's Lonely Heart's Club Band! Wild, huh? When I asked the fine folks at rec.music.beatles for confirmation, Jim Demes (demes@udel.edu) wrote me on 9/29/98: According to BEATLESONGS by William J. Dowlding: "The album was originally titled Dr. Pepper's...until the Beatles realized an American soft-drink company had rights to that name." Dowlding got his info from THE BEATLES A TO Z. (1980) Whether or not the Beatles were fully acquainted with the soft drink before they began work on Sgt. Pepper is still subject to debate. But bottles of Dr Pepper have been spotted in the Let It Be movie, so they had definitely seen the light by then. Imagine what else might have been if only a few letters hadn't changed . . . 6. Does Dr Pepper contain prune juice? In a word: NO! In addition, Bottlecaps (the "Official Newsletter of the Dr Pepper Museum and Free Enterprise Institute") emphasizes in their Vol. I, 1999, issue: "Prune juice is not and never has been in Dr Pepper. The prune juice rumor is an old story that has been in circulation since the 1930s." 7. Okay, so what's in Dr Pepper? On the label in the US, the ingredients are: Carbonated Water; Imperial Pure Cane Sugar [or "High Fructose Corn Syrup and/or Sugar," if you're not so lucky]; Caramel Color; Phosphoric Acid; Artificial and Natural Flavors; Sodium Benzoate (Preservative); Caffeine. Chris Dunthorne (cjd@tin-god.demon.co.uk) told me on 7/3/98 that the ingredients on the label in the UK are a little different: "Carbonated Water, Sugar, Colour (Caramel E150d), Phosphoric Acid, Flavourings, Preservative (E211), Caffeine." John Neely (drpepper@cadvision.com), a formerly anonymous Canadian, submitted "Ingredients from The Great White North" on 10/27/98: "Carbonated Water, Sugar/Glucose-Fructose, Carmel colour, Artificial and Natural flavors, Phosphoric acid, sodium benzoate, Caffeine, monosodium phosphate, lactic acid, polyethelene glycol." Trace McLean (scarletspider@bigpond.com) also on 10/27/98 posted the ingredients for Australian Dr Pepper "taken straight from the bottle": "Carbonated water, sugar, colour (150), flavours, food acids (338, 270), preservative (211), caffeine." [Just for the hell of it, here's the ingredients for Diet Dr Pepper in the U.S., as posted by Tom Reed (treed@castor.csustan.edu) on 11/23/98: "Carbonated water, caramel color, aspartame, phosphoric acid, artificial and natural flavors, sodium benzoate (preservative), caffeine. Phenylketonurics: contains phenylalanine."] Dr Pepper contains 39.6 milligrams of caffeine in every 12 ounce can, according to the Caffeine FAQ (http://aomt.netmegs.com/coffee/caffaq.html) maintained by Daniel Owen (caffeine@aomt.netmegs.com). This is a little more than Pepsi (37.2mg/12oz), a little less than Coca-Cola (45.6mg/12oz), and nothing compared to coffee, which could contain anywhere between 111 and 300 mg of caffeine in a 12-ounce serving, depending on how it's prepared. The Dr Pepper company had this to say in a pamphlet it published sometime in either the late 1950's or early 1960's: "Its unique flavor results from the blending of pure fruit flavors (gathered from throughout the world) with mystic spices, from far-off Madagascar, and clean, clear distilled sparkling water." You don't suppose one of those spices is vanilla, do you? Max Wolheim (mwolheim@aol.com), who "can't guarantee the accuracy of any of this," posted this interesting article (with a small caveat) on 6/20/99: "Yes, I've heard the "23 fruit flavors" of Dr. Pepper [sic] for years. I can tell you this is nonsense! I can't reveal the source (he'd get fired), but here is a list of some of the real flavoring ingredients: Vanillin (imitation vanilla) Extract of almond denatured rum (no joke) Oil of orange lactic acid (optional; once listed separately from "flavorings") Max goes on to say: "None of this is will be confirmed by the PR people of the company, who reply with the evasive 'Dr. Pepper contains neither rum nor vanilla.' Substitutions are possible, depending on the bottler, so that Dr. Pepper in one part of the country might not taste quite the same as in some others. But denatured rum is universal to the formula." Take it for what it's worth. Brian McElroy (brianm@ductape.net) posted to alt.fan.dr-pepper on 1/19/98 (and emailed me a correction on 6/30/98) about his visit to the Dublin Dr Pepper plant, which I think definitively answers two questions at once: "Just got back today from the Dublin bottling plant and museum. There has been a lot of debate on what flavor Dr Pepper really is, so I asked Mr. Kloster [Bill Kloster], the plant owner, who has worked in that plant for almost 60 years. According to him, Dr Pepper is a mix of 23 different fruit flavors. The original creator wanted to create a drink that tasted like the smell of a soda shop. When you walked into a soda shop in that day, you smelled all the fruit flavors of the different sodas all mixed into one. So he basically took a bunch of flavors and mixed them, and came up with Dr Pepper. He said Dr Pepper does not and has never had prune juice in it." 8. What's the recipe for Hot Dr Pepper? Hot Dr Pepper? Yes, indeed. It's a real drink, and it's been around for quite a while--at least since the early 1960's (even though there's no mention of it at all in the 1965 edition of Cookin' With Dr Pepper--go figure). However, since Dr Pepper--and the soft drink industry in the U.S. as a whole--switched from cane sugar to high fructose corn syrup as a sweetener, many people have complained that Hot Dr Pepper does not taste nearly as good as it did before the switch, so the Dr Pepper company has refrained from promoting the recipe as ardently as it had in the past. Nevertheless, people still drink it hot, with the recommendation that Dr Pepper with cane sugar be used for best results (see question 11 for how to get some cane sugar Dr Pepper for yourself). The recipe itself is quite simple: First, cut a nice, thin, round slice of lemon for yourself and place it in the bottom of a cup--I suppose a coffee mug or teacup works best. Next, heat your Dr Pepper in a saucepan until it looks like it's boiling (even though it'll only be about 180° F, the carbonation will make it look hotter). Then pour your "steaming" hot Dr Pepper into the cup, over the lemon slice. That's it! I haven't tried it yet myself, but people who have swear it's pretty good. (There is an official recipe on the www.drpepper.com web site, but it's not too much different from the one above. Then again, how many different ways can you say "Heat Dr Pepper and pour it over lemon"?) 9. What Dr Pepper imitations exist, and where can you find them? The most famous (or is that infamous?) imitation, Mr. Pibb, is Coca-Cola's unsuccessful effort to drive the good Dr out of the market. According to Advertising Age, Mr. Pibb was not let loose upon the world until 1972 (although "Larry" [granpaw00@centuryinter.net] posted that he remembers seeing the drink in 1971), and Chris Houser on his Pibb page (http://bluWeb.com/pibb/ and http://bluWeb.com/us/chouser/info/pibb/) states the drink was "originally sugar-free." Now, how a sugar-free knock-off could compete with a soda which--in its purest form--is almost synonymous with cane sugar, I have no idea. Apparently, neither did Coca-Cola, since various fructoses and sucroses now come second after carbonated water on Pibb's ingredient list. You can find this beverage in most places in the Southern and Midwestern U.S., and almost nowhere in the Northeastern U.S. Interestingly enough, Advertising Age also reported in their December 1, 1997, issue that Coca-Cola is planning to release a brand new knock-off of Dr Pepper sometime in 1999--probably due in no small part to sluggish sales of Mr. Pibb, which had only a 0.6% share of the US soft drink market in 1996, compared to Dr Pepper's 5.8% share. Originally, I had a table here listing 38 different DP clones, but then I saw a web site with a table listing over 50 clones, including pictures and locations where they were all bought, so I decided to leave well enough alone. Suffice it to say, if all accounts are accurate, there are close to 60 different past and present Dr Pepper imitations out there--and none quite as good as the original, of course. If you want to know more, these sites stand out: Wouldn't you like to be a Pepper too . . . is the largest index of clones and clone sites that I've seen. The leader in the field with a mega-list of imitations and a picture next to each name. http://falcon.cc.ukans.edu/~dschul/drp/dr.html Not Quite What The Doctor Ordered is a comprehensive, well-researched site which has been reorganized and is now more user-friendly than before since it no longer takes forever to load. http://studentweb.tulane.edu/~mpresto/ The Dr Pepper "Clone" Page has a table with links to photos of each "clone." http://library.cmsu.edu/kw/pepper/imapep.htm Kibo's Fake Dr Pepper Roundup has a taste test of several fakes. http://www.kibo.com/kibofood/dr_pepper.html Dr Pepper Clones is a no-frills site maintained by Charlie Smith (bmasmith@stat.ncsu.edu) describing all the Dr Pepper clones he's tasted. http://www.stat.ncsu.edu/~bmasmith/drpepper.html Dr. Beverages Page is a colorful list of the various Pepper-like soda cans collected by Lars Christensen (lars@u.arizona.edu). http://members.tripod.com/lchristensen/drs/index.html (The Tripod site replaces the arizona.edu site.) The Authoritative Doctor Soda Page doesn't quite live up to its title, listing only 20 sodas total (and that's including Dr Pepper and Diet Dr Pepper). But since the author's from MIT, I'll forgive them; people there have more important things to do than track down all the DP clones in existence. http://www.mit.edu/afs/sipb.mit.edu/user/dfm/www/doctorsoda/index.html Generic Dr Pepper Clones is a pleasant short page about the search for clones by a group of friends in North Dakota. http://space.acm.ndsu.nodak.edu/~debilt/docs/docs.html Dr Kenton's Generic Dr Peppers is an ambitious table of 40 clones with some nice close-ups of cans where available. http://www.angelfire.com/nc/drdrinks/ and http://www.senselessknowledge.com/ Dr Pepper Rip-Off Page is an evangelistic clone page, waging war against all "infidels" who dare to doubt the superiority of the original. http://members.tripod.com/skintigh/drpepper/index.html OOO's list of Dr. Pepper Clones which calls itself "officially the original list" of clone sites (a claim which I personally doubt), is perhaps the sparsest site of the bunch. The only site more sparse . . . http://www.polyholiday.com/lists/pepperclones.html . . . is this one: The Dr. is IN!!! which contains the exact same list as the one on polyholiday.com, minus some extraneous links. http://members.aol.com/zumbles/clones.html I'm a Pepper! is a well-intentioned site cataloguing a taste-test of clones; its single glaring flaw being the author's assertion that the "pruney-ness" of DP is what sets it apart from the imitations! (Grrr...) Once the author reads question 6, my opinion of the site may change. Until then, take their opinions with a grain of salt. http://www.archenemy.com/pepper/pepper.html Dr. Pepper Rip Off Reviews [sic] is an interesting attempt at clone comparisons, hindered only by its significant lack of clones: only 9 are listed and only 2 are tasted. Good luck. http://polar.ucdavis.edu/~kitmitto/pepper.html Dr. Schnee Memorial Chapel is a site dedicated--obviously--to *Dr. Schnee* of all things, listing a few other clones in the process. http://thespleenpress.org/schnee/ In addition, a brand new category was added to Yahoo! on 11/12/98 (the same date this FAQ was added to Yahoo!): Home : Society and Culture : Food and Drink : Drinks and Drinking : Dr Pepper : Imitations. And all six "New" sites in this category were--drum roll please--the first six of the 15 sites you see listed above you now (back when there were only six sites to choose from). In other words, this FAQ is now responsible for a new Yahoo! category! And to think I thought I wasn't influencing anyone . . . But, lest you think Yahoo! is the only game in town, another engine named dmoz.org also has a category for DP pretenders: http://dmoz.org/Recreation/Collecting/Food_and_Drink_related/Soda/Dr_Pepper/Imitations/.. Last time I checked, dmoz.org had more sites listed than Yahoo!, but both had less entries than the list above you now. Whether either one will catch up before the other is anyone's guess. 10. What's the difference between Dr Pepper made with Imperial Cane Sugar, and Dr Pepper made with high fructose corn syrup? In the opinion of everyone who's tried it and commented on it here on alt.fan.dr-pepper and to me in person, the cane sugar version tastes better. It's also the sweetener which was originally used to make Dr Pepper in the first place. Personally, I think the taste of the cane sugar product is more well-rounded and less fizzy than the one with high fructose corn syrup. 11. How can I get some cane sugar Dr Pepper? You can either: a) Visit the plant in Dublin, Texas--the oldest Dr Pepper bottling plant in the world and the only plant in the U.S. which is allowed by the Dr Pepper corporation to still manufacture the soda with cane sugar. The Dublin Dr Pepper Bottling Company is located at 221 South Patrick, Dublin, Texas 76446, one block south of the intersection of US377/67 and TX6. The plant is open Monday through Friday, 9am-5pm; Saturday, 10am-5pm; and Sunday, 1-5pm. You can also call them at 1-254-445-3466 for tour information, etc. b) Visit most stores within a 50 mile radius of the plant--which is the territory covered by it. c) Call up Old Doc's Soda Shop at 1-888-398-10-2-4, or 1-254-445-3939 and they can tell you how much it costs to have "The Real Thing" shipped to you. Be forewarned that no matter how you buy it from Dublin, there is a 25 case limit. Any more than that sold to a single person could violate franchise agreements (because you could be "dealing" if you have more than 25 cases in your possession and transport them into another franchise's territory). 12. How can I get some caffeine-free Dr Pepper? Out of all the questions I see both in alt.fan.dr-pepper and in my mailbox, this one is probably the most perplexing. I mean, it's not like people looking for caffeine-free Dr Pepper are looking for anything complicated. Caffeine-free Coke and caffeine-free Pepsi are certainly easy enough to find, so caffeine-free Dr Pepper must be right next to them on the shelf, right? Well, for the most part, no. For example, if you live in New York, like myself, then you won't find any caffeine-free Dr Pepper in the entire state. Does that make any sense? Living in the largest city on the East Coast--the second-largest city in the United States--and not being able to find one caffeine-free can of my favorite soda? No, I can't figure it out either. In fact, here's a list of all the states where you won't find caffeine-free Dr Pepper on sale (courtesy of the Dr Pepper company): Alaska Connecticut Delaware Hawaii Maine Massachusetts Michigan Montana New Hampshire New Jersey New York North Dakota Oregon Rhode Island South Dakota Vermont Wyoming You say your state isn't listed? Your state is not one of the 34% devoid of caffeine-free Dr Pepper? Congratulations--but don't get too confident. According to the operator I spoke with, "even a state that has it could have large areas that don't carry it," such as California, for example, which bottles less caffeine-free DP than West Virginia. Florida, Nevada, and Washington are similar to California in terms of caffeine-free sparsity. But now--thanks to some blind luck and a few toll-free phone calls--I can share with you an easy three-step solution to getting some gold-colored cans of your own: a) First, look around in your supermarket. If you're lucky, a bottle of the stuff will be sitting right on the shelf, and your troubles are over. However, I'm guessing you've probably already done that, otherwise you wouldn't need to know the answer to this question. So . . . b) If you can't find caffeine-free Dr Pepper in any store near you, call the Dr Pepper company toll-free at 1-800-527-7096, press 3 for Customer Service, and press 3 again for the next available operator, and ask the operator where you can find caffeine-free Dr Pepper in your area. If you're lucky, you might be pleasantly surprised and told the number of a bottler who might not be as far away as you thought. Or, if you're not so lucky, you might be told that no one makes caffeine-free Dr Pepper anywhere at all in your entire state. In which case . . . c) Call up Old Doc's Soda Shop (that's right, the very same people who can ship you the Imperial Cane Sugar Dr Pepper in question 11) at 1-888-398-10-2-4, or 1-254-445-3939 and they will gladly ship out some genuine caffeine-free Dr Pepper to you as long as you tell them that it's not available in your area (which I'm guessing it isn't, otherwise why would you go through all the trouble to have it shipped to you from Dublin, Texas?). Bear in mind that there is no purely cane sugar version of caffeine-free Dr Pepper available; even the caffeine-free DP from Old Doc's has high fructose corn syrup in it. But I'm guessing once you have it in your hands you'll be so happy just drinking it that the sweetener issue will be the least of your concerns. And for those of you wondering how it tastes: when it's ice cold, it tastes exactly like regular DP made with high fructose corn syrup, and when it warms up it tastes just a tiny bit weaker than the caffeinated stuff--probably lacking the very "bite" the caffeine provides. But it's certainly worth it if you want to cut back on caffeine without cutting back on the King of Beverages. Now, if I can just get someone to sell the stuff in New York City, then I'll be really happy. 13. Why drink Dr Pepper at 10 o'clock, 2 o'clock, and 4 o'clock? (The www.drpepper.com site credits the book The Legend of Dr Pepper/Seven Up [see question 19] for this info.) "Drink a bite to eat at 10, 2, and 4," was the slogan for an ad campaign for Dr. Pepper in the late 1920's and early 1930's. A study authored by a Dr. Walter H. Eddy in 1927 "found that human energy dropped to its lowest point at 10:30am, at 2:30pm and again at 4:30pm daily." J.B. O'Hara of Dr. Pepper asked Tracy-Locke-Dawson Inc. (an ad agency), to design a campaign around that information. The agency held a contest, and Earle Racey, one of their copywriters, won with his "10-2-4" idea--the idea being that drinking the sugary, caffeinated soda at 10am, 2pm, and 4pm would perk you up and get you through those impending energy drops a half-hour later. The slogan has endured in one form or another ever since. 14. What happened to the period after "Dr" in Dr Pepper? As Max Arbogast explains it on his page ("pepper.doc"): "The change came about in 1950 when Dr Pepper adopted a new slanted block-style font. The small lower case "r" consisted of a small slanted line with a dot at its upper right. To their dismay, they found that the period and the r's dot combined visually to become a colon, thus making it Di:Pepper. The easy way out was to simply drop the period. This also helped move Dr Pepper further away from any medication association." (This also didn't stop soda jerks from calling the drink "M.D." in their jargon--according to Paul Dickson in The Great American Ice Cream Book--but that's neither here nor there.) 15. Who owns Dr Pepper? I heard it was owned by Coke/Pepsi/7-Up/etc.? "Awoodbeach" (awoodbeach@aol.com) put it succinctly when he posted this answer to alt.fan.dr-pepper on 10/24/97: "Dr Pepper is owned by Dr Pepper / Seven Up Inc a subsidiary of the Cadbury PLC trading on the NYSE [as CSG -- Chris F.]. Dr Pepper is distributed throughout the country by a variety of some very dedicated bottlers who without them, the Dr Pepper brand would not be where it is today. Coke, Pepsi, and RC bottlers sell Dr Pepper; it all depends on who owns the franchise in a specific geographic area. The breakdown is about 30% Coke, 40% Pepsi, 20% and some who just sell Dr Pepper......like our friends in Dublin." In December, 1998, Coca-Cola caused a stir by paying Cadbury-Schweppes $1.85 billion for the right to distribute Cadbury-Schweppes sodas (including Dr Pepper) in 120 countries, but the United States was not one of them (neither were France or South Africa). So, in the U.S., Dr Pepper will still be distributed by whoever has the local franchise rights, meaning that there will still be places where Coke doesn't own the franchise and will continue to sell Mr. Pibb (and possibly another brand--see question 9) to compete. And--just so no one gets confused--Cadbury Schweppes still owns Dr Pepper. You'd be surprised how quickly rumors get started from news like this. 16. Is there a Dr Pepper museum? There are two: The Dr Pepper Museum and Free Enterprise Institute 300 South 5th Street Waco, Texas 76701 1-877-DPGIFTS (toll free), 1-254-757-2433 Fax: 1-254-757-2221 www.drpeppermuseum.com and: Old Doc's Soda Shop 105 E. Elm Dublin, Texas 76446 1-888-398-1024 (toll free), 1-254-445-3939 Fax: 1-254-445-4677 www.drpep.com (Even though Old Doc's museum is located right next to the bottling plant, and they share the same phone numbers, their street addresses--or at least their mailing addresses--are slightly different.) 17. Where can I buy Dr Pepper merchandise? The Dr Pepper Museum in Waco has a catalogue section on its web site (http://www.drpeppermuseum.com/catalog/index.html). You can also call the Museum toll-free at 1-877-DPGIFTS (or pay the toll at 1-254-757-2433) and, for $3.00, they will send you a glossy color catalogue and add your name to their mailing list. Old Doc's Soda Shop had a catalogue available at one point, but as of 3/18/99 the Shop was out of them and its staff didn't know when they were going to get more. In the meantime, the Shop still has links to merchandise within its site at drpep.com. And, if you want to take a gamble with online auctions, eBay.com has around 300 different Dr Pepper-related items up for bids every day on its site, so it's certainly worth a look. 18. Where can I find this Dr Pepper collectible? Who can I contact to have this antique Dr Pepper item looked at? The amount of Dr Pepper collectibles in existence (don't forget, that's over 110 years' worth) is even more numerous than the amount of DP clones, so I won't even try to list them all here. You're better off visiting Max Arbogast's site, which has a lot of information about DP collectors and collectibles, and is located at http://erath.net/marbo/. And, as I said in question 17, eBay.com is a web auction site which has about 300 (more or less) different Dr Pepper items up for bids every day--many, if not all of them being collectibles. They're both worth checking out. Also, the 10-2-4 Club is, as they put it, "a national organization of people dedicated to the study of the history and collecting of memorabilia of the Dr Pepper Company." 10-2-4 membership information can currently be found at 3 sites: http://www.drpeppermuseum.com/dpcc.html http://www.drpep.com/clubpage.htm http://www.erath.net/marbo/10-2-4.htm Houston, Texas, has its own chapter of the club (in fact, the only local chapter of the club), named the Houston Peppers. Jan Wright, the chapter President, informed me on 7/4/98 that she can be contacted via email at hpeppers@swbell.net if anyone wants more information about them. The Dr Pepper Museum in Waco also does research on DP collectibles for a fee. Their rate information for research is at http://www.drpeppermuseum.com/dpcoll/research.html. Currently, their posted fee is $15 per hour of research. 19. What books have been written about Dr Pepper? There are at least 3: The Legend of Dr Pepper/Seven-Up, by Jeffrey L. Rodengen (1995, Write Stuff Syndicate); Dr Pepper, King of Beverages, by Harry E. Ellis (1979, Dr Pepper Co.; another edition was printed in 1986); and the Dr Pepper Centennial book, also by Harry Ellis. Of those three, The Legend of Dr Pepper/Seven-Up is the most widely available, and I was able to find it for sale on at least 5 different web sites (if not in person in any physical store near me in New York City--go figure). King of Beverages and the Centennial book are harder to find, in that order. The Dr Pepper Museum in Waco also sells all 3 books as a set on its web site (though, strangely, not in its paper catalogue), as well as separately. The Dr Pepper company has also published a slim volume titled Cooking With Dr Pepper in one form or another every so often since 1965. More specifically, different editions have been published in 1965, 1977, 1983, and 1993, the last one having a combination of recipes for Dr Pepper and for 7Up. The only difference between the 1977 and 1983 editions seems to be typographical, and the 1965 edition has a lot of recipes which didn't survive in future editions (such as "Bean Dip A La Dr Pepper," among others). The 1993 edition lacks the glossy color photos of the previous three, instead relying on a sparse amount of clip-art for illustration. However, the 1993 edition also contains the greatest number of recipes among the four; essentially because a whole extra cookbook of 7Up recipes was added to it. To get a brand new copy for yourself gratis (additional copies $3.50 each), call up the Dr Pepper company at 1-800-527-7096 and press "3" for Consumer Affairs. Faster than you can say "Dallas, Texas," the kind person who answers will swiftly take down your name and address and send you a free booklet just for the asking. You can also write to the following address: Cookbook Editor Dr Pepper/Seven-Up Companies, Inc. 8411 Walnut Hill Lane Dallas, Texas 75231-4372 Past editions of Cooking With Dr Pepper also periodically come up for auction on eBay, but I'll bet you already guessed that. In addition, there is a book titled Travels with Dr. Pepper, by Pepper Worthington (1990, Free Will Baptist Press), which is described as "travel essays." And the Library of Congress lists a rather technical-sounding volume named Consumer perspectives on national and store brands: (1994) "conducted for Food Marketing Institute and Dr Pepper Company by Marketing Spectrum." I get the feeling that last book is a little drier than all the others, but I could be wrong. 20. How can I contact The Dr Pepper Company? The official corporate offices of Dr Pepper can be reached by phone in the U.S. at 1-800-527-7096 (toll-free), and 1-972-673-7000. You can also write to them at: Dr Pepper/Seven Up, Inc. P.O. Box 869077 Plano, Texas 75086-9077 Or: Dr Pepper/Seven Up, Inc. 5301 Legacy Drive Plano, Texas 75024 The editors of Cooking With Dr Pepper can be contacted via the address mentioned in question 19, above. 21. How can I contribute/make suggestions/submit corrections to this FAQ? Post them to alt.fan.dr-pepper or email me at chrisf@pipeline.com with "DPFAQ" in the header someplace. As far as I know, everything here is accurate, but if it turns out something is incorrect, let me know and I'll correct it as soon as possible. Thus endeth the FAQ. Christopher Flaherty chrisf@pipeline.com Free New York http://www.pipeline.com/~chrisf Dr Pepper FAQ http://www.pipeline.com/~chrisf/dpfaq.html Ken Starr Haiku http://www.pipeline.com/~chrisf/haiku.html
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