alt.fan.dr-pepper FAQ v. 1.03
Christopher Flaherty
Posting-Frequency: trimonthly (more or less)
Last-modified: 1998/09/27
Version: 1.03
URL: http://www.pipeline.com/~chrisf/dpfaq.html
The Highly Unofficial alt.fan.dr-pepper FAQ
compiled by Christopher Flaherty from various sources
version 1.03 September 27, 1998
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. Does Dr Pepper contain prune juice?
6. Okay, so what's in Dr Pepper?
7. Who started the prune juice rumor?
8. What Dr Pepper imitations exist, and where can you find them?
9. What's the difference between Dr Pepper made with Imperial
Cane Sugar, and Dr Pepper made with high fructose corn syrup?
10. How can I get some cane sugar Dr Pepper?
11. Why drink Dr Pepper at 10 o'clock, 2 o'clock, and 4 o'clock?
12. What happened to the period after "Dr" in Dr Pepper?
13. Who owns Dr Pepper? I heard it was owned by
Coke/Pepsi/7-Up/etc.?
14. Is there a Dr Pepper museum?
15. Where can I buy Dr Pepper merchandise?
16. Where can I find this Dr Pepper collectible? Who can I
contact to have this antique Dr Pepper item looked at?
17. What books have been written about Dr Pepper?
18. How can I contact The Dr Pepper Company?
19. 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).
It can also be found on the World Wide Web at
http://www.pipeline.com/~chrisf/dpfaq.html.
c. What are the sources for this FAQ?
This particular FAQ was first put together in its present form by
Christopher Flaherty (chr...@pipeline.com). A smaller FAQ was
previously compiled by Max Arbogast (ma...@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 6. 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 16) and ingredients in UK Dr Pepper (question 6).
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 7 to address the "love story" rumor.
9/27/98 -- Version 1.03: Added two more sites to question 8.
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. Let me know if you like it!
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. 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.
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. Does Dr Pepper contain prune juice?
In a word: NO!
6. 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 (c...@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."
Brian McElroy (bri...@airmail.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."
7. Who started the prune juice rumor?
Wouldn't we all like to know? Much like the "love story" rumor in
question 3, the prune juice rumor is both false and persistent. The
Urban Legends web page (www.urbanlegends.com) didn't have any leads,
so I'm at a loss. Anyone? Bueller?
8. 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 Chris Houser's Pibb page
(http://www.tayloru.edu/~chouser/info/pibb/), Mr. Pibb was not let
loose upon the world until September, 1974, and was "originally
sugar-free." Now, how a sugar-free knockoff 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 U.S., and almost nowhere in the Northern U.S.
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:
The Dr Pepper "Clone" Page has a table with links to photos of each
"clone."
http://library.cmsu.edu/kw/pepper/imapep.htm
Impostors, Pretenders, and Frauds has a mega-list of imitations with a
picture next to each name.
http://falcon.cc.ukans.edu/~dschul/drp/dr.html
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
(bmas...@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 (la...@u.arizona.edu).
http://www.u.arizona.edu/~lars/drs/index.html
9. 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.
10. 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 Plant is 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.
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.
11. 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 17] 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.
12. 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."
13. Who owns Dr Pepper? I heard it was owned by
Coke/Pepsi/7-Up/etc.?
"Awoodbeach" (awood...@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 CadbyS -- 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."
14. Is there a Dr Pepper museum?
There are two. One is the Dr Pepper Museum and Free Enterprise
Institute in Waco, Texas (www.drpeppermuseum.com), located at 300
South 5th Street. The other is part of Old Doc's Soda Shop
(www.drpep.com) at 221 South Patrick in Dublin, Texas.
15. 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). Old Doc's Soda
Shop also has a catalogue available, and has links to merchandise
within its site.
16. 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/.
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 hpep...@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.
17. 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. 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, as well
as separately.
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 the previous 4, but I could be wrong.
18. How can I contact The Dr Pepper Company?
The official corporate offices of Dr Pepper can be reached by phone at
1-800-527-7096. You can also write to them at: Dr Pepper/Seven Up,
Inc. P.O. Box 869077, Plano, TX 75086-9077.
19. How can I contribute/make suggestions/submit corrections to
this FAQ?
Post them to alt.fan.dr-pepper or email me at chr...@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
chr...@pipeline.com
http://www.pipeline.com/~chrisf
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