wouldn't you like to be a pepper too?

The first stop my sister and brother-in-law made after leaving their home in Waco, Texas, on their two week vacation, was the small town of Dublin, Texas. While there, they stopped at a corner soda shop and had themselves a Dr. Pepper float. When you live in Texas you don't drink root beer floats, you drink Dr. Pepper floats. Because, well...you are from Texas.

Waco is actually where Dr. Pepper was invented. It was a wild frontier town nicknamed Six Shooter Junction (sure, I did my research). A pharmacist working at a corner drug store noticed customers loved the smell of the soda fountain with it's many fruit, spice and berry aromas. So, he decided to invent a drink that tasted the way the soda fountain smelled. He named it Dr. Pepper, after the father of a girl he loved back in his home state of Virginia. A Texas business man was visiting Waco, tasted the drink and knew he wanted it in his bottling plant in Dublin. So, in 1891 he brought Dr. Pepper to his plant in Dublin, Texas.

My sister and brother-in-law brought us a case of these.

Cute little bottles of Dr. Pepper. The interesting thing about this bottling plant is that it is the only one that still sweetens the Dr. Pepper the original way, with pure cane sugar rather than artificial sweeteners. See, they even have that stamped right on the bottle.

And, another little tid-bit of interesting info...see the 10, 2 and 4 at the bottom? Did you know that researchers had discovered that our bodies naturally have a slump at 10:30, 2:30 and 4:30? I think I have felt that slump before. Anyway, the advertising agency at Dr. Pepper came up with a theme based on that theory. You need to have a little pick-me-up during the day to help with those slumps. Their answer to that?

"Drink a bite to eat at 10, 2 & 4".

Although never having lived in Texas, Chuck actually enjoys having a cold Dr. Pepper on occasion. Well, we usually have some cans in the fridge most of the time. Because we did have a can or two that day and we like a little excitement in our lives, we decided to have a little taste test. And, because it was probably somewhere close to 10, 2 or 4...we figured we needed to "drink a little bite to eat" anyway. So, here it is. We wanted to see if the Dr. Pepper in the bottle, sweetened with pure cane sugar, was better than that in the can with artificial sweetener. Or at least, could we tell a difference?

The Dr. Pepper Challenge: Bottle vs. Can
It was a blind test. The guys didn't know which was which. Florescent yellow cup A was the bottled drink from Dublin, Texas. As expert Dr. Pepper drinkers, they were certain they could tell the difference.
Florescent cup B was the can drink from...well Safeway of course. hee hee.
A & B. They looked similar. One seemed to have larger bubbles (not shown here) and one had a little stronger scent. Hmmm....the fruit, spice and berry aroma of the original soda fountain perhaps?
Expert number one. Wearing his not so florescent, but non-the-less bright yellow shirt. Seriously sniffing, swirling and sipping the sweet drink. Seriously?
Expert number two. Not so seriously sniffing, swirling and sipping the sweet drink. Ok...get serious.
It was noted that one was a little sweeter, more syrupy and more robust in flavor. One was a little more fizzy. I told you they were experts. In the end, they chose cup A as the Dublin Dr. Pepper and cup B as the Safeway can. I think they decided that the taste winner was...
Adding ice cream to the Dublin Dr. does make a pretty tasty Dublin Dr. Pepper float. I had to break out the root beer for our next float pick-me-up though, because I am a root beer float kind of girl.

The problem with floats... whether it is 10, 2 or 4, they are so refreshing and rather addicting (if you are partial to them) that you really are "drinking a bite to eat".

And frankly...my midsection could do without an extra bite to eat.