Dr Pepper is now as popular as Pepsi. It's still shrouded in mystery

[LorenDB]

https://archive.ph/SW3LY

[rootusrootus]

I love Dr Pepper, it is definitely my favorite pop. To control the damage to my waistline, I drink the Zero Sugar variant. It is surprisingly close to the regular stuff. Like, close enough that I once inadvertently picked up a pack of regular Dr Pepper when I meant to get Zero, and I did not notice until I was a few bottles into it that I was drinking regular Dr Pepper.

I still love the real sugar kind best, like Dublin Dr Pepper. Just slightly more complex flavor, a bit fruitier. I'm still miffed that Snapple cracked down on them selling it direct to consumers.

[thebruce87m]

I always associate the word “pop” with America. It has at least two uses in the US ( fizzy drink / father ) that don’t exist in the UK.

[fiendishdrboo]

I've grown fond of the 'wild cherry' zero sugar variant- these are almost always sold out at my local grocery stores.

[office_drone]

If you, like me, are wondering "has anyone just run it through a mass spectrometer to see what the ingredients are?" the answer is yes, they have.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIbDP0TF_70

[vizzier]

I'll follow up with John Green's blind tasting. Which is just one of my favourite videos related to Dr Pepper.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rcOM3H06KI4

[jcranmer]

The thing about trying to work out food ingredients via analytical chemistry is that it largely boils down to "lots of compounds in ppm, ppb, and ppt quantities" which if you're missing one of them causes the taste to go off. So it will tell you lots of things, but it won't really do anything to clarify what "natural flavors" are in the ingredient list.

[peppertree]

The secret ingredient is benzoic acid.

[baerrie]

Yeah, cherry vanilla soda is definitely always what I thought it tasted like.

[ks2048]

The article says it's owned by "Keurig Dr Pepper" and according to wikipedia, it's manufacturer in some countries is Coca-Cola and in other countries is PepsiCo.

[chrisco255]

I think Coke and Pepsi sometimes distribute it depending on location, but don't produce it.

[XajniN]

In Europe it’s PepsiCo, and it tastes awful compared to the US version.

[unkoman]

Glenn and friends cooking had a fun deep dive into creating Dr Pepper, multiple videos, part 1 here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sG499GYHdgk

[LorenDB]

Dr. Pepper forever! Several years ago I started drinking Dr. Pepper with Cream Soda[0]; it's really good! The strawberry version is also pretty good IMO.

Pepsi has this weird taste to me, so I'm not shocked if it's falling out of favor somewhat. Of course, that's all subjective, and I'm sure some people can't stand Dr. Pepper but love Pepsi.

[0]: https://www.drpepper.com/s/products/dr-pepper-cream-soda-MCX...

[waihtis]

Problem with Pepsi is you cant get one without sweetener anymore. I havent bought a single Pepsi since they made that giant blunder. Only diet and a sugar+sweetener mix which tastes abhorrent

[pimlottc]

I think you forgot the link?

[Someone1234]

Aside, but if you're drinking Diet Dr Pepper: give the Walmart clone a shot ("Diet Dr Thunder"). It has stronger caramel notes and may be a better drink overall.

Big claim for an "own brand" clone but in this rare case it may exceed the drink it is copying for less money. For context, I don't consider Pibb Xtra to be better than full sugar Dr Pepper.

[tombert]

Second Diet Dr. Thunder. It's surprisingly pretty decent, and ridiculously cheap.

I don't drink caffeine anymore, so I haven't had any for about a year, but it was something I would always order like a dozen 2-liter bottles of whenever I did Walmart Instacart (NYC doesn't have Walmarts so I can't get them in person).

[afunk]

its pretty crazy because when dr pepper says 23 flavors those are only the 23 we have discovered so far. i've been hearing of research that at least 3 new flavors have been found in the last couple years but the papers are still in peer review.

[csa]

> but the papers are still in peer review

Probably p-hacking with results that can’t be replicated.

/s

Apologies… cynical former researcher… I had to.

[random42_]

I don’t drink soda anymore, but when I did, it was mostly Coca-Cola. After moving to the US, I decided to try Dr. Pepper. Couldn’t get past the first sip, because this thing tastes like cough medicine (the bad kind). I know taste is very subjective and individual, but it puzzles me how people can drink—and like—this thing.

[BriggyDwiggs42]

My grandma really liked it when i was little, so when I’d go to her house and have it sometimes. Probably just having it in early childhood like for most things.

[ComputerGuru]

Dr Pepper is the only one that has great diet/zero-sugar variants that appeal to (a good number of) the people that like the original sugar-full drink. While there are people who swear by Diet Coke and Pepsi offerings, not even they will say that they are a close match to the real thing (although there are of course oblivious exceptions).

[tombert]

I've grown to really prefer the taste of the diet versions of soda, but I will agree that Diet Coke is an entirely different thing than Coca-Cola.

The Dr. Pepper Zero Sugar really does a pretty decent job approximating regular Dr. Pepper, though I can still taste the artificial sweetener in it. It doesn't bother me, I like the fake sugar, but I suspect that the taste might bother some people.

[zamadatix]

I don't know what it is with low sugar sodas of the Keurig Dr Pepper company lineage but 7up zero is also extremely good for a zero sugar variant, Diet Sunkist kicks the hell out of even regular Fanta, and A&W Zero Sugar is probably the better of the popular root beer options as well.

Now if only there were a better Mountain Dew alternative :).

[causi]

Not surprised it's doing well. I and multiple other people I know had our sense of taste damaged by Covid such that Dr. Pepper was the only soda that retained something like its former taste, others such as Coke gaining a bitter, harshly chemical edge.

[hindsightbias]

Sell outs. Even quashed the last real Dr. Pepper: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dublin_Dr_Pepper

[itronitron]

All my homies hate Snapple Group. Typical and lame that they missed the opportunity for a niche win-win agreement.

[vundercind]

Damn. I was just thinking the other day about gifting myself a couple dozen bottles of my favorite sodas around Christmas each year to supply my annual soda intake with only good (to me, anyway) stuff, and that would have been four to six of the bottles.

Normal Dr Pepper is something I’ll drink, but certainly doesn’t make that exclusive cut. More room for stuff from Reading, I guess.

[bloopernova]

My big drink "idea".

Take your preferred drinking vessel.

Fill it 2/3rds full with orange juice. Adjust initial amount to taste.

Open a can of LaCroix. Plain, grapefruit, or tangerine. The flavour is mild.

Fill up the rest of the drinking vessel with LaCroix.

Enjoy your drink. Add more LaCroix as you drink, watering down the orange juice. Perfect for when I get home after walking my dog for an hour in summer. It doesn't feel as cloying as soda, I can't stand Coke anymore and Dr Pepper is heading the same way.

[ipsum2]

I love how random this comment is. It's like if you gave chatgpt the headline of the article, and set the temperature to maximum.

[tombert]

If we're doing custom soda recipes...

I "homebrew" my own soda for my kegs nowadays because it's really hard to find caffeine-free syrup that isn't absurdly expensive.

I do a 5 gallon keg (about 19 liters). I purchased some flavor emulsions from Bakto Flavors (https://www.baktoflavors.com/). Specifically I have the cola, key lime, and cherry emulsion.

I do the following mix:

9 tsp of the cola emulsion

6 tsp of the cherry emulsion

1 tsp of salt

6tsp of the key lime

8 grams of anhydrous citric acid (food grade)

10 grams of pure aspartame

Mix everything except the aspartame into a 5 gallon keg thoroughly with 5 gallons of water.

The aspartame likes to clump up and be really irritating, so I usually do a little slurry in a spot glass with some water and crushing it with a spoon. You'll probably still have some clumps but try and get them as small as possible. Pour that into the 5 gallon mix.

5 gallons of water is pretty heavy, but if you can shake it around a bit more to give it a bit more mixing.

Plug your keg into a CO2 tank at 19 PSI and let it carbonate for two days and enjoy. It tastes a bit more fruity than Cola, but it's pretty good and ends up working out to about $1.10 per gallon last time I computed it. Obviously you can adjust the flavors to anything you want, some people prefer sucralose over aspartame, and if you do caffeine then obviously add that in there as well (though getting pure caffeine is actually kind of hard to come by nowadays).

[bogota]

O_O ..

[atleastoptimal]

There are 23 flavors THAT WE KNOW OF

[giantg2]

I like trying and hearing about some of the smaller or older producers. Some have interesting products or interesting stories. Squirt (also Dr Pepper brand), Moxie, Frozen Run Birch Beer, etc.

[pentagrama]

> Dr Pepper is now as popular as Pepsi [on US][1]

[1] > had joined Pepsi to become the nation’s second-best-selling soda.

Also, to me Popular != Best selling.

[flurdy]

Love my Dr Pepper but thinking how ubiquitous Pepsi Max is, I don't think that market share is remotely the same in other markets

[lr4444lr]

I am amazed that despite the confluence of mainstream public health and influencers on the evils of excess sugar consumption that people still drink so much soda.

[chickenpotpie]

I'm not, alcohol kills 200,000 Americans every year.