Dublin Dr Pepper

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Dublin Dr Pepper is the popular name for a variation of Dr Pepper which is made using cane sugar as the sweetener, as opposed to high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) which is the most commonly used sweetener.

During the late 1970s and early 1980s, almost all soft drink bottlers switched from cane sugar to HFCS because of a rise in the price of sugar. However, the owner of Dublin Dr Pepper Bottling Company of Dublin, Texas refused to switch sweeteners, and it remains one of few bottlers in the United States to continue using cane sugar year round. Though the Dublin plant is not the only Dr Pepper bottler to use cane sugar vs. HFCS as the sweetener (three other bottlers, two of which are also based in Texas, are confirmed to use cane sugar – Temple Bottling Company of Temple, Texas, Ab-Tex Bottling of Abilene, Texas and West Jefferson Dr Pepper of West Jefferson, North Carolina), the Dublin plant was the most well-known not to make the change, and thus the cane sugar-based Dr Pepper variant became popularly known as "Dublin" Dr Pepper (notwithstanding that Temple Bottling is actually the largest producer of cane-sugar based Dr Pepper).

Franchise agreements limit the Dublin plant's distribution range to a 44-mile radius of Dublin, an area encompassing Stephenville, Tolar, Comanche and Hico. This restriction has never been lifted (though unconfirmed reports state otherwise); thus, the only way to purchase Dublin Dr Pepper is by coming to the Dublin area, ordering it online, or finding a store outside the area which sells "bootleg" Dublin Dr Pepper (product purchased in the area then taken outside the area; the plant in Dublin doesn't keep a record of who might sell it across Texas and beyond).

As part of their effort to reduce or eliminate HFCS from their menu, Dublin Dr. Pepper was briefly available as a fountain soft drink at Jason's Deli from approximately November-December 2007 through April 2008, but the chain was forced to stop offering it due to a contract dispute between the Coca-Cola company, which normally supplies Jason's fountain syrups, and with Cadbury-Schweppes, who currently owns the Dr. Pepper brand.

The Dublin plant is the nation's oldest Dr Pepper bottler, producing Dr Pepper continuously since 1891, six years after the soft drink's debut in Waco.^[1] As the soft drink's first independently owned bottler, owner Sam Houston Prim was given first choice of franchises when franchising of Dr Pepper started in 1925 and could have claimed the entire state as a franchise, but chose instead to formalize his modest informal territory, which has remained unchanged.^[2]

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• The Dublin Dr Pepper Bottling Company
• Old Doc's Soda Shop

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