1) Hot Dr. Pepper was never a “Texas thing”. It were them Yankees up north who came up with it. It reportedly sold quite well at football and outdoor hockey games in the winter, where it was available for those who didn’t care for coffee and/or felt too adult for hot chocolate. Granted it is sold in Texas, but the hot version wasn’t invented here.

2) It actually works just as well whether its original sugar formula or the current corn syrup version. However, I will advise that you use only the regular flavor version, and none of the flavored ones. They don’t turn out quite as good, and for God/Yahweh/Roddenberry’s sake, do *NOT* try this with any of the diet versions!!

2a) On a side note, I’ve a friend who works for the local Coke bottler, who says the suits at Coca-Cola are now claiming internally that the recent research showing corn syrup sodas to be hundreds of times hazardous to human health are nothing more than a sick conspiracy to force soda manufacturers to switch back to using pure cane sugar, and that the FDA and the US Government will use this as a means to force the bottlers to put the real, originial formulas back on the shelves at no price increase to “punish” them for having made the switch in the first place. That, or pay billions in fines. Serves’em right!

3) It has been confirmed by the Dr. Pepper people, the FDA, and several independent researchers, that Dr. Pepper does *NOT* contain one drop of prune juice.

4) As for the “slice of lemon” bit, that was something added to the mix after it was discovered that the heated mix could develope a “scorched” taste to it if either heated too fast, or left too long at a really low, low barely simmer. The lemon juice reportedly neutralizes this through interaction with the other flavorings.

…One other point: that Hot Dr. Pepper is enjoyed and no other sodas appear to have been given the same treatment should come as no surprise. A poll done in the mid-80′s asking soda drinkers which sodas they had the least problems with drinking from a warm, uncooled can showed that over 80% found Dr. Pepper to be be easily imbibed regardless of whether it was hot or cold. Coke came in second with about 15%, although many complained about their teeth having a rather “gritty, chalkboard-on-nails” feel to them.

i’ve done plenty of ginger ales this way, my favorite being Kentucky’s Ale 8-1, which when warm has a more pronounced ginger ‘burn’ you’d get from something like a Jamaican style ginger beer rather than your standard ales.

-T

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qq9hNTUbtiE

I also thought it was a Texas only thing, till I read all the comments.

You can order the “sugar cane” Dr. Pepper formula off the web here: http://www.retrosoda.com/flavor-dr–pepper.html

if you cannot make it to the TX bottling plant.

While you are ordering your retro Dr. Pepper, you might as well do the whole “when I was a kid” thing and order retro candy to go with it, if you are from Longview, Texas, some peanut patties ought to do the trick:

http://www.hometownfavorites.com/products.asp?dept=1050&number=HFCA905&pagenumber=1

Coming from a cold, damp island such as Great Britain, we have similar traditions with drinks that are more related to summer days: hot Ribena (blackcurrant) is surprisingly tasty, as is hot Vimto, a north-western delicacy that is nominally grape based.

Heck…I’m just happy that I can get my Peppa fix now that they’ve started selling it here in of all places, Village Vanguard, a chain of stationary & accessory stores.

I’m not sure why my father was watching American Bandstand. His tastes definitely ran more toward country music, and I wasn’t old enough to care about listening to top 40 at the time. Maybe it was just so he could see the Dr Pepper commercials.

http://www.lifeinslomo.com

It’s a nice tickling sensation that I’m sure has no real medical value, plus it smells wonderful, like someone melted candy in your mug.

For genuine hypothermia, the real deal (recommended by EMTs) is hot Jello solution: a hit of warmth, sugar, and protein.

Om (23), I’d love to see soda bottlers forced to go back to cane sugar — corn syrup may not literally be hundreds of times worse for you, but it’s not what I’d call a metabolically benign substance. Odds that that’s actually going to happen: zero, unless Archer Daniels Midland suddenly stops making campaign contributions.

It’s a pity. Soda made with cane sugar tastes much better. We used to get the occasional bottle of imported sugar-sweetened Mexican Pepsi. The first gulp of it was an instant five seconds’ worth of time travel to my childhood.

Those used to get me into a lot of trouble…

Since that part of the movie was set in a bomb shelter, I don’t know if they had lemons available…

I’ll have to try it. Especially if it’s recommended by a genuine snowman.

It was pretty good, kind of like hot, sweet tea.