| Dublin Dr. Pepper and Austin |
|
|
|
| Written by Dave Thorup | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Sunday, 08 July 2007 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
This post is for the real Dr. Pepper fans. One of the things I've come to love here in Austin is Dublin Dr. Pepper. For those that don't know, Dublin Dr. Pepper is manufactured in Dublin, Texas at the first and oldest Dr. Pepper bottler and uses the original Dr. Pepper recipe. Now, I know what you're thinking if they use the original recipe, then what does everyone else use? Well, the original Dr. Pepper recipe, and the same likely holds true for most soft drinks, uses cane sugar as the sweetener rather than high fructose corn syrup (HFCS). Pretty much all soft drink manufacturers switched from using cane sugar to HFCS in the 70s when the price of cane sugar rose above that of HFCS. This is likely because it's much easier to grow corn here in the US than it is to grow sugar cane.
Anyway, when everyone else else switched to HFCS, the Dublin Dr. Pepper plant decided to continue using Imperial Cane Sugar as they had always done to preserve the original Dr. Pepper recipe. When I found out about this I became intrigued and decided to find some to try it for myself. Finding Dublin Dr. Pepper is not an easy task. The franchise area covered by the Dublin Dr. Pepper plant is not very large, only about a 44 mile radius. And with Dublin, TX about 140 miles from Austin that leaves quite the drive. Fortunately though there are a few places in Austin (and apparently most of Texas now) where you can at least buy Dublin Dr. Pepper, even if it isn't on the cheap.
Read on for my quest in tracking down a good source of cheap Dublin Dr. Pepper near Austin...
The first place where I found Dublin Dr. Pepper here
in Austin was at Rudy's Bar-B-Q. The problem with buying it at Rudy's
though is that they sell it individually for $1.65 per 8 oz. bottle.
Yes, Dublin Dr. Pepper comes in 8 oz. glass bottles. So a 6 pack will
run you about $10 - not very cheap. But if you're interested in trying
out some Dubin, then it shouldn't be too difficult to find a Rudy's
nearby.
After a bit of digging on the Internet and from the
suggestions of some co-workers I found that Central Market also carries
Dublin Dr. Pepper. At Central Market the price is a bit better at
$6.99 for a six-pack of 8 oz. bottles, but that's still $1.17 per
bottle. I bought myself a couple of six packs there but now I was
determined to find a better and more price-efficient supply.
From visiting the Dublin Dr. Pepper website I knew that you could also
get Dublin Dr. Pepper in 12 oz. cans because you can actually buy
24-packs directly from them online. The price is $10 for a 24 pack,
which isn't too bad, but there's a $5 packing charge plus about $11 in
shipping bringing the total to about $26 or $1.08 per 12 oz. can.
That's a bit better than the 8 oz. glass bottles, especially since you
get 4 more ounces, but still a bit pricey for Dr. Pepper.
After a visit to Wikipedia I found that the Dublin
Dr. Pepper plant is not the only one to produce Dr. Pepper with cane
sugar. There are three other bottlers that use sugar and one of them
is located in Temple, TX - the Temple Bottling Company. In fact,
according to Wikipedia the canned Dublin Dr. Pepper that you can buy
online is actually produced by the Temple Bottling Company. Temple is
only about 60 miles from Austin so driving up there isn't a very long
drive. But might there be something closer?
According to the Temple Bottling Company's website
they serve the following counties in Texas: Bell, Brazos, Burleson,
Coryell, Falls, Grimes, and Milam. Bell County (as far as I could
tell) is the closest to Austin and easily accessible by following I-35
north. Prairie Dell is the first town that you'll come to in Bell
County but there's really not much there as it's a very small town.
The next town that you'll come to is Salado which I had hoped would be
big enough to find some canned Dublin. I was able to find a small
grocery store there but they only carried the 8 oz. glass bottles. The
price here though was only $3.99 for a six pack, $0.67 a bottle which
was considerably better than anywhere else I had found. Now I knew I
was on the right trail. Not finding any canned Dublin in Salado I kept
heading north.
The next town that I came to was Belton, TX, about 6
miles north of Salado. Belton is a much bigger town and really the
last candidate before having to go all the way to Temple. Following a
tip from one of my co-workers that you could find canned Dublin at
H-E-B Food stores I checked in at the H-E-B in Belton. And sure enough
there it was, in all its glory - canned Dublin Dr. Pepper. It's
labeled as 10-2-4 Dr. Pepper, but it's got the Imperial Cane Sugar logo
clearly on the front of the cans. And the best thing is that it's only
$2.49 for a six pack, that's only $0.42 a can, the best deal yet.
With my treasure found I stocked up. I took all 9
six packs they had on the shelves and asked if they had any more in the
back. They did, but only 4 more six packs for 13 total - 78 cans of
goodness. My mission was complete.
So as far as I can tell, the closest place to Austin
to get canned Dublin Dr. Pepper is in Belton, TX, about 54 miles to the
north. If anyone knows of some place closer then I'd love to know. Is
there anywhere in Salado that caries it? Anything further south?
Please leave me some comments.
So now I'm sure some of you are thinking, is it worth
it? To know that for sure you'll really need to try some Dublin Dr.
Pepper yourself. As for me, yes, it definitely is worth it.
References:
525 N Main St.
Belton, TX 76513
Related Items: Add as favourites (112) |  Quote this article on your site | Views: 2583
Write Comment
Powered by AkoComment Tweaked Special Edition v.1.4.3 |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Last Updated ( Monday, 09 July 2007 ) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
