What Suits Your Sweet Tooth?

Howdy there, Peppers!

This week a new exhibit opened up here at the Dr Pepper Museum. It's pretty SWEET if we do say so ourselves!

Did you know that the sweetener in the little pink packets is also in your toothpaste? or that Splenda is made from sugar?

"The Sweetest Thing" reveals the facts on six sweeteners: aspartame (NutraSweet), sucralose (Splenda), saccharin (Sweet 'n Low), rebiana (Truvia), pure cane sugar, and high fructose corn syrup.

Head on down and get ready to learn some sweet surprises about products you may use everyday!

Mad About Mad Men

As some of you may have heard through the Twitterverse we sent twelve 1960s glass bottles to the set of the AMC smash hit show Mad Men to be featured alongside leading man John Hamm in an upcoming episode. Well, the episode aired last week and boy were those Dr Pepper bottles front and center! I think the main star in that sense was the vending machine, which, contrary to popular belief did not come from us. In an interesting twist, what one can assume was meant to be just another prop in the midst of some serious main plot action has actually garnered some buzz over the past week. People have come out of the woodwork to argue that Dr Pepper was not available in the area of Manhattan where the scene would have taken place at that time. One of those people is Stuart Elliott, Media and Advertising writer for the New York Times, who was actually remembers Manhattan from that time period and has challenged Dr Pepper, and subsequently the Museum, to prove that it was available. That was certainly an interesting couple of days! We were able to prove that indeed, it was entirely possible that Dr Pepper could have been available at that time, and for the sake of continuity here is the quote from Greg Artkop, Director of Corporate Communication for the Dr Pepper Snapple Group from the article Mr. Elliott wrote:

"As for Dr Pepper’s presence in New York City in 1963, “it was distributed by independent bottlers in the area,” he added, and according to information in the archives, the top bottlers in New York included two located in the boroughs of the Bronx and Brooklyn."

The bottom line is, OUR STUFF WAS IN FREAKING MAD MEN. Here is the link to the article by Mr. Elliott:
On TV, a ‘Mad’ Dr

Here are some stills and a link to the recap of the episode entitled Guy Walks Into An Advertising Agency

Recap











And here is a pic of the brothers and sisters of the ones that were sent. These were not in good enough condition to go, but it gives you an idea of what the bottles look like up close!

Dr Pepper Museum on KWTX News Ten This Morning!

Bright and early this morning Mary Beth, our Collections Manager, did two live interviews for KWTX News Ten This Morning. The first one is about the Museum, and the second is about the paranormal investigations that were done by McLennan County Paranormal Investigations. Check them out!

Part 1

Part 2

Dog Days was a HIT!

THANK YOU to everyone who came to our Dog Days of Summer free day event this past Saturday! We had almost 1500 people attend which is CRAZINESS and we were so happy you were all there! We had many many fabulous locals as well as visitors from far away lands like Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Missouri, and Utah. Collectively we went through almost 1200 donuts compliments of Shipley Do-Nut and I think almost everyone who came through got to try our crazy Dr Pepper flavor combinations.

We are SO grateful for all the support, and we hope this is just the first of many fun events we can offer in the future. If you have photos of you and your family at the event and want to share them with us please post them to our Flickr group DPM Dog Days.

Here are some pics of the fun times that were had by all!

The Moon Pie Eating Contest Champion in the making!

Bubble Gum Blowing Competition!

Donut Walk!

Go Fish!

Bubble Blowing Contest!

Soda Scoop Opens!

This just in! The Dr Pepper Museum presents the exhibit you have all been waiting for!
Soda Scoop answers all the burning questions people have about the secrets behind
some of their favorite soft drinks. Presented tabloid-style, the colors are vivid and the
information is juicy! What is behind the names of drinks like Dr Pepper, 7UP, and A&W?
Was there really cocaine in Coca-Cola? Which celebrities swear by Dr Pepper? All of these
questions and more are answered in Soda Scoop opening August 15th!

Yay! Newest Twitpic Photo Op!!

The Taste-off

Today we had our 9th Flavored Dr Pepper Taste test. We tested several of the previous winning flavors against each other to see how they fared. These flavors were Vanilla, Mango, Peppermint and Cinnamon. Which one do you think won? We had a clear winner as you will see.

We had a total of 64 people who participated today. Along with our Texas visitors, we also had visitors from Louisiana, Oklahoma, Nebraska, Missouri, Illinois and Arkansas.

42% of our participants were under 20 years of age and the rest were 21 and older.

52% of our participants chose Cinnamon Dr Pepper as their favorite. Over a quarter of our participants chose Mango Dr Pepper as their favorite and 22% chose Vanilla. Only 7% preferred Peppermint.

For those flavors chosen as the participants least favorite flavors, 39% did not like Peppermint, 36% did not like Mango, and Cinnamon and Vanilla both got 11% of votes of least favorite flavor today.

While 41% said they liked the original Dr Pepper over todays flavors, 23% said they liked Cinnamon Dr Pepper more then the regular Dr Pepper, 12.5% said they liked Vanilla Dr Pepper more than regular, another 12.5% said they liked Mango Dr Pepper more and 9.3% said they liked Peppermint.

Over half of today's visitors said they maybe would buy the flavored versions if offered, 39% said definitely they would buy them and 7.8% they definitely would not buy them.

56.25% would buy a Cinnamon Dr Pepper; 27% said they would buy a Vanilla Dr Pepper and another 27% would buy a Mango Dr Pepper while only 9.3% would buy a Peppermint Dr Pepper.

Our last taste test will be held during the Dog Days festivities held at the museum on August 22. Stay tuned for more details about this exciting event!!

8th Flavored Dr Pepper Taste Test!

Today we had our 8th flavored Dr Pepper Taste Test! 62 of our visitors put their tastbuds to work and told us what they thought of Amaretto, Cinnamon, Cranberry and Coconut Dr Pepper. Amaretto was bumped down to 3rd place this week and Cinnamon and Coconut took the lead.

Along with our Texas visitors, we also enjoyed talking to folks from New Jersey and both North and South Carolina!

Most of our taste testers today were under 20, but we had a fair repesentation of different age groups including 7 senior citizens.

Only one vote separated first and second place! Congrats to Cinnamon and better luck next time for Coconut. Amaretto came close behind in 3rd place and only 6 testers reported that they liked Cranberry the best.

Most of our visitors today didn't care for Cranberry, but suprisingly Coconut and Cinnimon, our winners, took 2nd and 3rd in the "Least Favorite" category.

Our testers were torn between Cinnamon and Coconut as the flavor they liked more than the original Dr Pepper. Never fear, 13 die hard Peppers told us that nothing beats original DP!

Most of our visitors think they would buy our concotions in the store. Which ones? Cinnamon, Coconut and Amaretto, of course!

Next week the winners from previous weeks will be battling each other head to head to decide the Dr Pepper Museum ULTIMATE FLAVOR CHAMPION! Drop by the second floor and join the fun!