Category: 23: Dr. Pepper Imposters
By Jaimenacho
Gentlemen, Meet Dr. Tremor….he sounds imposing, but really, he’s not so bad. The initial taste would lead you to believe he may be more intense than his Pepper counterpart…maybe, even leave you with an flavor aftershock or two…sadly, while he does have a pleasant aftertaste….he is only a 4.5 on the taste richter scale…
While Raley’s is known for having high quality groceries…they’ve clearly kept it real and not overdone themselves on their imposter drinks…preferring to keep it bland, and unmemorable…but cheap.
By Jaimenacho
Last night I made a late night run to the .99-cent store to get snakcs for a movie I was watching with my wife. The .99-cent store, while not my favorite place to go on any circumstance is a great place to gather up snack items on the cheap.
Any venture into the heart of the .99-cent store is one that is best done with speed in mind. The longer you spend roaming its aisles, the greater the chance you will see something that will hurt you mentally. I go in there with tunnel vision- Find what I need, grab it, pay for it, leave.
I made the first grab quickly, successfully- popcorn. The second grab was a little more challenging as the ‘Big Cherry’ bars were hidden under some other candy, but I grabbed those as well. My third mission was to grab something to drink…although, if it took too long, I’d just assume get out and have water at home. I scurried down the beverage aisle, and then my eyes saw it. In retrospect, how could I miss it…it’s GI-NORMOUS. It’s funny how certain things catch your eye, and then trigger memories. For the most part I have forgotten about the Dr. Imposter mission..but as soon as I see one, it floods back instantly.
When I saw Dr. Stripes sitting on the shelf my first thought was. “I’m buying that.” Then My second thought was, “Has anyone reported on this yet? Is this what Eduardo got?” (Thankfully it wasn’t) I grabbed the bottle, and went to get in line. I noticed rather quickly, Dr. Stripes is no pansy. He’s every bit of 3-liters. In fact, the W.T. behind me even commented, “That bottle is bigg’r dan a baby.”
Yes. Dr. Stripes is huge. But if you’re representing the U.S. and A….you have to be big. Dr. Stripes size was intimidating, but what about the taste? I purchased Dr. Stripes, wrapped him in plastic and headed home.
Dr. Stripes was warm..99-cent only stores don’t have huge coolers in which to store such a massive soda bottle. I should have waited for him to cool down before enjoying…but he’s huge, so that would have put my report off a whole day…and well, when you’re sitting on the gold that IS Dr. Stripes, dare I say, I had to partake stat.
I grabbed a goblet, because we all know, the finest imposter Dr.’s are all served best in fine glassware. I turned the cap. Dr. Stripes hissed at me, followed by Dr. Stripes spitting his guts all over my countertop. Dr. Stripes is a rascal. It must be good…so good Dr, Stripes is willing to fight to prevent his enjoyment.
Finally, after a few more minor eruptions I was able to pour a glass of Dr. Stripes. Dr. Stripes tastes like a watered down Mr. Pibb. It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t really good either. I had a couple goblets full, in oreder to get an accurate tasting…and put the rest in the fridge. Dr. Stripes may be enjoyed best when served cold. I’ll know more tonight. I’m just thankful we live in a patriotic country, where Dr. Stripes can be displayed proudly in supermarkets.
This is our country.
By Eduardo
There’s an Albertson’s right near where I work, and the other night I actually had to stop in there to pick up a few items we needed for dinner. I’ve never been particularly fond of Albertson’s, and have always generally thought of them as being an exceptionally uninteresting grocery chain. It doesn’t seem like they’ve ever really been known for anything, except for taking over all the Lucky stores.
Nevertheless, there I was. As I made my way toward the checkout line after finding the stuff we needed, it occurred to me that Albertson’s was the ideal place to look for a lame store brand Dr. Pepper ripoff. I turned around and strode quickly down the Soda and Beverages aisle.
I examined the shelves, scanning the rows of cheap 2-liter store brand soda bottles for anything with a dark red label. ‘They must have a fake Doctor in here’, I thought to myself. An instant later, my eyes found it.
Ladies and gentlemen,
meet Dr. Bold.
I grabbed one and put it in my basket. I was at last ready for the checkout line, and quite eager to test the quality of this newly-discovered Doctor Pepper imposter. I was actually pretty stoked that such things do still exist, and that I had actually found one in its natural habitat.
Before I left, though, I had to take this picture of what I think should get some kind of award for World’s Most Poorly-Named Soda.
I mean, Dr. Bold is lame enough, but at least the ‘Bold’ can be considered somewhat relevant. I don’t think you could say the same for Mountain Maze, no matter how you look at it. What the heck were they thinking? Is the flavor “complex”, like a fine wine (or… a MAZE)? Does the flavor come charging at you like an enraged minotaur guarding his labyrinth?
I can understand the obvious Mountain Dew tie-in, and even the “extreme” design approach – but can’t fathom why they’d want to incorporate the word MAZE into the name.
Maybe a group of uninspired product managers had a meeting that ended with one of them saying “Look, who cares what we call it? Nobody even sees this stuff. It’s 5:45 already, and we all need to be somewhere. Jim came up with ‘Mountain Maze’, and I say let’s just go with it.”
Let us also not forget that there is a whole world of knockoff citrus sodas that mimic Mountain Dew the same way that the fake Doctors rip off Dr. Pepper. I would personally very much like to get my hands on a cold can of Mountain Holler, which deserves an award for being the World’s Most Awesomely-Named Soda.
Anyway, upon arriving home I made sure that the good Doctor was promptly stored in the fridge. I wanted to ensure that it’d be properly chilled before the first taste test I’d planned for after dinner.
After we’d finished eating an hour later, I unscrewed the cap and heard the expected PSSSSHHHHHHFFFFFTTTTTT sound of a properly carbonated 2-liter soda bottle. I poured myself a glass of the rich dark brown liquid, gazed into the fizzy bubbles, and braced myself for what I expected to be a bold experience.
I took a drink, and…
Meh.
It was bland.
For a moment, I felt betrayed. I wanted my 69 cents back. This was not a bold drink by any stretch of the imagination. It tasted like watered-down Coke mixed with watered-down Dr. Pepper. Even so, I wouldn’t say it was completely gross. It was definitely passable as a cheap generic soda, but had no business calling itself Dr. Bold. I think Dr. Bland would probably be a more appropriate name.
I finished my drink and returned the bottle to the fridge, unsure of whether I’d ever feel the need to have more.
A few mornings later as I was getting milk for some cereal, I was faced with the reality that I still had the better part of two liters of Dr. Bold that needed to be dealt with. I’m not a big soda drinker in the first place, and considered just pouring it down the drain. However, with Valentine’s Day just around the corner, I decided to keep it.
I’m certainly glad I did, because nothing says romance like Dr. Bold.
By Eduardo
I have turned up a grand total of zero Dr. Pepper wanna-be drinks in local grocery establishments. I’m beginning to think that the whole wave of “false doctors” was a 1990′s phenomenon, because it’s been quite a while since I’ve seen any.
Besides Paco’s awesome example, have any additional ones been found?
By Paco
Well, I found a doctor today. While grabbing a couple of things at Safeway this morning I noticed a fake doctor. “The Dr.” to be exact.It appears that the “The Dr.” has replaced the Skipper. I bought a 2L of “The Dr.” for a grand total of 79 cents.As soon as I got home and opened it, I remembered why I rarely drink soda… the damn Dr. blew up on my kitchen counter.The flavor? “The Dr.” is similar to the real deal, in fact, I’d be hard pressed to tell the difference. This might be due to my lack of Dr. Pepper trained taste buds… I dunno. About the only difference that maybe was there, was “The Dr.” was maybe a little lighter… a bit watered down.Whatever… “The Dr.” will now just take up space in my fridge. Unless Beard No Beard happens to stop by my place, I’d be happy to give it to him.
By Eduardo
Has anybody located a false Doctor Pepper yet?
I’ve looked, and even scoured a couple of Dunsmuir grocery stores with Paco – but haven’t turned up anything.
Maybe the FDA has enforced tougher restrictions on soft drinks bearing the title “Doctor”. It could be that there’s some law stating that unless such drinks can verify that they can certifiably prove that they do indeed have a PhD, they must change their name.
I’ll keep looking, though.
By Jaimenacho
Ok this is a totally random topic…no time line. We’ll just leave it up and running. I think we need to capture pictures of the different Dr. Pepper drinks out there. They tend to have the most bizarre names of all imitation sodas. It would be nice if we did proper research on this, and posted the following:
1) A photo of the can
2) Write the location where said imposter was purchased
3) A brief summary of taste and what not. How did it rank with real Dr. Pepper? Was it different color? etc…
If you don’t drink Dr. Pepper, buck up. They usually cost 35 cents a can…take 2 sips and give it to Beard No Beard…this is science, not an endorsement for Dr. Pepper.
