Sugar Makes Dr Pepper Special From Dublin, Texas

MICHAEL GRACZYK

DUBLIN, Texas (AP) — For Dr Pepper drinkers, this is mecca.

Tens of thousands of people trek to tiny Dublin in north-central Texas each year to buy cases of the popular soft drink from a bottling company that uses real sugar in its flagship product. No high fructose corn syrup in sight.

It's been that way since 1891, when Dublin Bottling Works became the world's first bottler of soda pop and the first to distribute the fruit- and berry-flavored carbonated drink that had debuted six years earlier at Wade Morrison's Old Corner Drug Store in downtown Waco, about 80 miles to the east.

Dublin Dr Pepper is not the only soft drink that uses sugar. PepsiCo Inc. introduced limited-edition versions of Pepsi and Mountain Dew this year that did, and in some markets Coca-Cola Co. offers a kosher version of Coke using sugar that is available in the weeks preceding Passover. There's also a simmering U.S. demand for Mexican-made Coca-Cola, which uses real sugar.

But Dublin Dr Pepper's signature product has become a favorite of bootleggers who resell it elsewhere and folks from around the world who buy it in person or online.