WHO: Dr Pepper

WHAT: A new report from the trade publication Beverage Digest about the Texas-born soft drink’s stature

WHY IT’S SO GREAT: There are few brands more iconically Texan than Dr Pepper. Why, we here at Texas Monthly have been covering the beverage since our very inception: in the magazine’s first issue, published in February 1973, we ran a 2,500-word essay, “Understanding Dr Pepper,” by former LBJ speechwriter Leo Janos. In the five decades hence, the drink has rarely been far from our hearts. We love Dr Pepper. You love Dr Pepper. We are Texans, and this sweet, sticky, slightly spicy soda runs, if not in our veins, then readily down our throats on a hot day. 

But does the rest of the country understand? In a 2021 essay for—once again—this here magazine, barbecue editor Daniel Vaughn wrote about his experience growing up in Ohio, where the drink was a rare treat that symbolized the land of opportunity he imagined Texas to be. In my own Indiana childhood, Dr Pepper was a steady presence on supermarket shelves but a relative rarity at restaurants, which often had contracts with Coca-Cola or Pepsi, preventing them from serving the beverage that has long been a free agent in a world divided between those two. And so it is a pleasure to report that the rest of the world does understand, because the split between the big two soda companies is no longer a battle between Coke and Pepsi. When it comes to market share, it’s now Coke and Dr Pepper, which has gradually accrued 8.3 percent of the U.S. soft drink market. That puts Dr Pepper nominally ahead of Pepsi (also at 8.3 percent but rounded up from a slightly smaller fraction) and comfortably in front of both Sprite (8.1 percent) and Diet Coke (7.8 percent). 

For Texpats old enough to recall the days when Dr Pepper was more of a regional treat than a global one, this is exciting news. Those far-flung Texans may never again live in a world in which they have to return to their home state to savor the soda. For the rest of us, Dr Pepper’s national ascendance might not have much impact on our lives (who cares what soft drinks they’re serving in New York and California?), but it still feels good to know that Texans’ love of Dr Pepper is now shared more widely than ever. At the very least, it’s a chance to be boosters of Texas culture in a way that unites, rather than divides, us. The stakes are low, but the satisfaction is high. Viva la Dr Pepper!