Texas Monthly has published an article describing and judging all the different flavored Dr Peppers that are out there now. In addition to regular and diet Dr Pepper and Dr Pepper Zero, there are five tricked-up “dirty” Dr Peppers available almost everywhere in the state: cherry, cream soda, strawberries and cream, blackberry, and, my personal favorite, coconut.

You’ll recall from previous posts here that our family went bonkers for the Creamy Coconut Dr Pepper when it was first released two summers ago, in 2024, as a “limited edition” flavor. We loved it! One of the criticisms I have of the flavored DPs is that the flavors are not strong enough; it’s just a faint hint. Not so with the coconut Dr Pepper. The coconut smell and taste is powerful and smooth and delicious. So good! But the demand was too high and the flavor was too “limited” and it was gone before we knew it. Like in three weeks!

When it appeared again–finally!–a couple of months ago, we stocked up. Carrie-Anne and Whitney started buying Coconut Dr Pepper like it was COVID. And they still come home from every trip to the store with a twelve-pack or two. At one point a couple of weeks ago, I counted over 160 cans of Coconut DP in our refrigerator and pantry. We’re down a few now as you can tell in this picture from our pantry and the above photo of our refrigerator. But we didn’t buy groceries last week because of our trip to Tulsa.

Anyway, the article, by Dan Soloman, describes each of the flavors, summarizes the results of an in-house Texas Monthly taste test, and provides interesting tidbits about each of the flavors from the research and development folks at Dr Pepper. For your information, I rank the five dirty DPs in this order:

Creamy Coconut – the very best by a mile!
Blackberry – it does NOT taste like Robitussin!
Cream Soda – this almost tastes like a Dr Pepper float.
Strawberries and Cream – this would be better if the flavor were stronger.
Cherry – this one DOES remind me of cough medicine.

I’m interested in your thoughts. Hit the “comments” and tell me about your experiences with “dirty” sodas.

Peace,
Allan