BevBlog

The International Bottled Water Association borrowed a stunt from the exciting world of CSPAN this week, issuing a skin-tingling slide show to make you feel better about consuming bottled water.

The 18-slide presentation, entitled “The Real Facts About Bottled Water,” revisits familiar arguments in support of the industry – it’s convenient, the bottles are fully recyclable and the product is calorie-free – and packages them all together in one place.

But, if the slide show doesn’t calm your eco-conscience sufficiently, you could buy the AquaSafeStraw, a new personal, water-filtration tube that charitably resembles a kazoo.

The bottled water wars: where the excitement never spots.

Red Bull has made it no secret that it includes coca leaves – the botanical origin of the drug cocaine – in the beverage’s all-natural formulation, but insists that there’s none of the naughty stuff left behind. German officials aren’t too sure, and they have banned the sale of Red Bull Simply Cola in six states.
 

For those of you thinking about stocking up, don’t get too excited. At 0.13 micrograms per can, you’d have to drink enough Red Bull Cola to fill a small tanker truck before feeling anything that resembled a drug-like effect.
 

And that’s if the substance found in the cola is even capable of inducing a high. Fritz Soergel, the head of the Institute for Biomedical and Pharmaceutical Research in the city of Nuremberg, told TIME that the discovered substance isn’t even cocaine itself, just a degradation of the original chemical that has no effect on the human body.
 

A German Red Bull spokesman insisted that there is no scientific basis for the ban, and noted that the products have been labeled as safe in the U.S. and Europe.
 

But we may now have to wonder: if Red Bull Cola picks up a strong following with the late-night club crowd, is it due to marketing or its “special” ingredient.

It’s not the third gunman on the grassy knoll, but this week’s dispute over a yellowed ledger with a formula marked “D Pepper Pepsin Bitters” may leave us with a mystery that can, sadly, only be resolved by opening a vault that’s likely to remain shut.

Both the Oklahoma man that found the ledger and his auction house claim that the recipe represents an early variation of Dr Pepper. The document dates back to around 1880 to 1890 they said (Dr Pepper debuted in 1885), and came from the pharmacy where Dr Pepper was first served.

Despite that evidence, The Dr Pepper Snapple Group says it isn’t the recipe for its flagship beverage.“Heck, it isn’t even a recipe for a soft drink,” the company said in a statement Monday.

But that didn’t quiet the auction house.

“Dr Pepper Snapple Group never claims that the ledger book from The Corner Drug Store in Waco… isn’t the original formula,” said Greg Rohan, president of the Heritage Auction Galleries, “just that it’s not the current one.”

It’s worth noting that the ledger lists 13 ingredients, while Dr Pepper famously includes 23 flavors.

Of course, the only way to clear up whether or not this “bitters” recipe has anything to do with Dr Pepper would be to gain access to the current formula. According to DPSG, that isn’t going to happen.

“Dr Pepper’s 23-flavor blend is safely under lock and key in an undisclosed location,” the company said. “The room is under 24-hour video surveillance and only one person in the world has access to this room. Only three members of the Dr Pepper family know the formula, and they aren’t talking.”