of Middlesboro, Kentucky (MK is their symbol) does not carry dasani.

Instead, they took over a local favorite water called Cumberland Gap (after the Cumberland river/gap). It's in the triangle bottle, but it is slightly blue (not as blue as dasani).

Uncap the Gap! is the slogan and the labels are personally made for the bottler, complete with the full bottler's name in script font.

very interesting how they took a local favorite over dasani.

this area of kentucky (say, the corbin exit off of I-75) is fractioned with mom and pop indies for coke, pepsi and rc cola.

7up usually stays with pepsi, also dr pepper. but middlesboro, who carries pibb, also was allowed to carry dr pepper 8oz by the local pepsi dist. how cute! talk about cooperation.

i mean, it's great. you could go into two stores across the street or down the road and they would have completely different stuff because their territory lines are so complex and overlapping.

i seem to recall that they do all their own bottling down there or exchange product with each other. all the cans have local addresses on them and everything.

product is always neat and well merchandised, stocked, rotated. these people all seem to have some sort of pride, unlike cce peeps i've experienced.

variety is the spice of life down there with full rows of 10oz glass for all brands, all 8oz glass was first there years before i saw it in michigan (coke, diet coke, sprite, barqs, dr pepper, rumored to be squirt and cherry coke as well).

ten oz glass include : pepsi, diet pepsi, diet cf pepsi, mt dew, diet mt dew, dr pepper, 7 up, coke, diet coke, sprite, mello yello, (was surge), mr pibb plus all tonics/gingers.

they even ran the "Big!" one liters years after cce switched to the contour bottles. that was cool and i brought home a case to show a friend.

they had full one liter lines of most if not all products whereas coke and pepsi here had limited varieties until maybe 2 years ago.

they always seemed to be willing to have as many flavors as possible aand were always couponing, discountng and running deals.

plus they had cool shells, including the light blue rc ones.

i rue the fact that i did not pick up more the last time i was down in that area. every store's an adventure.

i suggest traveling through the holler in harlan county for sure, don't forget middlesboro county ( i think) as well and dip into northern tennesee too.

Thanks for posting. I am actually making a road trip from Maryland to Ohio to Tennessee, and possibly Georgia and the Carolinas, if I have time.

I will make it a point to detour over to Middlesboro. I actually know a guy who used to work at the Super Wally there, and he told me Coke runs things a lot different down there.

They had 10oz bottle of SURGE? Awesome in glass, is there any pics? What kind of bottle did it come in? Here I have only seen the coke contour bottle in glass.

ever see the schweppes or canada dry tonics in the 10oz glass bottle? that's the bottle.

We just sent our roving reporter down there. Reports indicate they may have shut down bottling there or greatly scaled it back.

Some glass bottles are coming from bottler MR now.

Cans are sourced from Consolidated and CV/CCE

I'll be passing through there on Tuesday.. I'll provide a full report when I get back next weekend. MR=Marietta GA, which is CCE's glass plant for the Mid-Atlantic/South (and probably around the Great Lakes as well). The northeast's glass is produced in NH, Needham Heights MA.

Middlesboro was too far off of my route to go there, but I did stop in Corbin, which is right off of the interstate. Found Coke, Sprite, Diet, and Mello Yello in 10oz fat bottles from their production facility, and one in Alabama.

Also saw Coke, Sprite, Diet, Barq's in 8oz 6 pack at the Super Wally. Cans are coming from CCBCC and CCE's Cleveland TN facility. They produce most of their own 2L/20oz, but some come from Marietta (MR) or Charlotte (SY).

And for the record, they now carry Dasani along with Cumberland Gap.

oh yeah? that's cool. my hillbilly friends goin down and he's gonna bring me up some cumberland gap water.

middlesboro used to run a 10oz bottle line, my 10oz bottle of mello yello has code MK on it.

also, while we're on the subject of kentucky, here's a smatttering of kentucky indies:

Dr Pepper Bottling Company
308 West Center Street
Madisonville, KY 42431
(270) 821-5537
Dr. Pepper and Royal Crown products

Greensburg Bottling Company, Inc.
108 Depot Street
Greensburg, KY 42743
(270) 932-5061
KDA Web Page
Double Cola, Diet Double Cola, Ski, Diet Ski, NuGrape, Dad's Root Beer, Tasty Ch...

Middlesboro Coca-Cola Bottling Inc
1324 Cumberland Avenue
Middlesboro, KY 40965
(606) 248-2660
Coca-Cola products

Pepsi-Cola Bottling Company of Corbin Ky Inc
1000 West 18th Street
Corbin, KY 40701
(606) 528-1630
Pepsi-Cola products, Mt. Dew products, Dr. Pepper products, 7-Up products, Ocea...

Pepsi-Cola Bottling Company of Winchester
221 Jackson Street
Winchester, KY 40391
(859) 744-2611
Pepsi-Cola products

oh, and if you want something funny, go to this website: http://highbridgesprings.com/flash.asp and click on flash and listen to their jingle. it's soooooo funny. how lame!

also, there's a coca-cola museum inside the elizabethtown, kentucky plant. just found that out too.