Had a great roadtrip through Texas a week ago. Started in Fort Worth, went south through Waco, Temple, Shiner, San Antonio, then back north to Dublin for their 116th birthday party.

Bottlers and cool places ...

The Soda Gallery in Dallas. Picked up 3 six-packs of bottled soda that I hadn't tried before. Big variety - check out the first thumbnail below (unfortunately due the size limits it's very compressed). This place is awesome. All glass bottles in the 2nd picture were purchased there. The four 4 longnecks on the left (A&W, Green River, Big Red, Vernors) came from A&W Bottling in Everett, Washington. They carry quite a few brands from Orca Bottling too. The Saint Arnold root beer on the far right comes from a Texas brewery.

The longnecks in the third picture were bottled by Dr Pepper of Texas (part DBSUBG or CSABG or whatever it's called.) Bought these in Ft. Worth.

The Frostie orange "natural soda" was bought at Clem Mikeska's bar-b-q in Temple (good stuff) - I didn't find it anywhere else. Says it's made with cane sugar.

Dr Pepper Museum, Waco. The museum has lots of memorabilia and old Dr Pepper commercials constantly running on TV. They had a section for Dr Pepper imitations - I thought the Dr Wells was interesting. There's also a soda shop there, it's the only place in the world you can try Circle A Ginger Ale!

More sodas from Texas ... Dr Pepper clones, pineapple soda, etc. Lots of brands in pineapple down there.

The Spicewood and Nesbitt's sodas were produced by Temple, most of them are bi-ligual with Spanish/English. First time I've seen Nesbitt's pineapple.

The Crush pineapple and peach were bottled by Better Beverages (Pepsi) in Halletsville. They're the only bottler I've seen in the US still producing Crush Pineapple. They also make Crush in grape, orange and strawberry. Plant code is HT. I found those in Shiner, home of the Spoetzel Brewery.

Temple Bottling (picture 1). I stopped at Temple Bottling but there really wasn't much there to see - just talked to one of the sales guys for a while. Around Temple their c-store sets had Crush orange, NuGrape, Hires, Spicewood flavors, RC (cola, diet, cherry). Picture 2 shows some of the Dr Pepper packages that Temple makes with Imperial pure cane sugar.

Dr Pepper Bottling of Mason, TX (picture 3). I passed through Mason on my way from San Antonio to Dublin. This bottler serves a 6-county area in the hill country, much of the product comes from Temple. They're in the process of replacing Crush orange with Nesbitt's, Hires with Frostie, and Crush grape with NuGrape. They also distribute Big Red in part of their territory. In their warehouse I saw Nesbitt's and Frostie in fridgepacks, something new for me.

Dr Pepper Bottling of Brownwood, TX (picture 4). Brownwood is a very interesting town - AbTex, the Pepsi bottler out of Abilene, has Sunkist orange, diet orange, pineapple, grape, and cherry limeade, plus A&W, 7up, cherry 7up, Big Red, and Canada Dry. This in addition to Pepsi variations, Mountain Dew, etc. No Sierra Mist or Twisters. Actually I think AbTex has more Cadbury products on the shelves here than Pepsi products.

Dr Pepper has NuGrape (also in glass 6-pks from Temple), Crush, Frostie, RC regular, diet, cherry, Diet Rite, Squirt.

Dr Pepper billboard in Brownwood (picture 5) - they really DO love their Dr Pepper!

Dublin Dr Pepper bottling plant & museum. I went to the 116th birthday party on June 9th, it was a load o' fun. And hot. Thank goodness they had free DP and Big Red all day long. Pictures of advertsing around town and the Dublin Dr Pepper plant itself.

More pictures from the party, including the crowning of the latest "Pretty Peggy Pepper" and the birthday cake (made with Dr Pepper).

It is amazing that you love soda that much. What made you so intersted in soda?

Texas is DP country for sure!!!!!!!!

Old Doc's Soda Shop from the outside & inside, the returnables bottling line (they only bottle Dr Pepper, Big Red and NuGrape at the plant), plus the Bill Kloster commemorative can and the 114th bottle that they give you (full of cold DP) at the beginning of the plant tour.

Nice end to a vacation through the great state of Texas.

Cheer-Wined,
Super cool trip.
Once again your soda pop travel log has
blown me away. The pictures are awesome.
Say at the Dublin party were you able to drink
as much DP as you wanted? LOL What a cool
party for all the town folk.

Yep, you could pretty much stay in line and drink as much as you want. They had a booth that looked like a giant can of Dr Pepper (the picture is the backside). And it was the sugar stuff, boy was it good. I made about 5 or 6 trips there myself. So hot you'd sweat it out in a few minutes anyway.