What Soft Drink Was Named Moonshine?

The Hillbilly Background – The term “mountain dew” was once a nickname for mountain-brewed moonshine during Prohibition times, and although there was never any alcohol in the Mountain Dew recipe, its ties to alcohol – and whiskey in particular – cannot be denied.

1. In the 1930s, brothers Barney and Ally Harman of Georgia moved to Knoxville, Tennessee and found they were unable to buy their favorite alcohol mixer, a lemon-lime soda called Natural Set Up, in their new location.
2. So they made their own.
3. The original Mountain Dew was designed to be mixed with whiskey, and it was a lemon-lime mixture not unlike Sprite.

And, there was no caffeine (today it has more than any other soda!). Although the Harman brothers initially made their creation to enjoy themselves, they decided to try to sell the beverage starting in 1932. They were not immediately successful. In 1946, Mountain Dew labels on the bottles were given a distinct hillbilly slant.

Was MTN Dew made for moonshine?

So what does Mountain Dew have to do with moonshine? – Fast forward to the early 1940s. The brothers had their lemon-lime soda mixer which was combined with whiskey. It was also the perfect match for high-quality moonshine, aka Mountain Dew. It was such a hit with their friends and family, they decided to sell it.

• In fact, the drink debuted at a 1964 Gatlinburg bottling convention.
• Appalachian themes were huge at the time.
• There was a fascination with mountain folk and the Great Smoky Mountain National Park.
• As a result, brothers Barney and Ally used hillbilly marketing with barefoot, overall-clad mountaineers with a jug of Dew in one hand and a rifle in the other.

“It’ll tickle yore innards!” became a popular tagline. On larger bottles, the hillbilly character was shown running out of an outhouse and firing at revenuers. Despite the brilliant marketing, the drink never really caught on. That is until a Johnson City bottler got involved.

• Tri-City Beverage loved the theming and the green bottles.
• They purchased a franchise to make the Dew.
• However, it didn’t sell for them any better.
• Tri-City worked with the same mix master who helped the Hartman brothers create their Dew.
• The result was Tri-City Lemonade, which was high in caffeine and sugar and much more popular than the original Dew.

The corporation bought the formula, put the lemonade into the Mountain Dew bottles and suddenly, they had a hit that began to get the attention of the big boys. Pepsi-Cola bought the Mountain Dew brand in 1964. Pepsi eventually dropped the hillbilly theme on the Mountain Dew bottles (photo by Morgan Overholt/TheSmokies.com)

What soft drink was originally intended as a mixer for moonshine?

What Soft Drink Was Originally Created To Go With Whiskey? I don’t know whether I am easily amazed or easily amused. This fact just simply floored me. As we enjoy a cold holiday weekend with plenty of football and a lot of couch time, no doubt some of us will be sipping a libation or two.

Some of us like beer, others like to mix it up just a bit. There are certainly the classic mixers when it comes to enjoying,, or your other favorites. Most of us will mix with,, or a or, But did you know there is a popular soft drink that was created for the sole purpose of mixing with whiskey? or homemade liquor also has another nickname.

That name is, The same as the popular soft drink. Here is its unlikely story from regional bar mixer to big time soda pop. Back in the 1930’s soft drinks were more regional than national in distribution. For a lot of us in the south the RC Cola was popular.

In Knoxville, Tennessee, the Hartman Brothers liked their soda pop too. They were looking for a good mixer to go with their Tennessee Whiskey and when they couldn’t find one to their liking, they decided to make their own. Thus the inspiration for Mountain Dew, the soft drink, not the moonshine. The Hartman Brothers along with Charles Gordon began to bottle their concoction in the Tri-Cities area of Eastern Tennessee.

The original logo for the product actually featured the likeness of a hillbilly moonshiner along with the phrase, ” will tickle your innards”. What is interesting to me is this, I have never known anyone to actually order a cocktail mixed with this stuff.

Who made moonshine soda?

‘ The Hartman Beverage Company on Magnolia Avenue in East Knoxville was the birthplace of the current brand of Mountain Dew,’ said Neely. ‘In the 1940s, brothers Barney and Ally Hartman started a soft drink that they wanted to make as a mixer for moonshine.

What is Coke’s version of Mountain Dew?

Surge(citrus soda) Surge (sometimes styled as SURGE ) is a citrus flavored soft drink first produced in the 1990s by The Coca-Cola Company to compete with Pepsi’s Mountain Dew. Surge was advertised as having a more “hardcore” edge, much like Mountain Dew’s advertising at the time, in an attempt to lure customers away from Pepsi.

1. It was originally launched in Norway as Urge in 1996, and was so popular that it was later released in America as Surge.
2. Lagging sales caused production to be ended in 2003 for most markets, However, popular fan bases such as Facebook’s “SURGE Movement” led Coca-Cola to re-release the soft drink on September 15, 2014, for the US market via Amazon Prime in 12-packs of 16 oz cans.

Following a test-market for the beverage in the Southeastern United States in early 2015, Surge was re-released primarily in convenience stores in the Eastern United States and some Mountain states in September 2015.

Does Mountain Dew taste like moonshine?

How Mountain Dew went from being Appalachia’s choice whiskey mixer to the glowing green peak of sugary, caffeinated beverages we know today. In modernity, Mountain Dew has cultivated a reputation as a high-sugar, energy-delivering soda, more akin to a sports drink than a simple carbonated beverage.

1. It’s even created a specialized energy drink that reinforces Mountain Dew as the drink of choice for video gamers.
2. But Mountain Dew wasn’t always thought of as a cheap, sugary soda used to quench the thirst of Fortnite fans.
3. Nearly 80 years ago, the drink was most closely associated with Appalachian moonshiners.

A recent Mountain Dew-themed exhibit at the Museum of East Tennessee History explained how two Knoxville, Tennessee brothers came up with the idea for the popular soft drink in 1940 after they moved from Augusta, Georgia, where they used to manage a bottling plant for Orange-Crush.

1. Back in Georgia, Barney and Ally Hartman liked to end their days by mixing bourbon into a Sprite-like soda available at the time called Natural Setup.
2. Noxville didn’t carry Natural Setup, however, so the brothers had to come up with their own mixer.
3. Their new product — Personal Setup — was largely bottled for family, friends, and people who worked for their businesses.

Because it tasted similar to moonshine when mixed with whiskey, however, it soon gained a nickname referencing a then-common moniker for home-distilled liquor: Mountain Dew. For decades, Mountain Dew popularized itself using the image of a barefoot, gun-toting, moonshine-swigging Appalachian man named Grandpappy.

1. The company’s catchphrases, too, relied on the stereotypes surrounding country life in Tennessee; the most popular slogan, for a time, was ” It’ll tickle yore innards.
2. But in the 1970s, the company tried to rebrand its image, repurposing its barefoot reputation to appeal more to young people living in cities.

Once Pepsi started making Doritos, the company also created marketing techniques to promote the two brands together. Mountain Dew has continued to be associated with the corn-based chip ever since. Mountain Dew may not resemble its original formula. The citrus taste in Personal Setup was much lighter, and the green color wasn’t added until much later.

However, you can still recapture some of the magic that Barney and Ally Hartman experienced. Mountain Dew cocktails are still popular among some whiskey lovers, who compare the mix to a whiskey sour. To make one at home, fill a whiskey glass (or mason jar) with ice. Muddle some mint and lemon together in the glass along with some simple syrup (if you like your drinks on the sweeter side); then add in your Mountain Dew and a whiskey of your choice.

Southern Comfort seems to be the most preferred brand, but any whiskey would work well. A combination of two parts Mountain Dew to one part whiskey seems to be the most common mix. For non-whiskey lovers, spiced rum is a popular choice as well, and can be mixed in the same proportion.

Was Mountain Dew a syrup for moonshine?

Mountain Dew Was Originally a Whiskey Mixer Mountain Dew was originally a whiskey mixer. Today’s neon drink, energizing video gamers and many fun demos, has historic moonshine and bourbon, Strange but true! The moonshine/whiskey origins of Mountain Dew The drink was born in the Smoky Mountains of Tennessee; “mountain dew” was a slang name for moonshine. (Ready for our taste test, with Mountain Dew, originally founded as a whiskey mixer in the 1940s, and Evan Williams Bottled-in-Bond 100 Proof, always a good, solid choice for mixing. Photo: Colonel Bourbon staff.) In the beginning, the Dew didn’t have the caffeine or the yellow dye.

It was more like a clear soda, like Spirit or 7-Up While the brothers at first made it for themselves, they ended up marketing it as “zero-proof hillbilly moonshine that will tickle your innards.” The business struggled however after Barney suffered a heart attack and died. The company was sold to the Tip Corpiration in Virginia and the recipe was changed, although there’s differing accounts of what happened.

One story is that a Tri-City lemonade recipe started to go into the Mountain Dew bottles. Moonshine logo and packaging The early logos featured a barefooted “Grandpappy” hillbilly with a jug of moonshine. Later, in an ode to the days of Prohibition, the packaging had the hillbilly with his rifle, shooting at a federal revenue agent.

1. Interestingly when Pepsi purchased the company in 1964, it kept the Appalachian marketing in order to continue to reach that market.
2. This eventually changed as the new “Mt Dew” was marketed to the younger generation, with lines like “Do the dew!” – which is still used today.
3. Eventually it became the drink of video gamers and other influencers (athletes, race car drivers.), – this was a long road from the Appalachia origins.

Imagine those wildly-different folks meeting each other 🙂 Taste testing time Mt. Dew contains high-fructose corn syrup, and since bourbon whiskey’s mash bill is at least 51% corn, it was going to be interesting to see what may happen when we combined the two.

Except for an occasional Old Fashioned or Whiskey Sour, we rarely drink mixed cocktails here at CB, preferring neat or light rocks. We didn’t have any soda on hand and can’t remember the last time any of us had Mt. Dew, so we went to the store to acquire. The Consensus We mixed 1 part Evan Williams Bottle-in-bond 100 Proof and 2 parts Dew.

Our initial thoughts: not bad. Notes:

Perhaps there’s something to sodas having that corn syrup, mixed with bourbon, which is 51+% corn. The corn-based ingredients seem to complement each other. Maybe it’s the reason Jack and Coke work so well. on their site:

“Jack Daniel chose a well-considered recipe of 80% corn, 12% barley and 8% rye that we still use today. Using only No.1 quality grade corn gives the mash an inviting sweetness. An ample amount of rye rounds out the sweetness with robust notes of pepper and spice. And just enough malt brings it all together with a creamy smoothness.:

And the Mt. Dew gives the cocktail an effervescent fizz, c itrusy. The copper-colored whiskey toned down the neon, of course. But it was immediately, certainly refreshing. It was a rare moment for us to chill the Evan Williams before mixing. Having said that, for our tasters it was a short-term drink. We’re not sweet-tooth folks and after barely one drink we were ready to go back to the wonderfully, delightfully bitter bite of neat or light-ice bourbon we know and love. It might have been worth trying Mt. Dew with Jack. :

“.Mountain Dew and whiskey still works surprisingly well — as long as you use a whiskey with the right characteristics for your palate.

“You may find that Irish whiskeys and bourbon whiskeys work well for your palate, while Scotch whiskey does not.” The conclusion as a current mixer One of our tasters writes: “Of course Mountain Dew is a good mixer for whiskey, since it, or a version of it, was specifically made for mixing with the brown liquor.

From what I can tell, they primarily market the neon nectar as an energy boost to gamers, etc. The sugar high angle. As far as I know Coca-Cola doesn’t have or use that angle, for better or for worse. Going back to, or at least acknowledging, your origins, is not a bad thing, especially these days.

1. They should try a high-end throwback version, and see if it gains any traction.
2. So cool if it featured the hillbilly art, with the rifle or maybe with a fiddle.” “I’m guessing however the corporate folk would be hesitate to risk the corporate image.” “Throwback” version In the 2010s, Pepsi in fact tried a “throwback” version of Mt.

Dew, using cane sugar instead of high-fructose corn syrup. As you may know, Coca-Cola has done this, successfully, with what is called “Mexican Coke.” As far as we can tell, the “throwback” was discontinued a few years ago. It is not on Pepsi’s list of Mt. (Pictured: 1950s ad for Mountain Dew, “It’ll tickle your innards.” It was originally a lemon-lime flavored whiskey mixer, founded in Tennessee in the 1940s. Pepsi purchased the brand in 1964. Photo credit: Wikipedia Creative Commons, Belkczar.) “It’s Corn!” In the 1970s, Pepsi began associating Mt.

Is there a drink called moonshine?

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Moonshine

Type	Whisky
Alcohol by volume	At least 40%
Proof (US)	At least 80°
Colour	Clear to off-white depending on ingredients
Ingredients	Grain ( mashing ), sugar ( fermented water )
Related products	Bourbon whiskey, corn whiskey, Scotch whisky, Irish whiskey, rye whiskey, Tennessee whiskey

A modern DIY pot still Moonshine is high-proof liquor, generally whiskey, traditionally made, or at least distributed, illegally, Its clandestine distribution is known as bootlegging, The name was derived from a tradition of creating the alcohol during the nighttime, thereby avoiding detection.

What was the oldest soft drink?

Created in 1866, Vernon’s Ginger Ale is the oldest soda pop in America. Vernor’s is located in Michigan and was created by James Vernor. The unique flavor was actually created on accident by leaving the soda pop encased in wood while he went off to war.

Why is Mountain Dew banned in the UK?

Mt. Dew Amp – Their newest energy drink release is the Amp. This is available in the original Dew flavor, Tropical Punch, Strawberry Limeade, and Cherry Blast, To answer the question, as of right now, Mt. Dew isn’t banned in European countries by their Food And Drug Administration. I’m the owner and blogger here at SodaPopCraft.Com. I’m a soft drinks enthusiast, bringing you all I know and research from the world of Beverages, Soda Pop, Soft Drinks, and many more. I hope it inspires you to make Healthier, and Creative Drinks at Home. Read more About Me here & Tweet Me Here,

What is Coke’s version of Dr Pepper?

History – Mr. Pibb advertisement First introduced as “Peppo” to compete against Dr Pepper, the name was changed to “Mr. Pibb” after Dr Pepper sued The Coca-Cola Company for trademark infringement. The original test markets for Mr. Pibb in 1972 were located in Waco, Texas the birthplace of Dr Pepper, before the company moved to Dallas, Texas.

What flavor is Mountain Dew actually?

What is the flavor of Mountain Dew? – Classic Mountain Dew is labeled as a citrus soda, which is often compared to lemon-lime. It originally touted its formula’s use of actual orange juice in the recipe. But, if you ask me, it tastes a little less like all these delicious citrus fruits, and a little bit more like “liquid electricity.”

What is the new name of Mountain Dew?

An error occurred. – Try watching this video on www.youtube.com, or enable JavaScript if it is disabled in your browser. DEW ® with a refreshing and bold red, white, and blue ice pop flavor. This cherry, lemon, and raspberry flavor tastes like the best summer of your life you know the one.

Is Mountain Dew sold in Europe?

Mountain Dew and Fresca banned in EU and Japan because they contain an ingredient that can lead to memory loss.

Does moonshine go with Coke?

WHAT ARE THE BEST THINGS TO MIX WITH MOONSHINE? Invented during Prohibition, Tennessee moonshine has gone through many transformations over the past 100 years. This historic drink is made with corn, barley, and wheat, creating a powerful spirit similar to whiskey.

So, what’s the best way to serve moonshine? While you’re welcome to drink it straight, there are plenty of great mixers to add. In fact, people have been drinking mixed moonshine drinks since the 1920s. COMMON MOONSHINE MIXERS Cocktails have existed as far back as the 1860s, born from bartenders’ ingenuity and fondness for flair.

During Prohibition, mixers were often used to mask the taste of bootleg liquor, as illegal spirits weren’t made with flavor in mind. Today, cocktails and mixers are a way to enhance alcohol, and there are many fun recipes. If you want to try a Tennessee moonshine mixed drink, here are our top mixer suggestions.

• GRAPEFRUIT JUICE Grapefruit juice is a popular choice for cocktails, and moonshine drinks are no exception.
• This unique citrus has just the right amount of bitterness to complement this Tennessee liquor and enough brightness to cut through.
• ICED TEA What’s better on a hot day than a glass of iced tea? If you’re interested in delicious summer sips with just a hint of burn, you can add a shot or two of moonshine to your favorite iced tea.

Just keep in mind that with something this tasty, it’s easy to drink more than you intend, so try to keep the ratio to one part liquor, three parts tea. SWEET VERMOUTH Folks who love Manhattens are sure to enjoy adding sweet vermouth to their moonshine.

You can try a 50/50 ratio if you want a less sweet drink or stick to the traditional two parts moonshine to one-part sweet vermouth for a rich beverage. LEMONADE If you love a good tart lemonade but want more of a kick, then you need to try moonshine lemonade. Like iced tea, it makes a great summer drink but balances sweetness with sourness.

This mix makes a fantastic beverage for a casual get-together on a hot day. BEER Are you a big fan of beer but want something a little stronger from time to time? Moonshine is the perfect addition to any light ale. All you need is one shot to pump up the intensity of your favorite brew.

• ORANGE JUICE If you like sweet citrus, orange juice is an excellent substitute for grapefruit.
• When added to moonshine, you get a bright, more vibrant beverage perfect for brunch.
• COKE Whiskey and coke is a classic, and since moonshine has many of the same elements as whiskey, it’s a great substitute.

If you want a beverage that’s equal parts sweet and strong, then whip up a moonshine and coke. GINGER ALE Another traditional mixer is ginger ale, a strong choice that cuts down the bite of alcohol. Whether you’re trying moonshine for the first time or just prefer sweeter drinks, you can’t go wrong with ginger ale.

1. MIXED MOONSHINE DRINKS FOR PARTIES AND GATHERINGS Moonshine drinks are an excellent option for parties, as they’re strong, diverse, and sport some fun names.
2. If you’re looking for innovative cocktails for your next get-together, here are our top recommendations.
3. MOONSHINE AND STRAWBERRY JAM COCKTAIL If you have a sweet tooth, you should try adding jam to your cocktails.

Strawberry jam is the perfect amount of sweetness for a moonshine mixed drink, and it adds gorgeous red color to boot. To make a moonshine and strawberry jam cocktail, you’ll need the following:

Club soda 2-shots of your favorite Tennessee Shine Co. moonshine 2-tablespoons of lemon juice 2-tablespoons of strawberry jam

Take your lemon juice, moonshine, and strawberry jam, and put them in a shaker. Stir or shake until completely smooth. Then, pour into glasses and top with club soda. This recipe makes two glasses, so it’s perfect for a date. MOONSHINE SALTY DOG Usually made with gin or vodka, the Salty Dog is typically bitter and a little tart.

Strawberries Crushed ice Kosher or pink Himalayan salt ⅓-cup of your favorite Tennessee Shine Co. moonshine ⅔-cup strawberry juice ⅔-cup grapefruit juice

To start, line the rim with salt. Then, add ice to the glass. Next, pour the grapefruit juice, strawberry juice, and moonshine into a shaker filled with ice. Shake until mixed, then pour into your prepared glass. Slice a strawberry halfway to the top and use it as garnish.

¾-ounce peach schnapps 1-½-ounces orange juice 1-½-ounces cranberry juice 2-ounces of your favorite Tennessee Shine Co. moonshine

Pour your ingredients into an ice-filled glass and stir. If you’re feeling fancy, add an orange slice to the rim as garnish. PEACH COBBLER MOONSHINE If you love peach cobbler as much as we do, then you’ll adore this dessert-inspired cocktail, To mix up this beverage, you need these ingredients:

½-cup peach schnapps ¾-cup of your favorite Tennessee Shine Co. moonshine 3-cinnamon sticks 4-fresh peaches 1-cup brown sugar 64-ounces white grape peach juice

Put the cinnamon sticks, brown sugar, and peaches in a pot and bring to a boil. Cook for three to four minutes, then allow to cool. Next, add the peach schnapps and moonshine. Strain out the peaches and cinnamon sticks, then serve over ice. DREAMSICLE MOONSHINE This rich orange drink has a lot of unique ingredients, but hear us out.

1-gallon orange juice 2-cups sugar 4-teaspoons vanilla extract ½-cup powdered vanilla coffee creamer 3-cups of your favorite Tennessee Shine Co. moonshine

Boil the orange juice in a large pot. Add the coffee creamer, vanilla extract, and sugar, then stir. Allow to cool, then add moonshine. If you want a mellower taste, store for a few days before serving. Tennessee Shine Co. uses an old family recipe to create top-tier Tennessee moonshine.

What is the oldest major soft drink brand in the US?

DR PEPPER IS THE OLDEST MAJOR SOFT DRINK IN AMERICA. Originally made in Morrison’s Old Corner Drug Store in Waco, Texas, the drink’s unique flavor was a hit when it was first sold in 1885.

What is the Mountain Dew with alcohol called?

Published February 24, 2022 Updated 4:36PM article The Boston Beer Company and PepsiCo have launched the HARD MTN DEW alcoholic beverage. (PepsiCo and Boston Beer Company) (PepsiCo and Boston Beer Company) WASHINGTON – Mountain Dew’s much-anticipated boozy drinks have hit store shelves but it’s only available in Tennessee, Florida, and Iowa.

• But fans have no need to worry because the company plans to distribute the drink in other states soon.
• The Boston Beer Company and PepsiCo collaborated on the new drink called Hard MTN DEW,
• Adults of legal drinking age can enjoy four flavors: Baja Blast, watermelon, black cherry and original Dew.
• The new flavored malt beverage contains 5% alcohol, available in 24-ounce single-serve cans and a variety pack of a dozen 12-ounce cans.

RELATED: PepsiCo and Boston Beer Co. to create alcoholic Mountain Dew Pepsi has worked to expand Mountain Dew’s presence in the soda industry into new markets, including energy drinks. In 2021, the company launched a Mountain Dew-based energy drink called “Mtn Dew Rise Energy.” Los Angeles Lakers star LeBron James agreed to a multi-year partnership to be the face of Mtn Dew Rise Energy.

What was Mt Dew originally made for?

Mountain Dew was originally developed as a mixer for whiskey – Shutterstock Mountain Dew soda was born in the foothills of the Smoky Mountains in Knoxville, Tennessee. Long before it became a soda, the term “mountain dew” was a nickname for moonshine, In the 1930s or ’40s (sources vary on the year), brothers Barney and Ally Hartman created a mixer to make whiskey taste better.

1. Noxville historian and author, Jack Neely, told WBIR that the brothers “originally only made it for themselves,” and their version didn’t have caffeine.
2. In Fizz: How Soda Shook Up the World, author Tristan Donovan goes on to explain that the brothers’ favorite bourbon mixer, a lemon-lime drink called Natural Set-Up, wasn’t available when they moved to Tennessee, so they decided to make their own.

The brothers jokingly named the beverage Mountain Dew after the term’s nickname, joking that it tasted just like moonshine when mixed with liquor. They put a Tennessee moonshiner on the logo and marketed the drink as a “zero-proof hillbilly moonshine that will tickle yer innards.” The pair expanded distribution outside Knoxville but sales stalled, and the company began to struggle after Barney Hartman tragically died of a heart attack.

What drink was Mountain Dew made for?

dean bertoncelj/Shutterstock Love it or hate it, there’s no denying that Mtn Dew is one of the most unique sodas on the market. With a high caffeine and sugar content, unusual flavoring, wildly artificial coloring, and a near cult-like fanbase of gamers and extreme sports enthusiasts, almost everyone has a strong opinion about the soft drink, but few people know how — or why — we were first invited to “do the dew.” Mtn Dew — formerly spelled Mountain Dew — was first obtained by PepsiCo in 1964 and was given its signature bright green coloring in 1974, according to Thrillist, but it wasn’t until the ’90s that it became the brand we’re all familiar with today.

Pepsi made the decision to make the polarizing drink the official soft drink of extreme sports and changed the spelling of the name before introducing new flavors in 2001, solidifying its reputation as a pseudo-energy drink, a reputation it would build on when Pepsi began marketing it to gamers. Since then, the brand has expanded its line to include a dozen flavors, including the new ” Legendary ” flavor coming exclusively to Buffalo Wild Wings.

But before it became the soft drink of choice for adrenaline junkies and online night owls, it had a very different origin — one that was far from a “soft” drink. According to Mtn Dew’s website, the formula was first developed in the 1940s in Tennessee by brothers Ally and Barney Hartman.

Did Mountain Dew used to have alcohol?

Mountain Dew was originally uncolored and lemon-lime flavored, used as a mixer with bourbon. The term “mountain dew” is also a nickname for moonshine. Credit. Photo illustration by Mike Belleme for The New York Times PepsiCo and Coca-Cola enter hard soda markets, causing concerns among regulators and researchers.

Published Feb.21, 2023 Updated Feb.23, 2023

JOHNSON CITY, Tenn. — On a quiet street corner, a sign marks the birthplace of a beverage behemoth: Here, in 1954, the Tri-City Beverage Corporation bottled its first case of Mountain Dew. The soda was originally uncolored and lemon-lime flavored, and its inventors used it as a mixer with bourbon.

• Mountain dew” is also a nickname for moonshine, which farmers sometimes processed from leftover crops.
• Labels on early soda bottles promised it was “specially blended in the traditional hillbilly style.” It wasn’t until after PepsiCo bought the company in 1964 and eventually built a global youth-oriented brand, one marketed by extreme sports athletes, that the soft drink left its Appalachian roots behind.

In a way, Mountain Dew came full-circle last year when PepsiCo turned the brand toward a new alcoholic beverage: Hard Mtn Dew. At a One Stop Wine and Spirits frequented by students from East Tennessee State University, the new 24-ounce cans are prominently displayed.

1. Although the brew bears little resemblance to its ancestor, its alcoholic content is “exactly what Mountain Dew is all about,” Charles Gordon Jr., owner of Tri-City Beverage, said.
2. Hard Mtn Dew reflects a major change in the alcohol industry, which for the last century mainly produced drinks categorized as beer, wine or spirits.

In recent years, those lines have blurred, and a fourth category of ready-to-drink beverages has emerged — hard seltzers and other flavored malt beverages, wine coolers and canned cocktails. Although these products differ in primary ingredients and how the alcohol is processed, all typically are flavored and packaged for casual consumption.

• This isn’t the first time a new type of alcoholic beverage exploded in popularity but some earlier fads were associated with single products like Zima, Smirnoff Ice or Four Loko.
• It’s only really in the last three to four years that it’s become a major category,” Nadine Sarwat, a beverage analyst at Bernstein Research, said.

Sales of hard seltzers and ready-to-drink canned cocktails were valued at nearly $10 billion in 2021 by the Grand View Research firm, which expects them to grow by double digits in coming years. And in a major shift, PepsiCo and Coca-Cola have debuted alcoholic products in the U.S.

market. In February, Monster Beverage, a maker of energy drinks, began rolling out its first line of alcoholic drinks called The Beast Unleashed. But as alcohol-related deaths in America reach record highs, regulators and public health experts are voicing concern that the new class of drinks and the expanding industry could alter how people buy and drink alcohol.

Some also expressed worry that the convenience of the new products could reverse the long-term decline in alcohol consumption by young people. And recent studies show that consuming even one alcoholic drink a day increases a person’s risk of cancer and heart disease.

1. Coca-Cola and Monster Beverage declined repeated requests for comment, and PepsiCo referred questions about products bearing its brands to the independent companies that it had licensed to manufacture and market them.
2. Pamela Trangenstein, a scientist with the alcohol research group at the Public Health Institute in California, recently supervised a study at college football games.

She described a sea of empty White Claw hard seltzer cans covering the floor of a student section at one stadium. “The carbonation and sugar content can make it taste like you aren’t drinking alcohol,” she said. Image The new product’s boozy content was “exactly what Mountain Dew is all about,” said Charles Gordon Jr., president and owner of Tri-City Beverage, which still makes Dr. Enuf soda but which sold Mountain Dew to PepsiCo in 1964. Credit. Mike Belleme for The New York Times Image Recognition of Mountain Dew’s birthplace in Johnson City, Tenn. Credit. Mike Belleme for The New York Times

What is the history of Mountain Dew and moonshine?

The Hillbilly Background – The term “mountain dew” was once a nickname for mountain-brewed moonshine during Prohibition times, and although there was never any alcohol in the Mountain Dew recipe, its ties to alcohol – and whiskey in particular – cannot be denied.

1. In the 1930s, brothers Barney and Ally Harman of Georgia moved to Knoxville, Tennessee and found they were unable to buy their favorite alcohol mixer, a lemon-lime soda called Natural Set Up, in their new location.
2. So they made their own.
3. The original Mountain Dew was designed to be mixed with whiskey, and it was a lemon-lime mixture not unlike Sprite.

And, there was no caffeine (today it has more than any other soda!). Although the Harman brothers initially made their creation to enjoy themselves, they decided to try to sell the beverage starting in 1932. They were not immediately successful. In 1946, Mountain Dew labels on the bottles were given a distinct hillbilly slant.