Dublin Dr Pepper is the popular name for the original recipe of Dr Pepper which is made using cane sugar as the sweetener, as opposed to newer high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) which is now the most commonly used sweetener.
During the late 1970s and early 1980s, almost all American soft drink bottlers switched from cane sugar to HFCS because of a rise in the price of sugar. However, the owner of Dublin Dr Pepper Bottling Company of Dublin, Texas refused to switch sweeteners, and it remains one of few bottlers in the United States to continue using cane sugar year round. Though the Dublin plant is not the only Dr Pepper bottler to use cane sugar vs. HFCS as the sweetener, the Dublin plant was the most well-known [1] not to make the change, carrying the Imperial Sugar logo and thus the cane sugar-based Dr Pepper variant became popularly known as "Dublin" Dr Pepper.
Franchise agreements limit the Dublin plant's distribution range to a 44-mile radius of Dublin, an area encompassing Stephenville, Tolar, Comanche and Hico. This restriction has never been lifted (though unconfirmed reports state otherwise); thus, the only way to purchase Dublin Dr Pepper is by coming to the Dublin area, ordering it online, or finding a store outside the area which sells "bootleg" Dublin Dr Pepper (product purchased in the area then taken outside the area; the plant in Dublin doesn't keep a record of who might sell it across Texas and beyond).
The Dublin plant is the nation's oldest Dr Pepper bottler, producing Dr Pepper continuously since 1891, six years after the soft drink's debut in Waco.[2] As the soft drink's first independently owned bottler, owner Sam Houston Prim was given first choice of franchises when franchising of Dr Pepper started in 1925 and could have claimed the entire state as a franchise, but chose instead to formalize his modest informal territory, which has remained unchanged.[3]
   | Old Doc's Soda Shop - Old Doc's Soda Shop, the source for Dublin Dr Pepper |
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