The words Mountain Dew immediately conjure up the image of the highly-caffeinated fluorescent yellow soft drink consumed by video gamers and Kentuckians. But the term "mountain dew" was around a long, long time before the soda was launched in the late 1940s. It meant illegal corn liquor, or moonshine. Except in the British Isles, where it was the name of two brands of Scotch whisky. The makers of the carbonated soft drink Mountain Dew dealt with some confusion between their drink and moonshine to the point where a raid was conducted on a Mom-and-Pop business that was distributing legitimate Mountain Dew syrup in 1951. There was even talk of changing Mountain Dew's name to avoid the mistake.
However, when Pepsi bought Mountain Dew in 1964, the company went whole hog in embracing the soft drink's hillbilly roots and the name that evoked high-octane homemade liquor. That advertising built a juggernaut out of the soda pop. Read how that happened at Mel magazine.
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A song about the original non-soda drink..
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ok Boomer.
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Thats actually fascinating to me, the bit about Kentucky refrigerators full of Mountain Dew. People drink it here in Louisiana, sure, but it's usually at about the same clip as everything else. When we stock the coolers at my job, we tend to put about the same amount of Coke, Pepsi, Mnt Dew, Diet Coke, Fanta, Dasani/Smart Water, Root Beer, Dr Pepper, etc.
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In 1965, I participated in a taste test between Mountain Dew and Kickapoo Joy Juice, which was exciting because I was just a little kid, and the names of both products were funny. But I couldn't tell any difference between them. My parents never bought soda, so I wasn't used to carbonation at all.
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If you stop at a convenience store in Kentucky, and they have seven refrigerated units, five of them will be filled with Mountain Dew, one will have Coke and Pepsi, and one will have everything else.
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