Louisiana, Did You Know This Soda Was Meant to Mix With Whiskey?
When you live in Louisiana, no matter whether it's along I-20 in Ruston, Monroe, or Shreveport or whether you're deeper "in the bayou" along I-10 in Lake Charles, Lafayette, Baton Rouge, or New Orleans, you learn how to celebrate. We celebrate everything here in Louisiana. It's why so many folks come to visit us every year. And quite often we celebrate with a libation, cocktail, or barley-malt beverage.
I don't know whether I am easily amazed or easily amused. This fact just simply floored me. There is a popular soft drink that was invented for the sole purpose of mixing with whiskey. And to this day, I have never met anyone who endorses this mixture or has even tried it. Yet, the soft drink in question remains one of the more popular drinks in America.
About 85% of the adult population in America 18 years old and older drinks alcohol. I know the drinking age is supposed to be 21 but, let’s just be honest, want to?
For more than a few of us our alcohol of choice is whiskey or bourbon and to be honest I don’t know the difference between the variations. But I do know that if you drink enough of that brown-colored booze and you will be speaking a foreign language and in love with who or whatever is next to you.
If you don’t drink yours straight, you might choose a mixer.
There are certainly the classic mixers when it comes to enjoying Jack Daniels, Jim Beam, Wild Turkey, or your other favorites. Most of us will mix with Coke, Sprite, 7-Up, or a Diet Coke or Coke Zero. Okay, I think we've listed the most common mixers for whiskey yet, we still haven't arrived at the soft drink that was created specifically to go with brown booze.
That soft drink is none other than the toast of the skateboard and gaming community, Mountain Dew.
White Lightning, Moonshine, or homemade liquor also has another nickname. That name is Mountain Dew. The same as the popular soft drink. Here is its unlikely story of how Mountain Dew went 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".
Through the years Moutain Dew has "evolved" from its original flavor. I really like their Code Red that was popular a few years back. But with the variety of flavors, I could actually see the soda pop being a valid mixer for cocktails. Just not whiskey cocktails.
So, have you tried Mountain Dew and Jack? Or let Wild Turkey "Do the Dew"? I doubt it. I guess if I was a drinker, I'd probably opt to plop my Mountain Dew in a nice spiced rum. I bet Captain Morgan would know what to do with a Mountain Dew.
If you're up for an experiment this weekend, why don't you give it a try and let us know how it tasted. Hopefully, you'll only taste it going down and not coming back up.
Now for you folks that need a blender to get "right".