An innocent tweet by sports reporter Marcel Louis-Jacques erupted into a great discussion where people tried to describe the indescribable. “There’s an unnamed media member in here who has never had a Dr. Pepper and asked what it tastes like,” he tweeted.
“I have no idea how to describe it — how would y’all do it?” he asked.
Marcel Louis-Jacques covers the Miami Dolphins for ESPN and appears on NFL Live, SportsCenter, ESPN Radio, and more.
The question feels like a Zen koan such as “What is the sound of one hand clapping?” or “What do you call the world?”
The taste of Dr Pepper is hard to describe because there’s nothing quite like it. It has a hint of cherry. Maybe a little licorice. There’s definitely some allspice in there. It’s tough to describe because it’s a combination of 23 different flavors.
It’s believed that the actual 23 flavors are a trade secret and the recipe is kept as two halves in safe deposit boxes in two separate Dallas banks.
It was created in the 1880s by pharmacist Charles Alderton in Waco, Texas and was introduced nationally in the United States at the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition as a new kind of soda pop. Dr Pepper has been around for over 130 years and the flavor has yet to be duplicated. Mr. Pibb comes close, but it doesn’t quite have the same magic.
There are a lot of creative responses to the tweet with people doing their best to put flavor into words.
