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When you think of warm winter beverages, hot chocolate and mulled wine might come to mind.
But what about hot Dr. Pepper?
The soda — typically served over ice — has become the hottest hot drink of this festive season, according to trendsetting TikTokkers.
On social media, the warmed soda has become a viral sensation, with content creators trying out the beverage.
One user, who goes by Morgan Chomps, posted a tutorial showing users how to make hot Dr. Pepper, emptying a two-liter bottle of the pop into her crockpot and adding sliced lemons.
“This is soda on a whole ‘nother level,” she declared in the video posted last month.
She recommended heating the Dr. Pepper so that it is slightly simmering but not boiling, before fresh lemon slices. In a separate clip, she revealed the “lazy” way to make hot Dr. Pepper: microwaving a mug full of the stuff and adding in a sprinkle of crystallized lemon.
While critics stewed in the comments, saying that the drink “sounds disgusting,” Morgan insisted that it is, in fact, “delicious.”
“The spices of Dr. Pepper really work well as a hot drink,” she explained while sipping the holiday libation, which becomes flat when warmed. “And the lemon just brings it all home.”
But while beverage might be in style, it’s not necessarily a new phenomenon.
“I always remembered the mom in ‘Blast From the Past’ putting Dr. Pepper on the stove. It must’ve been a thing from the 60’s,” one user commented.
“Been drinking this since the ’70s,” said another.
Adverts published in the ’60s promote the heated beverage, too.
One 1964 ad posted to Instagram promotes the warm soda as a “happy holiday idea” that is “devilishly different.” It also suggests adding a “dash of rum” to try “something special.”
In another ad posted on Reddit, the drink is said to be “also delicious served steaming hot.”
“I knew a guy in college who had a hot pot in his dorm room just to make this,” one Redditor commented. “All these years I thought he was uniquely weird!”
“I quite like it myself. Heating it seems to make it taste more like the almondy-amereto-spicy side as opposed to just being sweet and fizzy,” described another.
Meanwhile, Dr. Pepper fanatics have also experimented with “Dr. Pepper egg nog” — a stomach-churning combination of the spicy-sweet soda and traditional egg nog — which bears resemblance to the viral “dirty soda” and “protein soda” trends that soared to popularity earlier this year.
