To many people, Dr Pepper tastes as if it contains prune juice.* For years, various sources (including the manufacturers of Dr Pepper) have said that it does not. But that contradiction provokes a question of why to so many people Dr Pepper tastes as if it does. Yet try searching on-line for the answer. Try searching on-line even for the question. One source after another tells us that it doesn't contain prune juice; none seems to explain why (to so many people) it tastes as if it does. None seems even to wonder.

I don't know the answer. But I do know that one of the flavorings in Dr Pepper is … plum. Yeah, that's the fruit that, if dried, becomes a prune. (In fact, some sellers of prunes label them as dried plums, because people have negative associations with prune.) I don't know why the manufacturer doesn't add something such as but does contain plum flavoring to the declarations that Dr Pepper does not contain prune juice. (Side payments from sellers of dried plums seem an unlikely explanation for the silence.)

But the plum may not actually explain the reported flavor like that of prune juice. There are many flavoring agents in Dr Pepper, including apricot and blackberry, and perhaps some of these would in combination still produce the taste of prune juice even were the plum omitted.

*Of course, sensitivity to various chemicals varies across persons, and some individuals might be familiar with tastes for prune juice and for Dr Pepper such that they didn't think that the latter were as if it contained any of the former.

Dr Pepper Snapple Group has been promoting Dr Pepper with a sweepstakes. Entry codes are obtained from bottle caps or packages. The promotion claims 1 in 6 WINS!.

The Woman of Interest has ostensibly won five times, but the award has each time been an advertisement — two Dr Pepper screensavers and three Dr Pepper wallpaper graphics.

Which brings me to СУП.

As previously noted, they are eliminating Basic Accounts, under the pretense of responding to popular demand. Basic Accounts will be replaced with accounts such that advertising is to be presented to holders or to visitors, though the precise details might not yet be decided.

Perhaps СУП should copy a page from the Dr Pepper Snapple Group playbook! СУП just needs to stop referring to these advertisements as such, and start calling them prizes!

G_d knows that lots of LJ members would thank mustela prima for the bounty.