ENTERTAINMENT
Why are people putting pickles in Dr Pepper? The TikToker who started the social media viral trend
The latest craze is a rehashing of an old offering by a southern institution, brought to the fore by a Memaw from Mississippi.
There are tons of local and weird concoctions that can’t be explained or dismissed from all over the country. As a child in the 1970s and 80s, the best treat in the world was a small order of salty fries in a chocolate shake from McDonalds. Years later, anyone from outside of my southern Louisiana world would recoil in horror at the idea. But we loved it.
The latest craze that is sweeping the country is what appears to be another local staple, this time from Mississippi, that seems to have been re-ignited by a TikToker named @mississippimemaw. Again, it involves another southern fast food institution, Sonic Drive-In, and involves putting pickles into a Dr Pepper. But while Mississippi Memaw may have popularized it, she is insistent that she did not invent the concoction.
“It has been around for a long time,” said Memaw. “I’m not gatekeeping it and I didn’t invent it.” She adds that she first discovered the drink roughly nine years ago when her daughter asked her to pick one up from Sonic. “My daughter at the time was 16. She’s 25 now, and she’s the one that got me to try it for the very first time.”
To back this up, there is a Redditor who posted about the drink in 2021, Texas-based What-A-Burger offer a drink that mixes the flavors of Dr Pepper, lemon, and pickle juice, and even Sonic has historically offered a pickle-flavored slushie in the past.
Fast forward and Memaw’s TikTok video of the drink has gone viral with over 3.8 million views and has brought what appears to be a regional taste to national attention.
Here is the original video posted by @mississippimemaw.
“Don’t knock it till you try it,” says Memaw. “If you like pickles and you like Dr Pepper, and you’re probably like ‘Ew gross, I would never ever drink that,’ but there’s a lot of people that do drink this.”
And in case you were wondering how regular this is, Memaw adds, “Did you hear her, the way she took my order? I’m not the only person that’s ever ordered this, babe.”