Mountain Dew… Did You Know?

Knoxville has been my home. I am a native. I didn’t move here late in life or late in childhood. I am a local. If I ever knew this little tidbit, I didn’t remember it. However, the Vols fumbled and Cal scored. The TV is on in the office and I am surfing the net and ran across (WE JUST SCORED, I will keep blogging) this historical (we have tied it up) nugget about Knoxville and Mountain Dew.

“The rumors are true. Mountain Dew was born way back in the hills of Tennessee in the 1940s. The name Mountain Dew was first trademarked by two brothers, Barney and Ally Hartman, who ran a bottling plant in Knoxville. The Hartman’s Mountain Dew, however, was a lemon-lime drink used as a mixer with whiskey.” Source here.

I have certainly drank my fair share of Mountain Dew, never as a mixer with whiskey. However, now in my later years I have developed into a Diet Mountain Dew guy.

It seems Knoxville started it, but Johnson City perfected it. Seems appropriate since Appy State in Boone, NC just a short drive from Johnson City beat Michigan today.

Here is the remaining history of Mountain Dew.

The first sketches of Willy the Hillbilly that adorned the Mountain Dew bottle were created in 1948 by John Brichetto. Tri-City Beverage in Johnson City became the first Mountain Dew franchise in 1954. Bill Bridgforth, who joined Tri-City Beverage in 1958 as plant manager, is credited with perfecting the flavor of Mountain Dew as we know it today.

The old red-and-white labels feature a hillbilly shooting at a revenuer fleeing an outhouse with a pig sitting in the corner. Under the Mountain Dew lettering on the bottle, there are names of individual bottlers, sellers, and towns. The names on the bottles are intended to make the product feel like the illegally made liquor cooked up in mountain stills.In fact, the name Mountain Dew is slang for “moonshine.”

Let’s go get some Mountain Dew! It’ll tickle your innards!