Johnsonville Dr Pepper Inspired Sausage

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Oou_m_2MvM

By The Reckless Gastronome, Martin Peyruc

Reporter, Life News today

Greeting weary travelers, do you seek food enlightenment? Oh, you are here to see if I drop dead from eating weird stuff. Ok, I can work with that. To be honest I’m playing it a bit safe this article (I absolutely cannot eat another thing as repugnant as The Colonel’s Favorite Jellybeans, hey, editor this would be a great place to put a hyperlink, I know you can do it, I believe in you) and I found something that I think will be delightful (seriously those jellybeans were so bad I need food therapist to help me work through the horror and the trauma). There’s something about pork and soft drinks that works really well. In fact, my Irn-Bru Pulled Pork is a crowd favorite (Irn-Bru is a Scottish soda that I’m not even going to try to explain, but I can occasionally find on my expeditions to international grocery stores.)

I was originally going to do a brief (ha, I so consistently fail at being brief, I’m giving up, the article will be the length it turns out) history of Johnsonville sausages, the most successful and one of the largest sausage producers in the States. But honestly, it’s so straight forward and more importantly lacking in drama, I’m going to pivot (as if it was a couch being carried up a flight of stairs) and talk about Dr Pepper instead (so much for saving Dr Pepper as topic for some other flavored food that will invariably happen.)

Dr Pepper (it was Dr. Pepper originally, but proper punctuation went out in the ‘50s) was invented in 1885 (one year before Coca-Cola) by a young pharmacist by the name of Charles Alderton who worked at Morrison's Old Corner Drug Store in Waco, Texas. He realized that people were getting bored with existing flavors of beverages (pharmacist was a very different job back then) and created a blend of 23 flavors (which is why Dr Pepper is still sold with a 23 printed on its label.) These 23 ingredients are still kept secret, supposedly the recipe is kept in two separate bank vaults in Dallas, but they have refuted the rumor (that I previously believed) that prune juice is one of the ingredients. I was wondering why all these old companies always seem to have “secret” recipes, so I asked a friend who is a trademark law professor and she said that it’s because recipes are notoriously (yes, I’m making a notary pun) hard to patent and even then they only last twenty years before becoming fair game to everyone else, so “secret” recipes offered more protection for intellectual property. Also, in the ages before modern testing, it was a lot harder to figure out exact ratios for ingredients.

This proved to be immensely popular, and customers would frequently ask him to “shoot them a ‘Waco.’” Which meant something completely different in 1993 (oof, that may be a little too dark.) Morrison (the pharmacy owner) changed the name to Dr Pepper and here’s where history gets vague. There is no definitive answer on where the Dr Pepper name came from. Some rumors say it was the name of Alderton’s mentor, others claim it was a friend of Morrison’s and there even a rumor that it never had to do with a real person and it’s either just a play on “pep” or that it has something to do with pepsin which is a digestive enzyme (remember this is being sold by a drug store, so it’s not outlandish if they played up the medicinal properties.) Demand soon out-paced production, so Alderton and Morrison partnered with a local Ginger Ale company and then deciding he wasn’t interested in the business aspects, Alderton walked away. I couldn’t find any record if he regretted that decision, but if it was me, I would have a perfectly smooth, featureless visage with the eternal facepalming I would do.

Dr Pepper made its national debut at 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition alongside other famous inventions like hamburger and hot dog buns and the ice cream cone (handheld foods must have been a game changer). From there Dr Pepper spread like kudzu through the United States. They often played upon their status as separate category of beverage, neither cola, root beer, nor fruit-flavored soft drink (it’s a pepper soda along with Dublin Original and Mr. Pibb) claiming to be “the most misunderstood soft drink” and later “the most original soft drink ever in the whole wide world.” Then in the seventies they had a “hit” jingle with “Be a Pepper”, it was a bit before my time, but I remember it being big enough that it still got mentioned in the 1980’s. Of course, the good times couldn’t last forever, and to avoid closing the company it got sold and merged with several other companies like 7-Up and Snapple and finally purchased and merged with Keurig forming the Keurig Dr Pepper conglomerate, which is now the third largest beverage company in the States.

Product wise, they were fairly conservative with tie in products until the 1980’s like the Hubba Bubba gum (oh man, I just triggered a core memory of the gum with the gooey center, maybe I can order some… nope sold out on Amazon, curses). It wasn’t until the new millennium (yes, I know that it’s only been 26 years, but let me have some dramatic license) however that they started really experimenting with new flavors (other than diet, but I’m not counting that) with the failed Red Fusion (RIP 2004), cherry, strawberries and cream, creamy coconut, and my personal favorite blackberry, among others.

 Hmm, I feel like I’m forgetting something. Oh yeah! I’m supposed to be doing a sausage review. I really am the wurst (you can fight me on this one). So technically I’m reviewing two products, a pre-cooked smoked sausage and a raw sausage (that feels weird to say), but I think they have enough in common to warrant sharing a review. I prepared both on a propane grill, so I could taste the meat, not the heat. Also, while I photographed them on buns (hun), for the review I’m tasting them without bread and condiments. I’ll start with the smoked sausage. Its aroma is sweet and smokey, the casing has excellent snap, and the filling is finely ground, although not as uniform as a hot dog. It packs a lot of flavor into each bite, an excellent balance sweet, savory, and smokey. It almost reminds me of a miniature kielbasa, but sweeter and tangier. The fresh sausage on the other hand is a lot more subdued. It’s still sweeter than most dinner sausages, almost like a breakfast sausage (which are traditionally sweeter often having brown sugar or maple syrup) but still definitely savory. What it lacks in oomph though, is more than made up for with how juicy and tender it is. The meat is coarsely ground and would likely fall apart if it wasn’t for the firm almost crunchy skin. Naturally, this is reliant on not cooking them until they look like the concentrated evil at the end of Time Bandits, I pulled them from the grill at an internal temperature of 160°F (71°C) and allowed them to rest for at least 5 minutes. The big question I imagine you’re asking right now is “do they taste like Dr Pepper?” The answer is a resounding no, or maybe, or yes, but only if you squint really hard (not sure why squinting works, but it does). There are clearly some additional flavors at work, but I don’t think I would be able to identify it as Dr Pepper in a blind taste test. The packaging says they are “Dr Pepper inspired” and honestly that’s good enough.

I’m so glad I reviewed something tasty this time, let’s hope my good luck continues. I enjoy these so much, in fact, I’ve already purchased a couple of extra packs of both kinds to freeze for later. It turns out I’m a Pepper; wouldn’t you like to be a Pepper too?