My First Mountain Dew

I heard stories from my mother about an uncle who nearly got in trouble during prohibition for making Mountain Dew. It seems that Granny Sanders begged the sheriff to give up looking for evidence against one of her sons because she was a widow and needed him to help provide for her. So Chal didn’t go to prison and the “worm”, hidden in the center post of the kitchen table was never found by the authorities. I think Uncle Chal decided to give up his lawless ways from that time on.

Of course, though that was an interesting true story, it has nothing to do with my first Mountain Dew. That happened in the mountains of West Virginia, and my story takes place much later on the flatlands of Western New York.

My cousin, Joe Savovic, rode a bicycle nearly a mile from his house to mine to tell me that the Pepsi Distributor near his house was introducing a new drink at a gas station on the corner of Erie and Niagara Falls Boulevard. They were selling it cheap. It was called Mountain Dew and was something like Sundrop, a locally sold drink that we liked.

Joe was always finding new things and would, several years later, introduce me to the Burger King Whopper. But that’s a different story, too.

I remember well, going to the gas station to buy this amazing new drink. It was in a 16 ounce green throw-away bottle. Sixteen ounces was good! Most drinks were in 12 ounce bottles that had to be returned for deposit. And the 4 more ounces made it an even better buy. I think the price was one dollar for twelve drinks, about 8 cents a piece. Of course, with inflation, that made it about 60 cents per drink in today’s money.

We struggled to get them home on our bikes and then I tried for the first time what my son today calls “the nectar of the gods”.

Yes, it was good, and so is the memory.  It began a lovefest that has lasted nearly 50 years.  But I suppose Uncle Chal would think that this Mountain Dew doesn’t have enough kick to really "tickle yore innards."