As a person with a few connections to Utah, I’m familiar with the concept of a “Dirty Soda”. The foundation of this mocktail is adding half-and-half or creamer to a soda with some other flavored syrups of citrus accents. When I first heard the term it was a “Dirty Coke” and something that you would order at a Sonic Drive-In (Coca-Cola, creamer, coconut syrup, and lime). This later expanded to other sodas (Diet Coke, Dr Pepper, and Root Beer), and further grew with specialized soda restaurants like Swig and Sodalicious. Utah has a large concentration of members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (“Mormons”) who don’t consume coffee or alcohol as part of their religious practice. This probably explains why these sorts of beverage trends tend to originate there.

Coffee mate’s collaboration with Dr Pepper is an interesting main-stream experiment of the Dirty Soda idea. On one hand it makes a lot of sense…people are already using coffee creamer to make these mocktails and then adding other syrups. Why not make this easier? On the other hand, you now have a brand with “coffee” in the name selling something intended to be used in a soft drink. I plant myself firmly in the camp of encouraging this type of cross-brand collaboration. If people didn’t think like this then we wouldn’t have the miracle of the Doritos Locos Taco from Taco Bell. I applaud both Dr Pepper and Coffee mate for trying this.

Review

I’ve never had a Dirty Dr Pepper before, but I have had a Dirty Coke. I liked it. Coffee mate Dirty Soda is a non-dairy creamer with coconut cream and lime flavorings, but I didn’t see any evidence of actual coconut or lime in the ingredients list. While there were no instructions on the bottle, one serving was equal to 1 tablespoon which sounded like a good starting point to me. The creamer is shelf stable until opened and at 16 ounces runs a bit smaller than other Coffee mate products. The smell was decidedly tropical. Piña colada vibes.

As expected, the creamer was a welcome compliment to the darkly spiced Dr Pepper. I mostly tasted coconut, and if I was going to complain about anything it would be the subtleness of the lime flavor. For me, this is in the same family as an ice cream float, but not nearly as heavy. So, maybe an Italian soda, or even an Egg Cream. The splash of creamer and tropical flavors make the mainstream soda (Dr Pepper in this case) feel special, although it’s not something that I would gravitate to every time. For my purposes I would be happy with a single serving variety of this product in a small coffee creamer format…I just can’t see myself going through a whole bottle anytime soon.

So, it’s good, and at about $3 for the bottle it’s not a bad value. What I’d like to test is whether this product is close enough to a version made with either standard Coffee mate creamer plus fresh lime, or maybe even real coconut milk and fresh lime. If I get around to doing that head to head comparison then I’ll post an update. Until then, I’ll give this my recommendation. I found this bottle available on Target.com, but it looks like Kroger grocery stores are starting to stock it around the country as well.