I had one more word play to use with my Dr Pepper experiments. You might think this is…corny…but when I considered what Dr Peppercorn would taste like I had immediate inspiration. Rather than muddling straight Dr. Pepper with peppercorns I wanted to more subtly infuse those flavors into the drink. To do that I made a tea of both Black Tellicherry and Szechuan peppercorns, froze that into a spherical ice cube, and then poured the soda on top. I added a fresh crack of black pepper on top for good measure.

While it’s not a complicated mocktail, the infused ice cube did gradually provide more and more spicy pepper notes to the drink. What was really fun about it was that the flavor kept changing over time as the concentration of melted pepper tea overcame the level of Dr Pepper in the glass. Black Tellicherry peppercorns are your more common variety and pack a fair amount of spice and perfume. The Szeuchuan peppercorns have more of a mouth numbing property (málà). It call still tasted like Dr Pepper, but more aromatic. My wife thought that the second half of the glass was too bitter, so maybe adding a bit of sugar to the ice cube would have been a good move.

Do I recommend doing this? Not really. The concept of infused ice cubes is great, but it would be better utilized with a more nuanced mocktail to begin with. It’s fine, but not worth the trouble for just a can of Dr Pepper. Follow this link to other Dr Pepper creations, including the Dr Pepperoni, Dr Pepper with Pickles, and Dirty Dr Pepper.