Making a brief stop in the middle of the night on route I-81, about 25 minutes south of the Virginia/Tennessee border, I found myself eagerly hunting down an energy drink at a convenience store. As much as they run my body down, Red Bull and Full Throttle truly have been my saviors on extensive overnight trips and prior to innumerable shows for which I’d traveled all day to perform.

While my eyes scanned the cases and sifted through the untold amount garbage (including that which I was after), one particular beverage caught my eye. Its squat green glass bottle and vintage-style thick styrofoam label stood out starkly against the sleek metal, atypical shapes and highly stylized colors and designs of the modern energy drinks. It was the name, though, that encouraged me to pick up this rogue bottle: Dr. Enuf.

Dr. Pepper is of course a common enough name, and even the Mr. Pibb name is not yet dead (though the drink is, having given way to Pibb Xtra), but I had simply never heard of Dr. Enuf.

On closer inspection, this oddball beverage became all the more interesting. Printed just below the Dr. Enuf name is their claim: the original energy booster - and there it was, right in the energy drink cooler case! By “original” they mean “since 1949″, but that certainly predates the Red Bulls of our day.

And an energy drink it is! The original (and in this case, the encountered) Dr. Enuf is loaded with sugars and caffeine as well as B-vitamins, while the herbal Dr. Enuf also has Ginseng and Guarana added. While it doesn’t pack quite the punch that some of the other disturbingly effective drinks have, there’s no denying that this truly is a very early example of an energy drink, marketed since its inception in the same manner as the current rash of trendy energy drinks.

Of course I had to buy one (for 99 cents no less!), and while at the counter speaking to the two night clerks I learned that Dr. Enuf is a distinctly Tennessee beverage and that it’s particularly popular with the local UPS drivers.

Little did I know that at that moment I was a mere 20 minutes from the Johnson City bottling and distribution plant of Tri-City Beverages, the original and only bottler of Dr. Enuf since its inception.

A great deal of interesting trivia has been gleaned as a result of this chance encounter. One of my favorites includes the novel marketing push that the bottler, Charles Gordon, executed upon the first release of the drink. From the Dr. Enuf website:

Gordon placed a full-page advertisement on the back page of the Johnson City Press Chronicle identical to the paper’s front page. he then paid carriers to fold the paper backward.

Also of note is that Dr. Enuf and Mountain Dew where originally both bottled by Tri-City Beverages. Mountain Dew was later sold to Pepsi, while Dr. Enuf was retained by the bottler.

And as with any medicinal-style drink, there are the snakeoil-style claims. Also from the Dr. Enuf website:

Early in its development, Dr. Enuf was reported to have several therapeutic effects, including the easing of stomach pains, relief from hangovers and a clearing of the mind.

and

the drink was thought to have the ability to relieve “untold misery” from aches and pains, stomach disturbances, and that tired run-down feeling. Even now, testimonial letters continue to fuel the legend.

These and other claims that I’ve read seem more reminiscent of the late 19th and early 20th century snake oil remedies than a 1949 soft drink.

While I’m personally tickled to see that Jolt Cola from the mid-80’s - at the time a rather niche beverage that was quite ubiquitous in my life during my programming days - is more popular than ever as a result of riding the energy drink wave and fine-tuning its image, it was a delight to run across the vintage-style Dr. Enuf bottle in a modern convenience store and to learn that it’s still thriving without having to sell its soul entirely.

NOTE: Unfortunately, due to air travel and scheduling, I wasn’t able to snap a good picture of the actual bottle that I picked up, which is currently stranded in Pennsylvania. The picture included with this entry doesn’t do the story justice, and as soon as I get my hands on the one that I procured I’ll pop a picture of it up here.

tags: dr. enuf, dr. pepper, energy drinks, full throttle, johnson city, jolt cola, mountain dew, mr. pibb, red bull, snake oil, tn, tri-city beverage

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 27th, 2007 at Feb 27, 07 | 9:53 pm and is filed under Just Noumenon Posts, Miscellaneous, Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.