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A tombstone in a Tennessee cemetery has some wondering just how much the deceased enjoyed drinking Mountain Dew.
It’s even got a working bottle opener in case visitors want to have a drink while paying their respects.
Why Is There A Mountain Dew Headstone?
No, it isn’t there to mark the grave of the biggest Mountain Dew drinker in all of Tennessee.
In the middle of Johnson City sits the Oak Hill Cemetery. It’s a quaint burial area surrounded by large iron gates that look like they are straight out of a movie.
The headstones around the Oak Hill Cemetery are what you’d expect. Some ornate and others fairly basic as likely requested by the deceased.
Among the burial plots is a rather large vertical-standing headstone shaped like a large bottle of Mountain Dew.
“Ticklin’ my innards from Mar. 1969-,” the grave marker reads.
The six-foot-tall headstone was put in the cemetery to honor Johnson City as the “home of Mountain Dew.”
The Somewhat Boozy History Of Mountain Dew
The origin story and name behind one of America’s favorite sodas has a rather boozy past.
Atlas Obscura recently told the story of brothers Ally and Barney Hartman who moved from Georgia to Tennessee to run a Pepsi-Cola bottling plant. Mountain Dew had yet to be invented before the brothers took over.
According to the report, the two wanted something with a lemon-lime taste to mix with their whiskey. The end result was what would eventually become Mountain Dew.
It would take a few years to catch on. Thrillist says the brothers tried out several slogans, including “it’ll tickle yore innards,” in an attempt to generate buzz.
Lemonade was added to the original lemon and lime recipe before Pepsi finally showed interest in purchasing the early version of Mountain Dew. According to Thrillist, it was Pepsi that would go on to add some orange flavoring and the green color that we see today.
Pepsi also was quick to jettison the branding, including anything mentioning “ticklin'” or “innards.” They did, however, keep the Mountain Dew name, which turns out to be an old nickname for moonshine.
READ MORE: You Probably Don’t Know The Odd Meaning Behind Pepsi’s Name
“Maybe it was the booze-related confidence, maybe they really believed in the stuff, but Barney and Ally weren’t deterred by rejection,” Thrillist says.
Despite the six-foot tombstone, there is some debate over which Tennessee city can claim themselves the “birthplace of Mountain Dew.”
Knoxville also says it’s the “birthplace” of the soda while Johnson City is where Mountain Dew was first sold.
Only one of the cities has a proper Mountain Dew gravesite.
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