The 2-Ingredient Maple Dirty Soda That You'll Want To Make All Fall Long
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Homemade dirty sodas are TikTok's favorite mocktail, and there's a new trending recipe just in time for fall. Just two ingredients will elevate your glass of Dr Pepper for the autumn season: heavy whipping cream and maple syrup. To make this dirty soda, pour your Dr Pepper over ice as usual. Then, whip together the cream and maple syrup in a small bowl with a handheld frother before placing a dollop onto the soda. (You can find a frother for cheap at Ikea or Amazon, such as the Zulay Kitchen Milk Frother Wand.) If you're feeling extra festive, add a bit of sea salt or nutmeg to the cream mix.
What makes Dr Pepper the perfect choice for an autumnal dirty soda is the hint of cinnamon, almond, clove, molasses, ginger, and vanilla that fans speculate to be included in the drink's mysterious 23-flavor mix. After all, the beloved pumpkin spice latte also contains a blend of cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, and cloves, and it's become the definitive fall beverage.
Where did the dirty soda trend come from?
I'm late to the dirty soda trend. In fact, I hadn't even heard the phrase "dirty soda" until early 2025, when a dirty soda shop opened in my city. Despite the popularity of dirty soda recipes on TikTok, the app didn't start the trend — it merely revived a trend with Mormon roots that began as early as 2010.
A Mormon health code, known as the "Word of Wisdom," cautions followers not to consume coffee, tea, or alcohol. But the need for a fun beverage is universal, so while much of the rest of the country enjoys coffee runs by morning and bar hangouts by night, the Latter Day Saints community of Utah goes to soda shops. To prevent FOMO in her community, Mormon mom Nicole Tanner opened a custom soda shop called Swig in Utah in 2010. She trademarked the name "dirty soda" after one of the original menu items, the "Dirty Dr Pepper," which was simply Dr Pepper and coconut syrup, similar to a summery Italian soda mocktail. This led to the popularity of the "original" dirty soda — which was supposedly a mix of Diet Coke, coconut syrup, lime juice, and half-and-half — as well as other concoctions, like the whipped maple Dr Pepper.