Give Your Dr Pepper The Fall Upgrade It Deserves With A Creamy Topping

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Fall is a season with its own flavor profile; one so delicious you want to drink it up while you can. Baking spices, pumpkin, maple syrup, brown sugar, honey, and apple are all things that come to mind; they're warm, cozy, and sweet in a complex, rounded way. Typically, the way to savor such flavors requires a cocktail, coffee, or tea. But recently, a new option has joined the mix thanks to the explosion of dirty sodas, or sodas topped with cream, syrup, or juice to introduce new flavor and texture. Dr Pepper is a popular dirty soda base, and it's especially perfect for a fall treat like a salted maple whipped Dr Pepper.

This simple and scrumptious recipe comes courtesy of TikTok-er @amandamae_home. All you need is a frother, maple syrup, heavy cream, sea salt, and Dr Pepper. First you combine 1½ tablespoons of the syrup with 5 tablespoons of the cream and a pinch of salt and froth it into a velvety cloud. Then pour your soda into a glass over ice — about 10 ounces gives you a good soda-to-topping ratio — and crown it with your DIY cold foam. A sprinkle of nutmeg or cinnamon really amplifies all those lovely aromas. You could also perfect this beverage with the cinnamon-sugar rim fall drinks deserve.

This fall-focused Dr Pepper upgrade is a fun way to explore not only the dirty soda trend but the flavored cold foam trend, too, something usually only available to coffee drinkers. While the true flavor of Dr Pepper remains a relative mystery, its unique bouquet of spice and fruit notes makes it the best soda for reinventing with autumnal additions.

The same TikTok-er, for example, also demonstrated a pumpkin pie variation using pumpkin spice syrup in place of maple syrup. You can start by playing with the soda base itself — we've ranked 11 different Dr Pepper varieties and your best options for a fall beverage include cream soda, cherry, and original. Dr Pepper & Cream Soda Zero Sugar further boosts the sweet, creamy character without adding sugar. 

The easiest way to play with different flavor profiles is to make your own flavored simple syrup: To one part sugar, one part water over heat, you can add vanilla, cinnamon, ginger, cloves, nutmeg, apple, or pumpkin. Or, use one of the best Monin flavored syrups, like tiramisu, toasted marshmallow, caramel apple butter, or spiced brown sugar. Drizzles of honey, maple syrup, or caramel are great toppings, as are sprinkles of spices or cinnamon sugar. You can also flavor your frothed cream with cocktail bitters like cherry bark vanilla, spiced cranberry, or black walnut, and garnish with sugared rims, cinnamon sticks, or apple slices.