What is the origin of the name "Mountain Dew"?

john_sunseri

"Ally and Barney Hartman ran a bottling plane in Knoxville, Tennessee. They began bottling a lithiated-lemon drink as a personal mixer for hard-liquor. The flavor was similar to 'lemon-lime soda'. They jokingly called the drink "Mountain Dew" after Tennessee Mountain Moonshine". http://www.mountaindew.com/#timeline.php Jan 23 10, 5:18 PM

Baloo55th

Dew is condensed water vapour from the air - a sort of natural distillation process. In mountainous areas, the term mountain dew was applied to the distillation of spirits such as whiskey or poitin. This could be referred to in conversation without the forces of the law realising what was going on. (It's amazing how ignorant the law is supposed to be...) I can't check on the date of the Hartmans (because the site quoted is one of those stupid ones that insists on using Flash - and Baloo refuses to update to Macropedia Flash 10 or whatever on the grounds that it is quite unnecessary). The term mountain dew is found in 1882 in Ireland - see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rare_Old_Mountain_Dew Jan 24 10, 7:45 AM

Baloo55th

The Hartmans followed prior marketing in Knoxville and Johnson City in the 1940s. Now produced by Pepsico. It's a big selling brand in the US, but was dropped after 2 years in the UK. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mountain_Dew Jan 24 10, 7:51 AM