Approximately an hour and a half drive west of Ottawa will take you to the popular summer village of Westport, a quaint town nestled at the foot of Foley Mountain. Perhaps it was this mountain, or the fact it has always been a bustling summer tourist hub, that made it the place where Mountain Dew soda arrived in Canada with much fanfare in the year 1964.

Mountain Dew, a refreshing citrus drink that was originally formulated in the 1940s as a personal whisky mixer, hit American shelves in the 1950s but would not reach the Canadian market until 1964. “Mountain Dew” was the nickname for good ole Tennessee Moonshine, a name used by Barney and Ally Hartman, two brothers that bottled their own whisky mixer as they had trouble finding a suitable one they liked at the time. The Hartman brothers were traveling on a train and offered a fellow passenger a sample of their “Mountain Dew” mix who happened to be Charles Gordon, a soft drink promoter of “Dr. Enuf” brand elixir.

The Hartman brothers and Gordon then worked out a deal with the Tri-Cities Beverage Corporation to bottle and sell Mountain Dew in 1950. Sold regionally around Knoxville, Tennessee it wouldn’t be until 1961 that Mountain Dew was formally launched to a greater market when Tri-Cities was merged into the Tip Corporation. Then things really started to take off for Mountain Dew when Tip was purchased by Pepsi Cola, bringing it into their national and international distribution scope.

Under Pepsi, Mountain Dew was marketed as a “Hillbilly” drink and branded the bottles with a design and the motto “It’ll tickle you inards!”

It was in that year that Pepsi took over the Mountain Dew brand that it arrived in Canadian stores, and according to the Rideau District Museum, there was a free meal and Mountain Dew sample promotion at the local Westport department/grocery store called “Genge’s”…(now The Village Green) These wonderfully rich and pure photos capture that moment in time when Mountain Dew arrived…

People lined up down the street to get a taste of the exciting new soft drink that summer in 1964, it is unclear if this was the first time in Canada launch that was in Westport, or if it was a coordinated launch across the country, but an amazing photo collection exists of the Westport Mountain Dew launch.

Despite the similar appearance and taste to the American version, the Canadian version of Mountain Dew did not contain any caffeine due to regulations that restricted caffeine to only be used in dark-coloured soft drinks. These regulations imposed by Health Canada, meant that Mountain Dew being a non-dark citrus flavoured soda, could not contain any caffeine. That regulation was dropped in 2012 and now Canadian Mountain Dew contains caffeine.

The HillBilly motif of the 1964 Mountain Dew only lasted 5 years when the logo was re-designed to appeal to a younger, more hip generation, a classic logo and font design that lasted until 1996.

Whether or not Westport, Ontario was the official Canadian launch spot for Mountain Dew beneath Foley Mountain, the incredible collection of photos from the “Wing Collection” of the Rideau District Museum captures the excitement of that moment in time and offers a glimpse through the looking glass to hot, summer days of the past when ice cold drinks in glass bottles were the best thing to quench your thirst. And still are.

Andrew King, July 2025

SOURCES:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mountain_Dew

https://www.southernthing.com/mountain-dew-history-2646712730.html

I would like to personally thank the Rideau District Museum for their kind allowance of using the photos from their Wing Collection capturing “Mountain Dew Day” in Westport, Ontario in 1964. Link to their website below:

https://villageofwestport.ca/rideau-district-museum/