Why Someone Just Tied The Knot With A Can Of Hard Mtn Dew

When William Shakespeare wrote, "The course of true love never did run smooth," he had obviously never heard of Mtn Dew. That wasn't the bard's fault, of course. By the time the brothers, Ally and Barney Hartman, unveiled the smooth-tasting soda – then called Mountain Dew – in Tennessee during the 1940s, per PepsiCo, Shakespeare had been dead for centuries.

To be fair, it took a while for the brand to make itself attractive to the masses. The brothers sold out to the Tip Corporation in the 1950s, Thrillist notes, before Pepsi (later PepsiCo) came calling in 1964. It was Pepsi that gave Mountain Dew a splash of orange flavor and its now iconic yellow-green coloring. By the 1970s America really had fallen in love with the brand. Of course, Mtn Dew, as the name was styled in the 1990s, was originally named after a colloquial term for moonshine, and was originally developed by the Harman brothers as a whiskey mixer. Thus it was always destined to pack an alcohol-laced punch.

As of 2022, it finally does, VinePair reports, thanks to a partnership between PepsiCo and The Boston Beer Company. The 5% alcohol by volume Hard Mtn Dew seltzer has already acquired a large following for its four flavors, and now someone has put a ring on one of them, proving that in at least one case (okay, one can), the course of true love really did run smooth.

According to Food & Wine, the recent ceremony at a Las Vegas wedding chapel between an Indiana man, Thomas Rank, and a can of original flavor Hard Mtn Dew was really just a marketing ploy to help promote the fledgling hard seltzer brand. Although it doesn't have any legal standing, the marriage ceremony at Little Vegas Chapel was certainly beautiful, and the happy couple plus a guest of honor are still going through with the honeymoon: a two-night stay in a Las Vegas hotel suite, and a "reception" style party at a popular Las Vegas nightclub, per a press release. Rank is also keeping the $1,000 dollars presented to him as a wedding gift.

The Boston Beer Company announced the "Hard Dew, I Do" marriage contest back in August, and the winner was determined by who could write the best love story, and craft the most creative proposal. Everyone of legal drinking age, regardless of gender, was eligible to enter. Rank won, but maybe Shakespeare was right after all. Food & Wine reports that the marriage is already on the rocks. Apparently, Rank is having an affair with another Hard Mtn Dew flavor: Black Cherry.