Many Americans drink soda often, sometimes even on a day to day basis. Although there are many types of soft drinks available today, Coca-Cola stands out as one of the oldest and most reputable soft drinks. Coca-Cola is a type of carbonated soft drink that is sold in stores, restaurants, and vending machines in over two hundred countries. Where did this popular drink come from? How was it started, and how did it become so popular? The drink actually has a very long and peculiar history that will surprise anyone interested enough to research it.

Coca-Cola began its history in the late 19th Century. The original recipe was developed by a pharmacist named John Slyth Pemberton. He originally made the recipe as an alcoholic beverage mixed with coca, kola nut, and damiana with its purpose being to help people feel better. People were to have one teaspoon of it, and then drink a glass of water. Pemberton originally called his syrup ‘Pemberton’s French Wine Coca’. Pemberton most likely got the idea from Angelo Mairani’s blend of Bordeaux wine and coca which he called Vin Mairani. Pemberton marketed his solution mostly to upper class intellectuals, and claimed astounding medical results for it, saying that it cured nerve trouble, dyspepsia, mental and physical exhaustion, gastric irritability, wasting diseases, constipation, headache, neurasthenia, and impotence. It was even suggested as a cure for morphine addiction. However, in 1885, Atlanta and Fulton county enacted temperance legislation and Pemberton was forced to create a non-alcoholic version of his medicine, which was already fairly popular. So Pemberton created a non-alcoholic version of the French Wine Coca, using carbonated water instead. It was then that Pemberton’s bookkeeper Frank Robinson suggested the name Coca-Cola. Robinson also had excellent penmanship, and it was he who first scripted “Coca-Cola” into the flowing letters that make up its famous logo today. Coca-Cola, the soft drink form of the French Wine Coca, was first sold in Jacob’s Pharmacy in Atlanta, Georgia on May 8, 1886 for five cents a glass. Pemberton was only able to sell about nine glasses a day for the first eight months, and so his earnings that year only came out to fifty dollars, while his expenses were over seventy. And so, in 1887, Pemberton sold Coca-Cola to Asa Candler for twenty-three hundred dollars because he was in poor health and was largely in debt. A year later, Pemberton sold the rights to Coca-Cola again to four more businessmen because of an ongoing morphine addiction. At the same time, Pemberton’s son Charley Pemberton began selling his own version of Coca-Cola. To clear the confusion, Pemberton stated that the name of Coca-Cola belonged to his son, but the other two manufacturers could continue to use the formula.

In the summer of 1888 Candler began selling the beverage under the name of Yum Yum and Koke, both of which failed to catch on with the general public. So Candler purchased exclusive rights to use the formula from John Pemberton, and forced the other Coca-Cola competitors to stop. In 1892, Candler incorporated a second company, the Coca-Cola Company. and had the earliest records of the company burned, further ensuring his ownership and obscuring its legal origins. By the late 1890’s, Coke became one of America’s most popular fountain drinks, largely due to Candler’s aggressive marketing and advertising strategies. Between 1890 and 1900 the Coca-Cola Company had increased its sales by over 4000%. In 1899, Candler was persuaded to sell Coca-Cola’s bottling rights for one These businessmen divided up the country into territories and then sold bottling rights to local bottlers. By 1909, there were nearly 400 Coca-Cola bottling plants throughout the country.

In 1891, Candler claimed his Coca-Cola formula contained only a tenth of the amount of coca used in Pemberton’s formula which was five ounces. In 1903, even that was removed, and it was replaced in 1904 with “spent” coca leaves, which only have molecular traces of actual cocaine. To this day, Coca-cola uses an ingredient of a non-narcotic coca leaf extract prepared at a Stepan Company in Maywood, New Jersey. Stepan Company is the only manufacturing plant authorized by the Federal Government to import and process the coca plant.

Because of Coca-Cola’s success, there became many imitators. So in 1919, after the war and production restrictions were ended, lawyers of the Coca-Cola Company prosecuted brands such as Koke Company, Karo-Cola, Curo-Cola, Sola-Cola, Koka-Nola, and Taka-Cola. However, even today the Coca-Cola Company faces competition from emerging brands, especially in foreign countries where they have no legal jurisdiction. Coca-Cola’s biggest competitor is Pepsi, who almost over took them in 1985 because of Pepsi’s sweeter formula. The Coca-Cola Company changed Coca-Cola’s recipe to become sweeter, and regained its control. Today, the Coca-Cola Company often buys out new competitors, ensuring its dominance.

By the 1920s, there were already more than 1,000 Coca-Cola bottlers operating in the U.s. Six bottled cartons became a hit in 1923 and by the end of the 20s, bottled Coca-Cola sales had exceeded fountain sales. In the 1930s, the Coca-Cola Company began advertising on the radio and also introduced the Coke Santa as a Christmas promotion and it caught on. Also, the company began a major campaign with the goal of establishing bottling operations in foreign countries. Plants were opened in France, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Belgium, Italy, and South Africa. By the time World War II began, Coca-Cola was being bottled in 44 countries. During the war, 64 bottling plants had been opened up around the world to supply the troops with Coca-Cola. After the war, many of these plants were converted to civilian use, further establishing Coca-Cola in other countries.

In the 1950s, newer sizes and models of the traditional Coca-Cola bottle were introduced. Customers could now choose between the 6.5 Contour Bottle, or larger ones including 10, 12 and 26 ounce versions. Also introduced in the 50s was a canned version of Coca-Cola, intended for American military bases located ouside the U.S. With the onset of television, the Coca-Cola Company began to advertise on T.V. in addition to their radio advertisements. In the 1960s, new brands emerged such as Sprite, Fanta, Fresca, and TAB. In 1960, Candler introduced the twelve ounce Coke, which had originally only been used outside the U.S., to local customers.

As technology in the 1970s and 80s led to a global economy, retail customers of the Coca-Cola Company merged and evolved into international mega-chains. Many small and medium-size bottler companies banded together in order to better serve giant international customers. In the early 1970’s, the Coca-Cola Company created a theme song called “I’d Like to Buy the World a Coke”. By the mid 1970s, more than half of all Coca-Cola sold was sold outside the U.S. In 1978, the Coca-Cola Company introduced the two liter bottle, as well as the plastic bottle. In 1979, the Coca-Cola Company and its fifteen hundred employees moved to the new corporate headquarters in Atlanta.

In the 1980s, the Coca-Cola Company began testing people to see if they liked Coca-Cola or Pepsi better when blindfolded. They noticed that a lot more people liked the sweeter tasting Pepsi, so on April 23, 1985, the Coca-Cola company announced that they would change Coca-Cola to make it taste sweeter. Within six weeks of the announcement, the Coca-Cola Company’s 800 number was jammed with six thousand calls a day. They also received forty thousand letters, which were all answered with a coupon for the new Coke. After their market share fell from 15% to 1.5%, the Coca-Cola Company decided to revive the old Coke. So, eighty-seven days after the new Coke was introduced, the old Coke, titled Coca-Cola Classic, was brought back in addition to the new one. The 1980s also saw the addition of Diet Coke, which was hailed as the most successful product launch of the decade, despite its trouble during the 1985 change.

Political and economic changes in the 90s opened markets that had be undeveloped for decades. After the Berlin Wall fell, the Coca-Cola Company began to invest heavily in building plants in Easter Europe. 1.5 billion dollars were committed to building bottling facilities in Africa. In 1992, the “New Coke” was renamed “Coke II”, but its market shared continued to dwindle. By 1998, the sweeter Coke was sold only in a few places in the Midwestern U.S. In 1991, India changed its laws regarding trademarks, and Coca-Cola was allowed to be sold. In 1995, Coca-Cola sales exceeded $15 billion.

Today, in the 21st century, the Coca-Cola Company continues to expand and develop new products. In 2005, the Coca-Cola Company launched a Diet Coke product that is sweetened with the artificial sweetener sucralose “Slenda”, the same sweetener used in Pepsi One. It also made another diet product called Coca-Cola Zero. More recently, the Company has begun to sell a “healthy soda” called Diet Coke Plus with Vitamins B6, B12, Magnesium, Niacin, and Zinc. In 2007, in Canada, the Coca-Cola Company changed the “Coca-Cola Classic” back to “Coca-Cola” because the New Coke is no longer in production. The older, familiar formula remains unchanged to this day.