History of Coca-Cola

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 He originally made the recipe as an alcoholic beverage mixed with coca, kola nut, and damiana with its purpose being to help people feel better.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.