It may seem that I have a bias toward Coca-Cola, which may be true… All right, it’s true, but that is not without reason, as Coca-Cola is a personal favorite of mine for its intricate and distinctive flavor and fragrance, not to mention its colorful history that leaves you thirsty for more.
The history of Coca Cola is long and unique, spanning across nearly 140 years; it is believed that Coca-Cola is one of the first pops, or sodas if that is what you call it, to be invented in history, second only to Dr. Pepper. This effervescent beverage has even contributed toward boosting morale among troops during the world’s largest war. Let’s dive right into this tasty history.
A Timeless Beverage is Born
The year is 1885, a druggist by the name of John Stith Pemberton of Knoxville, Georgia, is experimenting with various painkillers and drugs, some of which have the capability of being quite toxic. Pemberton grabs some wine and combines it with Kola nuts, Damiana, and Coca leaves that contain a drug known as cocaine; once he mixes the ratio to his satisfaction, he samples this new blend. What could drive a man to such dangerous experimentation?
Approximately twenty years prior to this experimentation of a seeming madman, the Civil War was still waging. Lieutenant Colonel Pemberton was in Columbus, Georgia, engaged in fierce combat during what will be known as the Battle of Columbus. Pemberton and his fellow soldiers were fighting to defend the Confederate States from the Union campaign that had been piercing into the Confederacy, wandering through Alabama, and were attempting to breach into Georgia. The objective of this Union military operation was to destroy Confederate manufacturing facilities to effectively weaken their enemy. For Pemberton, the attack on Georgia may have been personal, as this was his home state.
At some point in the heat of battle, John Pemberton was struck by a saber and left almost mortally wounded. Though he survived the battle and recovered from his wounds, Pemberton had suffered chronic pain that he carried for the remainder of his life. He had also gained an addiction to morphine, which is a drug he had been given to medicate his chronic pain. Pemberton became yet another of the millions of under appreciated casualties of the ever consuming war between the states.
Pemberton is attempting to produce a nonaddictive pain reliever, a substitute for morphine, to ease his unceasing pain and to end his addiction. He is desperately clinging onto a hope that such a tonic is possible; maybe he can regain his grasp on life.
To his delight, this mixture worked; through much trial and error, Pemberton had finally invented a kind of medication that suited his needs. He then mixed this tonic with water so he could ingest it as a beverage, of which he became quite fond. The foundation for a world renowned beverage had been laid.
The Development of the Classic Beverage
A couple years had passed since Pemberton had invented the beverage that would secure his recognition in history, far above his military service; this beverage, originally sold as Pemberton’s French Wine Coca, became very popular in Atlanta, however, the city prohibited alcohol from 1886 to 1887. In response to the prohibition, Pemberton replaced the wine with a sugar syrup and coined the name Coca-Cola, referencing the Coca leaves and Kola nuts, to avoid mentioning wine in the name.
In January of 1888, in the city of Atlanta, Georgia, John Pemberton sold his recipe to Asa Candler for $238.98, which is $7,450.42 in 2022. Sadly, Months after the sale of his recipe, Pemberton succumbed to cancer. Druggists in Atlanta closed their stores and attended Pemberton’s funeral; not a single drop of Coca-Cola was dispensed from any fountain in the city on that day.
Proceeding Pemberton’s funeral, Candler continued to sell Coca-Cola as a fountain drink. Candler’s nephew advised him that selling the beverage in bottles may significantly increase sales, but Candler was apparently uninterested and dismissed the suggestion. Joseph Biedenharn of Vicksburg, Mississippi, bottled Coca-Cola in common, reusable bottles and sold them, after realizing the great potential. Biedenharn even sent Candler a case of the bottled Coca-Cola, but Candler stubbornly stuck with selling the beverage solely as a fountain drink.
Finally, after several years of failing to recognize the potential, Candler sold the bottling rights of Coca-Cola to two brothers from Chattanooga, Tennessee, for a single dollar, without collecting the entire dollar since he believed that bottling Coca-Cola would not draw in much revenue. Interestingly, Candler, lacking foresight, placed a rigid stipulation on the contract without an end date that remained until 1959: each bottle of Coca-Cola will be sold for five cents.
Bottled Coca-Cola was highly popular, though the distinctively designed, glass bottle was not invented until the year 1915 when the bottlers put out a call for a new design. They desired a bottle so distinctive that it could be recognized when in pieces on the ground, or even if felt in the dark, and it could be argued that they received such a design when a company from Terre Haute, Indiana, presented their design, which is still in use today.
Besides Coca-Cola’s ingredients and bottle, its logo has undergone some interesting development. The Coca-Cola logo was originally printed in a simple, typewriter style font, but about a year later, in 1887, Pemberton and his bookkeeper Frank Robinson redesigned the logo entirely; the 1887 redesign is still the foundation of the logo to this day, though several adaptations would occur over the years. There is information online about the historical logos of Coca-Cola; this website presents the logos nicely.
The most bizarre redesign of the Coca-Cola logo in my opinion is, overwhelmingly, the 1890 logo with its unnatural swirls; it is uncharacteristic for the company.
Though the logo of Coca-Cola would remain virtually unchanged from the 1887 version, one of the more notable of the minor changes would be designed in the early 1930s, and sold to Coca-Cola soon after, when the slant of the font was increased, among other minor adjustments. The man responsible for this adaptation that is the current logo is undisclosed by the Coca-Cola Company; this man is Les Kouba of Hutchinson, Minnesota. You can read more about his contribution to the Coca-Cola logo online, or on this post by the Tifton Grapevine.
Coca-Cola in World War Two
The production of Coca-Cola suffered a significant decline when the United States entered World War Two; cargo ships that used to import coca leaves from South America were instead transporting war supplies; Coca-Cola, along with every other company deemed nonessential to the war effort, was restricted on resources like sugar and glass. These events led to the price of a bottle of Coca-Cola to be raised from five to six cents, despite the still in effect rule placed by Candler that each bottle would be sold for five cents.
Regardless of the existing challenges, the Coca-Cola President Robert Woodruff, to show Coca-Cola’s sincere support of the troops fighting for liberty, made an order: to see that every man in uniform gets a bottle of Coca-Cola for five cents, wherever he is and whatever it costs the Company.
Having access to Coca-Cola was so important to the soldiers that the future US president and then Allied Supreme Commander General Dwight D. Eisenhower, who would go on to oversee much of Operation Overlord and the D-Day landings, requested from the Coca-Cola Company ten portable factories, six million bottles of Coca-Cola per month, and the materials and resources to provide the soldiers with the beverage. Coca-Cola gladly accepted this immense task, and a representative of the company flew to Algeria to bring the plans into reality, effectively providing countless soldiers with Coca-Cola.
Coca-Cola in Modern Times
The Coca-Cola Company introduced New Coke in 1985, which was renamed Coke II in 1990. The company reformulated its original recipe to be more similar to the competing Pepsi under the impression that the American public preferred a taste more similar to their rival. This new flavor was not well received, to say the least, and even resulted in a drop of sales.
The Coca-Cola Company reintroduced their original recipe, the recipe that made their name known across the globe, rebranding the original flavor as Coca-Cola Classic. Coke II was discontinued in 2002.
In late 2021, the company revealed its new Coca-Cola creations platform, which released four new flavors this year: Starlight, Byte, Marshmello, and Dreamworld. I wrote a post for three of the four; Byte seemed to bypass me entirely during its availability in stores.
If you were concerned when hearing about the use of harmful chemicals in Pemberton’s experimentations, you can rest assured those chemicals were not in Coca-Cola’s original recipe, and the wine and cocaine have been removed from the recipe for many years now; the only thing to consider when consuming Coca-Cola, as with any pop, is the high sugar content.
What do you think about the history of Coca-Cola?
Onward American 🇺🇸
Source: John Pemberton Invents Coca-Cola
Source: Coca-Cola First Sold in Glass Bottles
Source: Coca-Cola Logo History
Source: Les Kouba Coca-Cola Logo Improvement
Onward American 