During the early 1880s, Atlanta druggist John Stith Pemberton experimented with various beverages to be used for medicinal purpose.
Coca was touted in Europe as a great elixir and its sue increased between the 16th and 19th century. In 1855 the German chemist Friedrich Gaedcke succeeded in isolating the active ingredient in coca leaves.
Vin Mariani, a coca wine developed in Europe, had introduced in the United States, by the 1880s, it was of the most popular patent medicines in Europe and the United States. Its market success exceeded all expectations.
Vin Mariani was concocted by the chemist Angelo Mariani in 1863. Mariani’s Bordeaux mixture used coca leaves.
Pemberton tried to clone it. In 1884 he produced and sold Pemberton’s ‘French Wine Coca’. Pemberton advertised his coca wine as a curative for nervous disorders, digestive disturbance, and impotency, His coca preparation sold well, especially in his hometown of Atlanta but he discontinued making it the following year when Atlanta passed temperance legislation preventing the manufacturing or sale of alcohol in the city.
Reacting to temperance movement, Pemberton went back to the drawing board and in 1886 he came up with a new medicine consisting of coca leaves and kola nut extract sugar and other ingredients. Pemberton sought to produce a nonalcoholic version of his beverage.
The result was a syrup that he called Coca-Cola. Coca-Cola was given its name in 1885, and was marketed as a tonic for most common ailments, based on the two medicinal main ingredients which consisted of extracts of Coca leaves and Kola nuts.
The original formula did include coca derivatives such as cocaine, which at the time were neither illegal unusual for patent medicines.
The exact amount of cocaine that was used in the original recipe is not certain, but only after a few years the amount was dropped considerably. Pemberton considered it a cure for headaches and for morphine addiction, and he sold it as a medicine in drugstores.
The label for Coca-Cola syrup claimed that it was an exhilarating fountain drink as well as a cure for nervous disorders, including sick headaches, neuralgia, hysteria and melancholy.
Pemberton’s health failed in 1887 and he sold his business to Willis Venable, who mixed the Coca-Cola with soda water and served it as a “brain tonic and intellectual soda fountain beverage.”
In the same year, Asa Chandler purchased an interest in Coca-Cola and ultimately acquired 100% interest for a total investment of $2,300. Candler then patented the Coca-Cola formula, which has remained a closely guarded secret.
Coca-Cola Formula
