A History of the World in Six Glasses by Tom Standage

The official position of the firm, however, is that the drink does not and has never contained the drug. Folklore has it that the original beverage contained cocaine from the coca leaf, at least until the passage of the Pure Food and Drugs Act in 1906. From that moment a mystique over the supposed “secret formula” of Coca-Cola embodied in the aptly named “Merchandise 7X” has remained. He also registered the product’s famous script logo, and a marketing phenomenon was born. Robinson, coined and trademarked the name Coca-Cola, derived from its central ingredients. One of Pemberton’s four partners, Frank M. After relocating to Atlanta in 1869, Pemberton began to experiment extensively with extracts of the coca leaf and kola nut, initially marketing a moderately successful health drink called “French Wine Coca.” He first practiced his trade in Oglethorpe before moving to Columbus, where he operated as a druggist for fourteen years with various partners. Born in tiny Knoxville, Georgia, in 1831, Pemberton had trained at a college of herbal medicine before graduating from pharmacy school in Philadelphia. When John Stith Pemberton sold the first glass of his newly concocted drink in Atlanta’s Jacobs Pharmacy in 1886, he was entering an already established but localized market for soda fountain tonics that promised health benefits of one kind or another along with refreshment. Coca-Cola Santa Advertisement From Readers Digest December 1956, image shared by SenseiAlan Origins

A History of the World in Six Glasses by Tom Standage