7. The tonic which became a well-known carbonated soft drink around the world
John Stith Pemberton created a tonic in the 1860s. He used a wine extracted from coca leaves, kola nuts, and other ingredients to concoct a tonic which included alcohol, caffeine, and cocaine. That it served as a stimulant is unsurprising. Pemberton called the tonic Pemberton’s French Wine Coca. According to Pemberton the tonic cured headache, stomach ache, fatigue, constipation, morphine addiction and several other ailments. He sold the tonic through his drugstore and mail order. Among his customers was former US President Ulysses S. Grant, who used it to treat his terminal throat cancer in the 1880s. In 1886, the Temperance movement succeeded in gaining legislation banning alcohol in Fulton County, Georgia, which included Atlanta. Pemberton was forced to remove the alcohol from his tonic. He needed to find a way to adapt to the new law while retaining his tonic’s wondrous powers.
The introduction of carbonated water to the tonic’s base preparation was an accident and changed Pemberton’s marketing plan. The new product, still containing cocaine and caffeine, became a beverage sold at soda fountains. A partner, Frank Mason Robinson, dubbed the new syrup Coca-Cola. Cocaine remained an ingredient in the beverage until the early 20th century. After its removal, extract of coca leaves remained a flavoring ingredient. Robinson developed the early advertising for the product, and the famed cursive logo was based on Pemberton writing the name in his own hand. Coca-Cola took advantage of the steadily growing dry faction in the United States, and marketed itself as a temperance drink, even while it continued to contain cocaine. Its famed logos, both Coca-Cola and Coke, are routinely listed as among the most well-known in the world.