Today Coca-Cola is quite simply a
behemoth. So popular is the brand
that after the word ‘okay’, ‘Coca-Cola’
is the second most widely understood
term in the world. To help put that into
perspective, here is a few additional facts
from a 2011 company brochure:
• f all the Coca-Cola ever produced
I
were to cascade down Niagara Falls
at its normal rate of 1.6 million gallons
per second, it would flow for nearly 83
hours.
• oke makes so many different
C
beverages that if you drank one per
day, it would take you over nine years
to try them all.
• f the world supply of Coke was
I
distributed only in the common 8 ounce
bottle, each person on earth, of all
ages, would receive 1,104 bottles each.
• oca-Cola’s USD$35.1 billion in annual
C
revenue makes it the 84th largest
economy in the world, just ahead of
Costa Rica.
[Early advert for
Pemberton’s
tonic. The
Anderson
Intelligencer,
March 11, 1886
– courtesy
of Library of
Congress
Archives]
Beginning
its reign in
1885, the refreshing
Coke we know and love today began
as a tonic closer resembling a vermouth
than a soda pop. Branded a French
Wine Coca Nerve Tonic the recipe and
branding were patented to a wounded
Civil War vet by the name of Colonel
John Pemberton. Initially created as a
means to compete with another French
wine coca tonic called Vin Mariani,
Pemberton went one step further by
adding bitter, caffeinated kola nuts
from West Africa. Despite Vin Mariani’s
endorsement by three popes, two
presidents, Thomas Edison (the light bulb
guy) and even Queen Victoria, it would
be Pemberton’s tonic and not Mariani’s
which would evolve into a super brand
selling an 1.8 billion servings every day
in every country throughout the world
except Cuba and North Korea – and
those only due to trade embargoes with
the US.
Coke’s first step away from an alcoholic
tonic and into soda pop came about
not by choice but by legislative
circumstance. In 1886, Pemberton’s
home city of Atlanta, Georgia passed a
short lived prohibition law criminalising
alcohol and causing him to re-examine
his secret formula. After making the
necessary adjustments the product was
swiftly relaunched with new business
associate Frank Robinson, as a nonalcoholic tonic. Robinson made a
strong impact on the brand from early
on devising the new name Coca-Cola
believing ‘the two Cs would look well in
advertising’. Promoted as a medicinal
remedy for everything from morphine
addiction, neurasthenia, headaches,
impotence and dyspepsia (the origin
of the name of their later rival Pepsi),
customers could buy Coca-Cola at
dispensing chemists throughout Georgia
for a fixed price of 5 cents. The same
year would see Coca-Cola’s very first
advertisement in the Atlanta Journal on
May 29th stating;
‘Coca-Cola. Delicious! Refreshing!
Exhilarating! Invigorating! The new
and popular soda fountain drink
containing the properties of the
wonderful Coca plant and the famous
Cola nut’.
[Early CocaCola advert
showing the
companies
first model
Hilda Clark,
c. 1890’s]
While it may
have been a
refreshing and
somewhat
exhilarating
non-alcoholic
tonic, it was still sold to dispensing
chemists under the guise of a curative
tonic for the next half a century. The
syrup bottles sold into chemists for
dispensing through installed soda
fountains, arrived with labels further
boasting its abilities as a nerve stimulant
and brain tonic while also a curative
for headaches, Neuralgia, Hysteria,
Melancholy and other such ‘nervous
affections’. Unfortunately, all the miracle
qualities of Coca-Cola were n