Did you know that Coca-Cola was originally created as a medicine and that it is named after the two main ingredients in it: Coca-Cola?
Coca is a shrub from which cocaine is produced and cola is a nut that grows in the rainforests of Africa. But do not worry, Coca-Cola no longer has cocaine.
When American pharmacist John Pemberton first invented Coca-Cola, in 1886, it was as a result of a search for a non-alcoholic version of his Coca-Cola wine.
John Pemberton was born on July 8, 1831 in the US state of Georgia. As a soldier he fought in the American Civil War in the Confederate Army (South) and was wounded in the Battle of Columbus.
He received morphine from the military doctors and became addicted to it.
After completing his military service he worked as a pharmacist and began looking for a cure for addiction. He brewed himself a wine from cola nuts and added the coca plant to it, until he finally managed to invent the "Pemberton's French Wine Coca". When he saw that his wine was helping him cope with the pain, he began selling it to other military veterans suffering from morphine addiction, depression and alcoholism, as well as to women suffering from nervous weakness (neurasthenia).
In 1885, drought laws were enacted in Georgia, prohibiting the production, sale and drinking of alcohol. Pemberton was forced to create a non-alcoholic version of his wine drink. He worked hard to create a recipe for a non-alcoholic version, until in 1886 he invented a secret recipe according to which he decided to mix his Coca-Cola syrup with soda water. He sold it for five cents a glass as a patent. People at the time believed that carbonated water was good for their health, and Pemberton claimed that its special soda was a drug for morphine addiction, indigestion, neurasthenia, headaches and other health problems. In May of that year, Pemberton founded the Coca-Cola Company and marketed the drink as having medicinal properties and as a drug for morphine or opium addiction.
It is estimated that the original Coca-Cola recipe contained about nine milligrams of cocaine in a glass. The average dose of cocaine is between 15 and 35 milligrams. However, the effect of coca leaves was balanced in the presence of the caffeine in the cola nut. In 1903 cocaine was removed from the secret recipe but Coca-Cola still has the flavor of the coca plant.
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| The first Coca-Cola model, Hilda Clark, in an advertisement from 1890 in which she offers a glass of Coca-Cola for the price of 5 cents. |
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| Hilda Clark in a Coca-Cola commercial, The Ideal Brain Tonic, A drink for summer and winter, especially for headaches, relieves mental and physical exhaustion |
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| Coca Cola vintage radio |