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Coca Cola Day
Atlanta pharmacist John Pemberton concocted
Coca-Cola on March 29th and introduced it to
the public on May 8th, 1886.

[Lady Jag]

COCA KOLA CONTAINED COCAINE COCA COLA DID NOT

After fighting for the confederacy during the civil war, John Pemberton moved to Atlanta, Georgia where he specialized in the mixing and vending of various patent medicines. The pharmacist claimed that one of his recipes, a Bordeaux laced with caffeine (from the seed of an African kola tree) and cocaine, would cure sluggishness, nervous disorders, headaches, internal plumbing, and improve sexual performance.  Not surprisingly, French Wine of Coca, was his best seller.

In November 1885, Atlanta voted to become a dry city.  Experimenting in a three-legged brass kettle in his back yard, Pemberton's various non-wine coca kola concoctions proved bitter tasting.  He added sugar, vanilla, caramel, orange, lemon, nutmeg, lime juice, cinnamon and coriander oil.  Finally, Pemberton arrived at a caramel colored syrup he merchandised by hauling in a jug to a local pharmacy called Jacob's, where it was sold at the soda fountain as a "Delicious and Refreshing" drink for five cents a glass. That same year, the world's most famous trademark-white Spencerian Coca-Cola handwriting on a red background-was introduced by a printing innovator Frank Robinson, who contracted for an interest in the company and was instrumental in launching it.  In 1886, sales of Coca-Cola averaged nine drinks per day. Unfortunately, Pemberton proved to be his own best customer.  A drug addict, he began selling interest in the floundering business (including Robinson's) and died in 1888.

Shortly thereafter, Atlanta entrepreneur, Asa Candler, at the urging of hoodwinked Robinson, purchased sole proprietorship rights to Coca-Cola for $2,300.  He removed cocaine from the recipe in 1903.  With innovative bottling systems in place and merchandising genius Frank Robinson rehired, Candler expanded consumption of Coca-Cola to every part of the nation within four years.

[Dubya]

[Jane Austen]

I like old Coca Cola ads. I used to know a guy who collected them along with other Coca Cola items.