In these pages you will read about some disturbing, bizarre and even despicable actions by some of those responsible for the major brand names we know and love today. I want to point out that this in no way reflects on the current companies and corporations that produce these products. These companies were often founded generations ago and those responsible for them are no longer with us. Those that run these companies today are charitable, professional and certainly not associated with any of these controversial beginnings.
Chapter One
Coca-Cola: The Drug-Addled Drink
To many, Coca-Cola is a delicious drink, as American as apple pie. The true origins of this popular soda pop, however, can be a bit murky. Coke is the number one best-selling soft drink in the world and it has a modern day image that projects unity and love to all the world’s citizens. It’s certainly an interesting thought that without the divisive American Civil War, the world wouldn’t have Coca-Cola today, and that its creator wasn’t fighting for Abraham Lincoln and the victorious North, but rather for the Confederate South, the side of the conflict that was advocating for the continuation of slavery.
There is a long-standing urban legend that insists Coca-Cola earned its name from the cocaine content in the original soft drink. Coca-Cola publicly disavows any suggestion that their drink ever contained cocaine. In fact, the history that they tell on their official website glazes right over that part of their past without so much as a mention of the controversial topic. The question then begs, did Coca-Cola actually contain cocaine, or is this just a persistent fallacy? What does American alcohol prohibition have to do with the origins of Coca-Cola? Let’s explore the long and peculiar history of an American icon.
The Life of John Stith Pemberton
Coca-Cola was created by a man named John Pemberton. John Stith Pemberton was born on 8 July 1831 in Knoxville, Georgia. John and his parents, James and Martha, lived in the city of Rome, Georgia, for the majority of his young life. There is little known about his childhood, but we do know that Pemberton was ambitious as a young man and had a distinct knack towards pharmacology. Pemberton studied medicine, with a focus on pharmacology, at the Reform Medical College of Georgia in Macon. There he became licenced as a ‘steam doctor’ in the alternative medicine system known as ‘Thomsonian medicine’ at the age of nineteen. Samuel Thomson invented the Thomsonian system after his wife nearly died when she underwent treatment with conventional medicine. This experience led him to be wary of proper doctors and caused him to use his knowledge of botany to develop a system of herbal remedies that he believed to be superior to the ‘poison’ that was then modern medicine. A steam doctor relied heavily on herbal treatments and the heat from steam baths to cure patients.
It wouldn’t be as a steam doctor that Pemberton would make his mark however, and after twelve years of practice he enlisted in the army of the Confederacy in 1861 and went to war for the values of the South. The American Civil War raged for four bloody years and led to the deaths of nearly one million Americans. The war pivoted on those in the North attempting to block the South from expanding their slavery practices into the western territories of the United States. The South relied upon slave labour to keep their economy stable at the time and didn’t take kindly to the idea of being restricted in their growth. The Confederate government was formed and the southern part of the country attempted to secede from the union, desiring to govern itself from that point on. The secession of the South from the union would eventually be quelled by the north, but not before John Pemberton, a Lieutenant Colonel in the army of the Confederacy, was injured severely in the Battle of Columbus.
Pemberton received a deep gash across his chest from a sabre in the battle, a wound that would leave him with considerable pain. The standard painkiller for the era was morphine and that is just what Pemberton got. Pemberton also got what so many others of the era also received: a severe and crippling addiction to morphine. Pemberton fancied himself a man of medicine and vowed to create a miracle drink, one that could rid him and others of their dependency on morphine. The opioid is so powerful that a user can get addicted after only a few doses. It was this chain of events that would lead to the eventual inception of the delicious cola beverage that we all enjoy today.
Pemberton’s French Wine Coca
The year was 1886 and the world was rapidly changing amid the Industrial Revolution. In the same year that the giant copper Statue of Liberty was officially dedicated on Liberty Island in New York harbour, and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle wrote the very first Sherlock Holmes mystery, the world’s first cola would be invented by an industrious pharmacist from Georgia.
John ‘Doc’ Pemberton was determined to master the art of invention. He had several failed attempts to produce various hair dyes, pills and elixirs. Success continued to elude him, but he kept forging ahead. During that era, post-civil war rebuilding was sweeping across the region and the idea of a ‘new South’ was gaining popularity. It was a time when the people of the South were trying to move past the mistakes of the past and cash-in on the industrial and economic boom that was happening in the North. Doc was hoping to get in on the new age of progression.
It was at his drugstore in Columbus, Georgia – Pemberton’s Eagle Drug and Chemical House – that he would forge his first success in 1885 with ‘Pemberton’s French Coca Wine’.
Cocaine was the wonder drug of the nineteenth century. It wasn’t uncommon to find products laced with it, as its effects were widely believed to be extremely beneficial. Sigmund Freud was one of the more infamous characters to publicly endorse cocaine therapy as a viable option for patients. Freud considered cocaine to be a fantastic cure for many ailments of the body and mind. Though he would eventually come under fire for his endorsement of the drug when the public backlash against cocaine came about, Freud would never disavow his previous opinions.
Pemberton was inspired by the already popular drink ‘Vil Mariani’, created by an Angelo Mariani. Mariani, a chemist from Corsica, invented the drink in 1863; it included a mixture of red wine and a rather generous helping of cocaine. Needless to say, the beverage was wildly popular. This was during an era when cocaine was completely legal in Europe and was thought to provide a healthy energy boost. The added benefit of Vin Mariani was that when cocaine and alcohol mix in the human body a third compound is created, called cocaethylene. The effects create a far more euphoric effect than either cocaine or alcohol can provide alone.
Pemberton marketed the drink in much the same way a snake oil salesman would in Victorian times. The ads for the French Wine Coca touted it as: ‘The world’s great nerve tonic’. The drink claimed itself as a cure for almost anything that could ail you, and was even ‘endorsed and recommended by the most eminent medical men’. The drink supposedly cured mental and physical exhaustion, chronic and wasting diseases, dyspepsia, kidney and liver issues, heart disease, melancholia, hysteria, neuralgia, sick headache, throat and lung issues, sleeplessness, despondency and even tired feelings. The drink was said to be ‘truly wonderful’ and ‘strength restoring’, and it certainly should have been for the then steep cost of $1.00 per bottle, which would translate to around $20 per bottle in today’s market. A bargain price for an elixir that could cure anything and everything.
In reality, Pemberton’s French Wine Coca was an alcoholic beverage that was a mixture of kola nut, damiana, coca and of course alcohol. Kola nut has a concentration of caffeine and is actually where the term cola would originate. Damiana is a shrub that is said to help with anxiety, a claim that still hasn’t been fully proven. Coca refers to the coca plant, specifically the Erythroxylum coca, which is native to South America. The leaf of the coca plant has a small, naturally occurring amount of cocaine. The levels are so low (.25% to .77% per leaf) that one cannot simply chew, or brew, the leaf to experience the full effects of cocaine. Although drinking brewed leaves may not give one a euphoric high, the leaf of the coca is used for a variety of treatment purposes, including pain relief from brok
en bones, childbirth, headache, rheumatism and even ulcers. In order to bring the euphoric effects of the coca leaf alkaloids out a chemical extraction process is necessary. Pemberton used this process for the coca leaf to create a coca wine.
The effects of a coca wine are very distinct from that of, say, snorting cocaine. The high is more subtle and lasts longer, without any need for further doses every half hour to forty-five minutes. The side effect of sexual arousal is still present, in fact John Pemberton himself is said to have boasted his wine as ‘a most wonderful invigorator of sexual organs’.
The Temperance Movement
Pemberton soon encountered opposition to his alcoholic wonder drink, when the state of Georgia, where he was still based, passed a law that gave the option to vote for prohibition to each county in the state in 1885. The Temperance movement was in full swing in Georgia, where the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) had been active since 1880. The WCTU would eventually help lead the charge towards nationwide prohibition in 1920.
The Temperance movement caught on like wildfire and so many counties in Georgia voted themselves ‘dry’ that Pemberton was all but out of business, before he really had a chance to grow. It was time for him to make the difficult decision to remove the alcoholic content from his drink and develop an alternate solution. Pemberton’s French Wine Coca was soon no more.
According to the official Coca-Cola website, Dr Pemberton created a flavoured syrup and took it to his neighbourhood Jacob’s Pharmacy to have it mixed with carbonated water The creation of the drink was, according to the corporate statements, a result of ‘simple curiosity’ on the part of Pemberton. This version of the truth is a rather glossed-over account of the events of 1886. In reality we know that the business of selling his alcohol-cocaine mixture drink had come to a screeching halt with the implementation of local prohibition and it was this and this alone that actually caused Pemberton to seek out his next cocaine-laced drink.
The Origins of Coca-Cola
It’s true that the future of Coca-Cola was very closely tied with the moment that Pemberton and Frank Robinson met. Frank M. Robinson was a veteran of the civil war, having served on the side of the Union. These two men, who would have been trying to kill each other years before on opposite sides of the conflict, now joined together to make history. It was Robinson’s speciality in advertising and promotion that would give Pemberton’s drink the push forward it needed. Doc Pemberton was doing better at creating products, but he had absolutely no idea how to market them well enough to make an impact.
Pemberton had moved to Atlanta to try and cash-in on the growing marketplace there. He wanted to develop a product that would stand apart from all others. It was in the basement of his Atlanta home that he constructed his own laboratory and he went to work. He would constantly send samples of his test products to the local Jacob Pharmacy. Desperate for something to actually sell, he would try out various combinations, until the feedback he got from the consumers showed that he had found a combination that tested well. Pemberton was finally successful in creating something unique. His drink was the first ever cola, not a type or flavour of cola, but the very first one. We can only imagine living in a world without all of the soda pop choices that we enjoy today. Coca-Cola was finally created on 8 May 1886 and to be among the first to taste such a delicious drink must have been amazing.
They finally had the formula for the cola, but the trick now was to actually get it into the hands of the consumer. The product first needed a name and a logo. Frank Robinson came up with the name Coca-Cola and he wrote the logo in a fancy script from his own hand, and history was made. The drink still uses a logo inspired by that original script to this very day. Robinson knew that he needed a great angle to market the drink and it was the very Temperance movement that brought an end to Pemberton’s last invention that would create the perfect nesting ground for his newest and most successful one.
The soda fountain was a cheerful and light-hearted place where you could get yourself an ice cream, mineral water or other various beverages and relax with friends. The popularity of the soda fountain would boom in many parts of Georgia once the Temperance movement began. It was no longer acceptable, or legal, to be in a bar or saloon. In fact, they had all been closed in 1885. The soda fountains quickly became a cultural hub and gathering place to meet with friends and discuss current events, politics and culture. There, men and women alike could converge and socialise, creating a vast and concentrated marketplace for an exciting new drink option. It was in the soda fountain that Coca-Cola would find its audience.
On 29 May 1886 the first ever Coca-Cola advert would appear in print, in the pages of the Atlanta Constitution newspaper. The advert, which was largely obscured by other adverts for a hat maker and photographer, read: ‘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 nuts.’ In the first year of business Pemberton would incur a total cost of $76 in expenses to produce and market Coca-Cola. This would involve sale of twenty-five gallons of syrup, making him $50 in profit. It is not difficult to see that these numbers don’t exactly equal success. In debt the first year of business, Pemberton would soon fall ill and become bedridden. It was during this time that Coca-Cola nearly fell to the wayside completely. Pemberton was still addicted to morphine, which wasn’t an inexpensive habit. He began to sell off the rights to his formula, eventually selling the patent to Asa Candler in 1888. Pemberton would succumb to stomach cancer on 16 August 1888 at the age of 57. He was buried back in his hometown of Columbus, Georgia, his tombstone emblazoned with the Confederate flag. Pemberton struggled with success and the distraction of his addiction may have played a large part of his constant undoing. Doc Pemberton would not live long enough to grasp what a success his invention would become, but the question must also be pondered, would it have been such a success had he lived and retained control of it?
After purchasing the patent for Coca-Cola in 1888, Asa Candler was responsible for the next stage of the drink’s success. In fact, some would say that Candler rescued the drink from certain failure. Candler had gone to Pemberton years before as a young man looking for work, only to be turned away. Proving himself to be a savvy businessman, Candler eventually found success as a druggist, opening his own very successful drugstore. When he was approached to purchase Coca-Cola, Candler originally baulked at the idea, because his drugstore didn’t contain a soda fountain in which to sell the drink. It wasn’t until Candler actually sampled the drink that he was completely sold on the idea. It could be referred to as the single most important serving of Coke. He was convinced that Coca-Cola could be a national drink with the right marketing, and boy was he right. He believed in Coca-Cola so much that he bought up all rights to distribute the drink. This move towards sole ownership would cost him around $2,300. Candler believed in the potential of Coca-Cola, and thus his aggressive marketing of the product began.
Coca-Cola wasn’t the only product that Candler owned. He would simultaneously promote Coke next to one of his other products, De-Lec-Ta-Lave dentifrice, a teeth cleansing powder. Obviously, Coca-Cola would end up being the more successful of the two. Candler was of the belief that just one glass of Coca-Cola would sell any potential customer, so he set out to convince America that his drink was special and not to be missed. The early promotional efforts were made by way of travelling salesmen. They had special card coupons that they would hand out that read: ‘This card entitles you to one glass of Coca-Cola at the fountain of any dispenser of genuine Coca-Cola.’ There were also flyer hand-outs with detachable cards that were also distributed. It seems like a given that handing out coupons for free samples of product is a great marketing ploy, but at the time when Candler did this, he was a pioneer. Other adverts would try to draw in ladies by mimicking a prescription slip that read: ‘Coca-Cola: Revives and Sustains. Take one glass of Coca-Cola when weary with shopping. It imparts energy
and vigor.’ The idea that cola relieves fatigue and revives the weary was an angle that Candler would play upon for years. The free coupon promotion was a success with $7,700 worth of coupons redeemed in 1895 alone. That equates to 154,000 glasses of Coca-Cola. The sales were beginning to take off, but Candler needed to continue to be industrious with his marketing tactics – after all, you need paying customers too.
Candler would innovate another type of marketing that we still see in today’s world. He incorporated the Coca-Cola company logo into all kinds of everyday products, like posters, calendars, notebooks, bookmarks, etc. The idea was to get the product name in front of the customer at every point of their day. It was a wildly successful venture, creating a wide range of products that remain collectible to this day. Coca-Cola was quickly becoming a national drink and securing its spot in the marketplace.
Coca-Cola and Cocaine
Coca-Cola was born during an era when Victorian medicines often included sketchy ingredients and boasted themselves as a remedy for everything from the practical to the absurd. Coca-Cola was no different, in fact the soft drink was originally marketed as an ‘Intellectual Beverage’ and was again presented as a ‘valuable tonic’ and ‘nerve stimulant’, just as Pemberton’s French Wine Coca had been.
In time, the public began to turn on products that included coca leaves, due to a perception of increasing amounts of cocaine addiction in the populace. In 1891 a ‘thoughtful citizen’ wrote into The Constitution, an Atlanta newspaper:
The drug stores and soda founts are selling enormous quantities of something they call coca cola. It is said to relieve nervousness, and ‘that tired feeling’ and all that sort of thing, and people are drinking it a dozen times a day. I am told by a physician that the ingredient which makes coca cola so popular is cocaine. There is evidently enough of it in the drink to affect people and it is insidiously but surely getting thousands of people into the cocaine habit, which is ten times worse than alcoholism and as bad as the morphine habit. It is an awful drug and the victims of it are slaves. I have seen it!
A Secret History of Brands Page 2
