The History of Coca-Cola

Podcast Transcript

Perhaps the most well-known brand in the world is Coca-Cola.

The company has become a global powerhouse in the soft drink market through its original cola formula and visual branding.

Its products can be found in every country in the world except three, and it is one of the most consistently profitable companies on Earth.

Learn about the history of the Coca-Cola Company and how it conquered the world on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.

The origins of Coca-Cola date back to May 8, 1886, in Atlanta, Georgia.

A pharmacist by the name of Dr. John Stith Pemberton created the beverage after serving as a soldier during the US Civil War, fighting on the side of the Confederacy. During the war, he was wounded and developed an addiction to morphine. His goal in making this beverage was to find a substitute for morphine.

Pemberton’s first attempt at the beverage was completed in 1885. It was sold in his drug store as ‘Pemberton’s French Wine Coca’, and claimed to be a nerve tonic.

Its key ingredients included alcohol in the form of wine, extracts of coca leaves containing small amounts of cocaine, and kola nut, a natural source of caffeine. It was inspired by European coca wines and was the direct precursor to what later became Coca-Cola.

Pemberton’s recipe for his tonic was changed in 1886, following the prohibition of alcohol in Atlanta, forcing him to change his recipe and make his new beverage nonalcoholic.

With this change, he created a new drink he called ‘Coca-Cola.’ Pemberton marked the beverage as a “temperance drink,” which appealed to the popular Temperance Movement.

The first sales of Coca-Cola were made in Atlanta’s Jacob’s Pharmacy. The drinks were sold for five cents a glass and received positive reviews, with many customers finding the beverage “delicious and refreshing.”

Coca-Cola was sold in pharmacies at the time because they sold carbonated water, which was widely believed to be good for people’s health.

Pemberton marketed the beverage as a non-prescription medicine that could cure nerve disorders, morphine addiction, indigestion, headaches, and erectile dysfunction. That plus the taste led to the increased popularity of the drink.

Pemberton began to expand his products. By 1888, three versions of Coca-Cola were being sold by three different companies.

Additionally, Pemberton had verbal agreements with four other businessmen who acquired a stake in the company. However, Pemberton ensured that the primary name, Coca-Cola, remained under his control, along with his son. The other businessmen were allowed to use the “formula” but not the name.

By giving his son, Charley, control over the Coca-Cola name, Pemberton owned the Coca-Cola brand. This was a massive thorn in the side of the other shareholders, in particular Asa Candler.

Candler had bought a third of the interest in Coca-Cola’s formula, allowing him to sell the beverage, but he could not sell it under the same name. Instead, Candler sold the drink as “Yum Yum” or “Koke.”

Chander hoped to get a stronger legal claim over Coca-Cola, something he made moves to obtain following John Pemberton’s death.

Charley Pemberton was an opium addict and an alcoholic, and Candler took advantage of his problems. In 1889, Candler approached the Pemberton family and purchased the name and formula for $2,300.

With this purchase, Candler had complete control over the Coca-Cola Company.

Many sketchy details about this deal were revealed decades later.

One of the original Co-Owner of the Coca-Cola company in 1888, Margaret Dozier, claimed her signature on the bill of sale was forged. Later analysis of other documents signed during the transfer suggested that John Pemberton’s signatures were also forged, a claim Charley supported.

Once Candler had consolidated control, he formally incorporated The Coca-Cola Company in Georgia in 1892. This step transformed Coca-Cola from a loosely managed medicinal syrup into a centralized corporation with clear ownership, standardized production, and a defined brand identity.

Incorporation allowed the company to protect its trademark, expand distribution, and attract capital in a way that had not been possible under the earlier informal arrangements

When the company moved to their new offices in 1910, all the early Coca-Cola Company records were conveniently destroyed.

Following several more years of growth, the Coca-Cola Company was purchased in 1919 by a group of investors for $25 million. With this purchase, the company went public.

Coca-Cola’s name reveals two of its original ingredients: Coca in reference to coca leaves, and Cola in reference to kola nuts.

The currently listed ingredients for Coke include carbonated water, sugar or high-fructose corn syrup, caffeine, phosphoric acid, caramel color, and natural flavorings.

Former ingredients in the drink looked a bit different because one of the original parts of the main recipe was cocaine.

The cocaine came from the coca leaves. Pemberton’s original formula contained about 5 ounces of coca leaf for every gallon of syrup. Candler reduced the recipe to roughly one-tenth of its original amount after he took over the company. Making a glass of Coca-Cola during the time contained about 9 milligrams of cocaine.

The fresh coca leaves, which were responsible for the cocaine, were removed from the beverage in 1903. They instead changed to using “spent leaves.” These leaves were what was left over following a cocaine-extraction process. This left only trace amounts of cocaine in the drink.

Later in 1929, Coca-Cola decided to make a change and start using cocaine free Coca Leaves. Today, this can only be done at a single plant in New Jersey.

This facility is authorized by the US government to import and process coca leaves. These leaves are obtained from Peru or Bolivia, where they extract cocaine from them. The processed cocaine is then sold to a single medical company that experiments with and purifies the drug for medical uses.

Weirdly enough, the kola nuts also caused issues for the Coca-Cola company. In the early 1910s, the US government sued the Coca-Cola company in the case, United States v. Forty Barrels and Twenty Kegs of Coca-Cola.

This case went all the way to the Supreme Court. The caffeine was an issue because the Food and Drug Administration added caffeine to the “habit-forming” or “deleterious” substances list. This meant that the company would need to list caffeine on the product’s label.

Coca-Cola lost the case, reduced the amount of caffeine in its drinks, and offered to pay a settlement to the government. This helped them avoid any future lawsuits. A modern serving of Coca-Cola contains about 46mg of caffeine per 12 fluid ounces.

The exact formula for Coca-Cola is considered a trade secret. Very few employees are granted access to the recipe, which plays into the brand’s marketing.

Because the beverage became so popular, competing brands popped up. These competitors led to the creation of a new beverage category, known generically as cola.

The natural flavorings are what are what make the secret recipe, and what differentiates Coke from other colas. These ingredients are kept in a vault located in Atlanta. There is a popular belief that only two executives know the recipe for the original Coca-Cola.

This secret recipe is considered to be a big deal. There was a heist in 2006, committed by a secretary to a global brand director. The thief, Joya Williams, stole the recipe and offered it to Coca-Cola’s rival, Pepsi, for $1.5 million.

Fortunately for Coca-Cola, Pepsi gave this information to the FBI. The authorities set up a sting operation, posing as Pepsi executives, and arrested Williams and her accomplices.

The recipe of Coca-Cola is such a big deal that when the company tried to change it, the public grew outraged.

New Coke was introduced to the public in 1985, roughly a century after the company’s founding. The drink was introduced following a series of taste tests conducted on the new recipe. These tests showed that New Coke was more popular among testers than the original recipe and among competitors.

Confident in the change, Coca-Cola unveiled New Coke, expecting the public to love this drink. This was not the case. Management was caught completely unprepared for the public’s visceral reaction to the drink.

Caving to the backlash, the Coca-Cola Company re-released the original beverage to the public under the name ‘Coca-Cola Classic.’ New Coke remained on sale until 2002, when the beverage, now called Coke II, was discontinued.

The entire New Coke fiasco was so legendary that it will be the subject of its own episode in the future.

One of the most iconic aspects of Coca-Cola is its bottles. The Coca-Cola bottle is considered a classic of product design, and has been called the “perfect liquid wrapper.”

The bottle’s design, similar to the company’s logo, has become a pop culture icon, appearing in art, film, and music. But how did something as simple as a bottle become popular?

As previously mentioned, during Coca-Cola’s first thirteen years of life, the soda was sold as a fountain drink, rather than being bottled and packaged. The brand’s popularity during those 13 years had been established, with the beverage sold in fountains in every US state.

Capitalizing on its popularity, the company decided it was time to bottle the beverage so it could be consumed outside the constraints of soda fountains.

Candler, still the owner of Coca-Cola, decided to sign a contract with two entrepreneurs, giving the duo the exclusive rights to bottling Coca-Cola for just a dollar.

Bottling the soda proved to be a smart choice. By the 1920s, over 1,200 Coca-Cola bottling plants had been opened, drastically increasing sales of the beverage.

The early Coca-Cola bottles were fairly simple in design: straight-sided bottles with the Coca-Cola logo stamped on them. This early design proved problematic as competitors copied it, creating confusion among consumers about which beverage they were drinking.

Seeing this issue, the company decided to change its packaging to make it more distinct. To do this, they set out to make a new bottle. They launched a competition to find the best design, which was won by the Root Glass Company in Indiana.

The team chose to make the bottle inspired by the shape of a coca bean, with a long, ribbed side. The bottles were green because the company used sand from Indiana to make the glass.

Since then, the bottle has slightly evolved in size and shape, but the essence of the original bottle with the curved sides remains the same.

The Coca-Cola logo dates back to the company’s founding.

John Pemberton had his bookkeeper, Frank Robinson, design the company’s logo in 1885. Robinson was the one who developed the iconic cursive script known as Spencerian, which we associate with the beverage today.

Robinson’s original design hasn’t really changed over the years. There are aspects of the logo that were added later, like the addition of red, light refinements to the script, and a ribbon to give the design more flow, but the essence of the logo has remained the same from its conception.

The decision to keep the logo similar to the one used in 188 is a significant part of the brand, as it has helped maintain the Coca-Cola Company’s charm over the years.

This is done through the use of the color red. Red symbolizes warmth, excitement, and energy. It is also used for boldness to help the logo stand out. Another reason why the Coke logo uses red is to invoke a sense of urgency and passion. Red is often associated with these emotions, so it creates an unconscious urge to buy the beverage for refreshment.

The choice of color also played into visual displays. Whether on clothing or in signs, the logo stands out while also cementing itself in pop culture.

The reason why we associate Santa Claus with the color red is primarily due to the Coca-Cola company, which created the modern image of Santa in the 1930s.

Keeping the logo the same has made Coca-Cola one of the most recognizable brands in the world, with an estimated 94% of the population recognizing its logo.

From a business standpoint, Coca-Cola now does business in almost every nation on Earth. As of the recording of this episode, the company does business in every country, at some level, save for North Korea, Cuba, and Russia. Even in those countries, it may be imported and found in certain stores.

One of the reasons why Coca-Cola has such a global reach is World War II. During the war, the company promised that every US serviceman could buy a Coke for just 5 cents. To do this, they opened bottling plants around the world, which were later used to meet consumer demand after the war.

Without any exaggeration, I’ve seen Coca-Cola products in every country I’ve been to.

Regardless of whether you like their product or not, you have to acknowledge the success of Coca-Cola. It regularly tops lists of the world’s most well-known brands.

Yet, this global behemoth company is all due to one 19th-century pharmacist who tried to create a beverage that would help him kick his addiction to morphine.