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Speaker 1: This Day in History Class is a production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 1: Hello and welcome to This Day in History Class, a

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Speaker 1: show that serves up a tall glass of history every

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Speaker 1: day of the week. I'm Gay Bluesier, and in this episode,

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Speaker 1: we're talking about the birth of one of the world's

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Speaker 1: most recognizable brands, a soft drink that combined the uplifting

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Speaker 1: effects of coca leaves and cola nuts with the simple

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Speaker 1: joys of fizzy water and a boatload of sugar. The

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Speaker 1: day was May eighth, eighteen eighty six. Coca Cola was

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Speaker 1: sold for the first time at a pharmacy in Atlanta, Georgia.

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Speaker 1: Originally billed as a health tonic, the bubbly beverage was

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Speaker 1: sold for a nicola glass and quickly became one of

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Speaker 1: the most popular drinks at the soda fountain. The inventor

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Speaker 1: of Coca Cola was doctor John Stith Pemberton. He was

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Speaker 1: born on January eighth, eighteen thirty one, in Knoxville, Georgia.

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Speaker 1: He later studied medicine and pharmacy at a medical college

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Speaker 1: in Macon, and in eighteen fifty, at the age of nineteen,

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Speaker 1: he was licensed to practice herbal medicine. He briefly did

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Speaker 1: so in Rome, Georgia, and other nearby towns, but in

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Speaker 1: eighteen fifty five he settled in Columbus and established a

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Speaker 1: wholesale drug store. Five years later, Pemberton expanded his operation

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Speaker 1: by opening his own research and manufacturing laboratory. There, he

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Speaker 1: began producing his own line of patent medicines. In eighteen

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Speaker 1: sixty one, the American Civil War began, and Pemberton joined

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Speaker 1: the Confederate Army, eventually rising to the rank of lieutenant colonel.

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Speaker 1: He was badly wounded during the Battle of Columbus in

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Speaker 1: eighteen sixty five and soon became addicted to the morphine

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Speaker 1: he used to control his pain. After the war, Pemberton

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Speaker 1: settled in Atlanta and began working on a kind of

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Speaker 1: cure for his addiction. His goal was to produce a

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Speaker 1: pain relieving tonic that was morphine free, and he experimented

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Speaker 1: with lots of different botanicals while trying to perfect the formula.

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Speaker 1: He eventually created a recipe that contained extracts of coca leaf,

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Speaker 1: cola nut, and demonia, an aromatic flower used to make

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Speaker 1: a traditional Mexican liqueur. The resulting concoction was called Pemberton's

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Speaker 1: French Wine Coca, and for the next couple decades it

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Speaker 1: was the most in demand alcoholic beverage on the market,

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Speaker 1: not just in Atlanta but throughout the Southeast. Of course,

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Speaker 1: him being a doctor in all, Pemberton didn't market the

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Speaker 1: drink solely on the merits of its taste or its

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Speaker 1: alcoholic content. Instead, he focused on the drink's supposed health benefits,

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Speaker 1: calling it the most excellent of all tonics, assisting digestion,

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Speaker 1: imparting energy to the organs of respiration, and strengthening the

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Speaker 1: muscular and nervous systems. Whether those claims were true or not,

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Speaker 1: Pemberton's French Wine Coca continued to do strong business all

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Speaker 1: the way up to eighteen eighty six. That's the year

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Speaker 1: Atlanta and Fulton County enacted a temperance ban on alcohol,

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Speaker 1: effectively cutting out Pemberton's biggest market. Down but not out.

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Speaker 1: The doctor set to work on producing a new, non

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Speaker 1: alcoholic version of his signature drink. To help perfect the formula,

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Speaker 1: he enlisted the aid of Atlanta drug store owner Willis Venable.

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Speaker 1: The revised recipe omitted the demonia leaves and substituted sugar

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Speaker 1: syrup for wine, but the caffeine rich coala nut extract

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Speaker 1: was retained, and so was the coca leaf extract, complete

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Speaker 1: with its trace amounts of pain relieving cocaine. Once the

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Speaker 1: recipe for the base syrup was locked down, Pemberton and

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Speaker 1: Venable mixed a small amount with still water and gave

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Speaker 1: it a taste test. Satisfied with the results, Venable went

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Speaker 1: back for seconds, but that time he accidentally used carbonated

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Speaker 1: water instead. To both men's delight, the carbonated version tasted

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Speaker 1: even better than the original and was more refreshing too.

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Speaker 1: That's when it dawned on the men that the drink

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Speaker 1: might have wider appeal than the average tonic. It could

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Speaker 1: even act as an alternative to kid friendly sodas like

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Speaker 1: ginger ale and root beer. On May eighth, eighteen eighty six,

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Speaker 1: doctor Pemberton decided to test that theory by taking a

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Speaker 1: jug of his new product over to Jacob's Pharmacy on

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Speaker 1: Peachtree Street. There, the syrup was mixed with soda water,

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Speaker 1: sampled by those present, and promptly deemed delicious. The new

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Speaker 1: soda fountain refreshment was immediately put on sale for five

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Speaker 1: cents a glass, and when Pemberton was asked what the

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Speaker 1: drink was called, he dubbed it Coca Cola, a nod

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Speaker 1: to the kee the ingredients of coca leaf and cola

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Speaker 1: nut extracts. To be clear, though the name was not

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Speaker 1: his own invention, it was actually coined by Pemberton's bookkeeper,

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Speaker 1: Frank Robinson. He also suggested changing the K and cola

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Speaker 1: to a sea, as he thought the symmetry of two

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Speaker 1: seas would look pleasing in advertisements. To show what he meant,

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Speaker 1: Robinson wrote out the name Coca Cola in flowing script letters,

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Speaker 1: and Pemberton liked it so much that he used the

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Speaker 1: handwriting sample as the basis for the product's logo, which

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Speaker 1: is still in use today. Shortly after the drink's debut,

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Speaker 1: the first newspaper ad for Coca Cola appeared in the

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Speaker 1: Atlanta Journal. Then, hand painted oilcloth signs began popping up

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Speaker 1: on store awnings, inviting thirsty passers by to stop in

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Speaker 1: and try a glass for themselves. Surprisingly, though not all

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Speaker 1: that many people did. In fact, during Coca Cola's first

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Speaker 1: year on the market, only about nine glasses were sold

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Speaker 1: each day. The total sales for that first year added

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Speaker 1: up to just fifty dollars, which put Pemberton in the

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Speaker 1: red as it had cost him over seventy dollars to

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Speaker 1: create and distribute the drink. Although he had a winning

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Speaker 1: product on his hands, doctor Pemberton never quite figured out

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Speaker 1: how to market it. Unable to fully shake the idea

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Speaker 1: that coca cola was a health tonic, he touted it

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Speaker 1: as a way to quote cure all nervous afflictions headache, neuralgia, hysteria, melancholy,

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Speaker 1: et cetera. But even though soda fountains were often found

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Speaker 1: in drug stores, the younger crowd that hung out there

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Speaker 1: weren't all that interested in medicine. If Pemberton had played

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Speaker 1: up the drinks sweet unique taste, he may have had

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Speaker 1: better luck. But as things stood, he wasn't making nearly

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Speaker 1: as much money off Coca Cola as he had hoped.

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Speaker 1: If that weren't bad enough, Pemberton was still addicted to morphine,

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Speaker 1: and soon after coca cola was introduced, he fell ill

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Speaker 1: with stomach cancer as well. He started selling off portions

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Speaker 1: of his business to pay for his medical care and

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Speaker 1: his costly addiction. He made sure to retain a share

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Speaker 1: of the ownership of the Coca Cola formula, however, as

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Speaker 1: he remained convinced that it quote someday will be a

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Speaker 1: national drink. Unfortunately, his son was less convinced and eventually

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Speaker 1: persuaded his father to sell his remaining interest in the

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Speaker 1: patent shortly before his death in eighteen eighty eight. The

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Speaker 1: buyer for that patent was a fellow Atlanta pharmacist named

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Speaker 1: Asa Griggs Candler. A shrewd businessman, Candler quickly bought up

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Speaker 1: the other rights Pemberton had sold off, eventually securing himself

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Speaker 1: full control of the product. Within a decade, Candler turned

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Speaker 1: Coca Cola into the national drink its inventor always knew

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Speaker 1: it could be. Under his leadership, the company went from

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Speaker 1: one million serving sold in eighteen ninety to one hundred

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Speaker 1: million in nineteen hundred. The secret, of course, was advertising

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Speaker 1: and marketing by the two or. In the twentieth century,

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Speaker 1: the drink was sold in pharmacies, soda fountains, and ice

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Speaker 1: cream parlors all across the US and Canada, and around

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Speaker 1: the same time the company also began selling its syrup

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Speaker 1: to independent bottling companies. They would pay a licensing fee

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Speaker 1: for the right to sell the drink and would then

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Speaker 1: mix bottle and distribute batches of it to local shop owners,

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Speaker 1: a business model that's still in place today. In nineteen nineteen,

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Speaker 1: the Coca Cola Company was sold again, and the new president,

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Speaker 1: Robert Woodroff, placed even more importance on bottling. With him

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Speaker 1: at the Helm, advertising began to focus on the idea

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Speaker 1: that Coca Cola was a drink to enjoy everywhere. Sure,

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Speaker 1: you could still buy a freshly mixed glass at your

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Speaker 1: local soda fountain, but you could also buy a bottle

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Speaker 1: to drink at home later. And, come to think of it,

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Speaker 1: why stop it just one when you could pick up

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Speaker 1: a whole six pack carton from metal coolers all over town.

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Speaker 1: Woodroff's hunch that bottling was the future of the brand

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Speaker 1: turned out to be true. Soda fountains fell out of

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Speaker 1: fashion by the nineteen sixties, but bottled Coca Cola continued

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Speaker 1: to be sold at restaurants, gas stations, and just about

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Speaker 1: everywhere else. And I do mean everywhere, because during the

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Speaker 1: Second World War, Woodruff opened sixty bottling plants in North Africa, Europe,

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Speaker 1: and the Pacific. The ostensible goal was to make sure

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Speaker 1: American troops had easy access to Coca Cola overseas, providing

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Speaker 1: them a little taste of home, one bottle at a time. However,

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Speaker 1: there was also a welcome bonus that the company almost

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Speaker 1: certainly foresaw, namely, by exposing foreign populations to the universal

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Speaker 1: pleasure of Coca Cola, they had created both brand awareness

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Speaker 1: and local demand. As a result, the company continued to

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Speaker 1: operate globally even after the war. Sadly, its unethical business

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Speaker 1: practices have often wreaked havoc on local communities, leading to

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Speaker 1: water scarcity and trade union disputes. Today, Coca Cola and

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Speaker 1: its various offshoots are available in more than two hundred

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Speaker 1: countries and county. The company sells more than one point

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Speaker 1: three billion drinks every day, with the original Coca Cola

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Speaker 1: accounting for a large percentage of that total. The world

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Speaker 1: famous soda no longer costs a nickel, and it no

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Speaker 1: longer contains cocaine either. But hey, at least you don't

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Speaker 1: have to hang out in a pharmacy all day. Just

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Speaker 1: a drink. I'm Gabe Lucier, and hopefully you now know

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Speaker 1: a little more about history today than you did yesterday.

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Speaker 1: You can learn even more about history by following us

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Speaker 1: on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram at TDI HC Show, and

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Speaker 1: send them my way by writing to This Day at

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Speaker 1: iHeartMedia dot com. Thanks to Chandler Mays and Ben Hackett

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Speaker 1: for producing the show, and thanks to you for listening.

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Speaker 1: I'll see you back here again tomorrow for another Day

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Speaker 1: in History class Sutterpetan in the USU