Who Made the First Coke?

Georgia, on May 8, 1886. Dr. John Stith Pemberton, a local pharmacist, produced the syrup for Coca-Cola®, and carried a jug of the new product down the street to Jacobs’ Pharmacy, where it was sampled, pronounced “excellent” and placed on sale for five cents a glass as a soda fountain drink.

Invention:Coca-Cola in 1886
Definition:noun / trademark
Function:Popular carbonated soft drink colored usually with caramel and flavored usually with extracts from kola nuts and sweeteners
Trademark:U.S. issued 1893
Inventor:John Stith Pemberton

Criteria;First to invent. Entrepreneur.
Birth:July 8, 1831 in Rome, Georgia
Death:August 16, 1888 in Columbus, Georgia
Nationality:American

“Coke” has been a registered trademark of The Coca-Cola Company in the United States since March 27, 1944. Originally intended as a patent medicine when it was invented in the late 19th century (late 1800s) by John Pemberton, Coca-Cola was bought out by businessman Asa Griggs Candler, whose marketing tactics led Coke to its dominance of the world soft-drink market throughout the 20th century.

The prototype Coca-Cola recipe was formulated at the Eagle Drug and Chemical Company, a drugstore in Columbus, Georgia by John Pemberton, originally as a coca wine called Pemberton’s French Wine Coca. He may have been inspired by the formidable success of Vin Mariani, a European coca wine. In 1886, when Atlanta and Fulton County passed prohibition legislation, Pemberton responded by developing Coca-Cola, essentially a non-alcoholic version of French Wine Coca. The first sales were at Jacob’s Pharmacy in Atlanta, Georgia, on May 8, 1886. It was initially sold as a patent medicine for five cents a glass at soda fountains, which were popular in the United States at the time due to the belief that carbonated water was good for the health. Pemberton claimed Coca-Cola cured many diseases, including morphine addiction, dyspepsia, neurasthenia, headache, and impotence. Pemberton ran the first advertisement for the beverage on May 29 of the same year in the Atlanta Journal.

Pemberton called for five ounces of coca leaf per gallon of syrup, a significant dose; in 1891, Candler claimed his formula (altered extensively from Pemberton’s original) contained only a tenth of this amount. Coca-Cola did once contain an estimated nine milligrams of cocaine per glass, but in 1903 it was removed.

Coca-Cola was sold in bottles for the first time on March 12, 1894.

1798 The term “soda water” first coined.
1810 First U.S. patent issued for the manufacture of imitation mineral waters.
1819 The “soda fountain” patented by Samuel Fahnestock.
1835 The first bottled soda water in the U.S.
1850 A manual hand & foot operated filling & corking device, first used for bottling soda water.
1851 Ginger ale created in Ireland.
1861 The term “pop” first coined.
1874 The first ice-cream soda sold.
1876 Root beer mass produced for public sale.
1881 The first cola-flavored beverage introduced.
1885 Charles Aderton invented “Dr Pepper” in Waco, Texas.
1886 Dr. John S. Pemberton invented “Coca-Cola” in Atlanta, Georgia.
1892 William Painter invented the crown bottle cap.
1898 “Pepsi-Cola” is invented by Caleb Bradham.