“EVERYWHERE … COCA”, with COCA COLA

The Wine Mariani, mentioned in another chapter, became the unaware precursor of one of the worldwide most successful and beloved beverages; in 1880 a southern Army Colonel, pharmaceutical chemist in Atlanta – as well as inveterate morphine addicted since he had been wounded in the civil war – named John Styth Pemberton, officially registered a Coca Wine, ideal tonic and stimulant, founding later the Pemberton Chemical Company.

Pemberton changed the mixture of Angelo Mariani, in times of liquor prohibition, eliminating the alcoholic component and registering the new product as a non-alcoholic one; in order to make it more stimulant and to enhance flavor which is reported to be horrible, he added caffeine and a variety of aromatic essences, together with an extract of Kola nut, an African fruit containing more caffeine than coffee, which therefore increased the already high percentage of that stimulant alkaloid.

And so the Andean Coca leaves, Kola nut, caffeine, various oils and essences, all together gave birth to the new beverage and the Jacobs Pharmacy in Atlanta sold the first glass of Coca Cola in May 1886, advertising it as a remedy after a night of debauchery.

In 1873 Asa G. Candler reached Atlanta with just an handful of change in his pocket, but he was very lucky and in 1889 he purchased the patent for the tonic of Pemberton and together with his brother – both being excellent publicists, convinced that everything can be sold with a good publicity – began to give calendars with captivating pictures with the new drink Coca Cola. 

The Candler brothers founded the Coca Cola Company and fifteen years later they owned a millionaire capital, as it is said; in 1894 a cartoonist named James Counden designed the logo of the beverage; apparently in 1903  the alkaloid cocaine was eliminated from the beverage, while the  Coca leaves remain in the formula … up to present time.

In 1915 appeared the famous glass bottle, designed by an employee of J.C. Root Glass Company, called Alexander Samuelson, who probably took inspiration from a seed of Coca he found in the Encyclopedia Britannica.

In its famous formula 7 X  the Coca Cola Company uses Coca leaves, apparently without cocaine, imported in the USA from Bolivia and Peru (300 to 1,000 tons about is the annual estimate) by Stephan Chemical Company, where the leaves undergo the extraction of the alkaloid cocaine: the cocaine free leaves are sold to Coca Cola Company for processing the beverage, while the alkaloid cocaine is probably exported to Europe for medical use.

The  formula 7 X  has long been one of the best guarded secrets worldwide; but now there is no more  secret, being in public domain the information that the formula 7 X  contains – or, to a fair say, would contain – caffeine citrate, vanilla extract, flavoring, such as orange, lemon, nutmeg, cinnamon, cilantro and neroli, citric acid, juice of lime, sugar, water and … F E C … that is merely the Fluid Extract of Coca of the best quality … 

The Coca Cola Company has obtained a special article in its favor, in the International Convention on Narcotic Drugs of the United Nations (New York, 1961) and in the Protocol of amendment (1972): the Article number 27 says literally: The parties may authorize the use of Coca leaves for the preparation of a flavor producing agent that does not contain alkaloids and, to the extent necessary for such use, authorize the production, import, export, trading and possession of that leaf. 

It’s a common believe that Coca Cola is not any longer processed with Coca leaves, which isn’t true, because the Food and Drugs Administration (FDA) of the United States of America doesn’t authorize to label a product with the name of an ingredient not actually present in its formula. 

Some events of the recent past prove that Coca leaves are still in the formula of Coca Cola: at the end of 1984 Roberto Goyzueta, a chemist from Cuba, the president of Coca Cola Company, proposed to Robert Woodruff, the patriarch of the Company, by then aged 95, to change the drink’s formula 7 X, eliminating the Fluid Extract of Coca in order to handle the competition with Pepsi Cola that was spreading doubts on the alleged content of cocaine in Coca Cola.

It seems that the patriarch Woodruff succumbed to convincing justifications that the change of times had changed the tastes, although his acceptance was probably only apparent, because he stopped eating and after a few weeks he died, on 7 March 1985: the man who had driven the Coca Cola Company since 1923 evidently had presented the great disaster going to happen. 

About a month after the death of Robert Woodruff in a press conference it was announced the change of both the formula and the flavor of the drink, launching the New Coke; in the following days the Company received a thousands of calls from many citizens protesting against the new drink, just thrown into the sewers with no reserve. 

It seems that Fidel Castro launched by Radio Havana a harangue against Roberto Goyzueta, declaring that the disappearance of such a genuine product was a symptom of the USA decline.

Due to the massive protest of the original Coca Cola’s lovers, in June 1985 the repented leaders of the Coca Cola Company stepped back and the Coca Cola classic showed up again on the market, according to the old formula invented by John Styth Pemberton in 1886, in the same glass bottle designed by Samuelson in 1915.

Within a few months the New Coke was defeated by the competition with the original flavor, made with the formula 7 X containing the Fluid Extract of Coca.

The Coca Cola Company was definitely rescued by the USA consumers, albeit at the great cost of about 4 million dollars in three months, as high were the losses of the failed attempt.

A year later, however – 1986  the impasse was over and the Centenary of  Coca Cola was celebrated in Atlanta, in a great style as in the old days, no expense spared.