Matt MacNabb: A Secret History of Brands: The Dark and Twisted Beginnings of the Brand Names We Know and Love

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.

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 broken 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’.

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.

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.