Coca-Cola Sells First: A Global Brand Is Born

John Pemberton was a morphine addict looking for a cure. The Atlanta pharmacist and former Confederate cavalry officer had been wounded at the Battle of Columbus in 1865 and spent two decades chasing relief through patent medicines, many of which he formulated himself. On May 8, 1886, he began selling a new syrup at Jacob's Pharmacy in downtown Atlanta, mixed with carbonated water and offered as a remedy for headaches and nervous conditions. He called it Coca-Cola. The original formula contained extracts from two plants: coca leaves, the source of cocaine, and kola nuts, which provided caffeine. Pemberton's bookkeeper, Frank Robinson, suggested the name and wrote it in the flowing Spencerian script that remains the brand's logo. Early advertisements promoted the drink as an "intellectual beverage" and "brain tonic." First-day sales at Jacob's Pharmacy amounted to roughly nine servings, generating about $3.50 in revenue against $73.96 in advertising costs. Pemberton was dying. Addicted to morphine and in declining health, he began selling shares of his Coca-Cola formula to various Atlanta businessmen. By the time he died in August 1888, he had sold most of his interest. Asa Griggs Candler, an Atlanta druggist with a sharper business mind, acquired the remaining rights through a series of purchases totaling about $2,300 and incorporated the Coca-Cola Company in 1892. Candler transformed Coca-Cola from a soda fountain curiosity into a national brand through aggressive marketing. He distributed free drink coupons, plastered the logo on calendars, clocks, and serving trays, and established a network of regional bottlers. The cocaine was removed from the formula around 1903, replaced by a decocainized coca leaf extract that remains an ingredient. Coca-Cola became the most widely distributed commercial product on Earth. During World War II, the company built 64 bottling plants overseas to supply American troops, establishing the global infrastructure that made it a postwar cultural icon. From a single pharmacy counter in Atlanta, a morphine addict's failed headache cure became a brand valued at over $80 billion and consumed in more than 200 countries.