Discovery of Coca-Cola Formula

Coca-Cola formula is the company’s top secret recipe for Coca-Cola. The contents of the secret formula have been subject to much scrutiny and debate and there have been many attempts to force Coca-Cola to reveal its trade secret publicly.

During the early 1880s, Atlanta druggist John Stith Pemberton experimented with various beverages to be used for medicinal purpose.

Vin Mariani, a coca wine developed in Europe, had introduced in the United States, by the 1880s, it was of the most popular patent medicines in Europe and the United States.

Vin Mariani was made by steeping coca leaves in Bureaus wine, result in 150 to 300 mg of cocaine per liter. The creator was Angelo Mariani.

Pemberton tried to clone it. In 1884 he released Pemberton’s French Wine Coca but he discontinued making it the following year when Atlanta passed temperance legislation preventing the manufacturing or sale of alcohol in the city.

Pemberton went back to the drawing board and in 1886 he came up with a new medicine consisting of coca leaves and kola nut extract sugar and other ingredients.

The result was a syrup that he called Coca-Cola. Coca-Cola was given it’s name in 1885, and was marketed as a tonic for most common ailments, based on the two medicinal main ingredients which consisted of extracts of Coca leaves and Kola nuts.

The original formula did include coca derivatives such as cocaine, which at the time were neither illegal unusual for patent medicines.

The exact amount of cocaine that was used in the original recipe is not certain, but only after a few years the amount was dropped considerably.

Pemberton considered it a cure for headaches and for morphine addiction, and he sold it as a medicine in drugstores.

The label for Coca-Cola syrup claimed that it was an exhilarating fountain drink as well as a cure for nervous disorders, including sick headaches, neuralgia, hysteria and melancholy.

Pemberton’s health failed in 1887 and he sold his business to Willis Venable, who mixed the Coca-Cola with soda water and served it as a “brain tonic and intellectual soda fountain beverage.”

In the same year, Asa Chandler purchased an interest in Coca-Cola and ultimately acquired 100% interest for a total investment of $2,300. Candler then patented the Coca-Cola formula, which has remained a closely guarded secret.
Discovery of Coca-Cola Formula