Top Ten Interesting Facts about Coca Cola:
10. John Stith Pemberton, the founder of Coca Cola served was a colonel in the Confederate Army.
At the very bottom of the interesting facts about Coca Cola is its founder. After successfully passing out from medical school, John Stith Pemberton served as a full-fledged colonel in the Confederate Army, while the Civil War was raging on. While in action, he was critically wounded. It was this wound that sparked off his interest in the invention of Coca Cola. Actually he had become a morphine addict and tried to find a way to fight this obsession with the opiate, by seeking an effective substitute for the dangerous drug.
9. The prototype of original Coca Cola was alcoholic as also coked-up.
It was in 1885 that Pemberton initiated the marketing of a beverage that he had christened “Pemberton’s French Wine Coca.” It was a combination of kola nut, coca and Damiana, a flowering shrub that displayed aphrodisiac and anti-anxiety qualities.
8. Coke is 128 years old!
With the advent of prohibition in his home state of Georgia, Pemberton replaced his alcoholic product with Coca Cola, a non-alcoholic version of his earlier French Wine Coca. The first sales were made at Jacob’s Pharmacy in the city of Atlanta, Georgia on May 8, 1886.
7. At first, Coca Cola was marketed as a remedy for several ailments including that of low sexual libido.
When prohibition laws forced Pemberton to remove the alcohol from his original French Wine Coca, he was compelled to take the alcohol out of his original coke wine formula. Now he duly shifted his stance and sold the new version as a “a most wonderful invigorator of sexual organs.” With the launching of Coca Cola, he said that the new drink was a “Brain Tonic” as also a “temperance drink” meaning anti-alcohol, claiming that it cured indigestion, headaches, depression, anxiety, as also drug addiction.
6. In 1903, Cocaine was taken out of Coca Cola.
Cocaine was an ingredient of Coca Cola with around nine milligrams of the drug per glass. However, it was removed in 1903. After 1904, rather than using fresh coca leaves, Coca Cola began making use of ‘spent’ leaves, leftovers of the process of cocaine-extraction, with trace amounts of cocaine.
5. Originally it cost five cents per glass.
At first, the servings of Coca Cola cost five cents a glass. During initial first year, the sales on the average remained a low nine servings a day in the city of Atlanta. However, today, daily servings of Coca Cola are in the range of a whopping 1.9 billion on a global basis.
4. Coca Cola’s creative advertising, contributed to the public’s vision of Santa Claus.
Some of Coca Colas remarkable advertising/marketing facts:
- From the outset, Coca Cola made use of successful publicity strategies like producing non-Coke products such as clocks and calendars as well as using attractive female spokesmodels.
- The highly effective and successful Coca Cola ads were the creation of Norman Rockwell.
- In the 1930s, Coca Cola created their unique Christmas ads, portraying a cheerful, red suited Santa. In this way Coca Cola played a leading road in the shaping of the American image of St. Nick.
- In the 1980s, Coca Cola attempted a campaign titled “Coke in the Morning” in an effort to win over the traditional coffee drinkers.
3. Coca cola played a role in race relations.
In 1899, Coca Cola began to be sold in bottles, apart from the regular selling in soda fountains. This meant that consumer demographics underwent a remarkable shift. On a racial note, the minorities could consume Coca Cola when it became available in bottles. Until then it was sold only in soda fountains which were highly segregated. This in a small way helped in improving race relations.
2. Coke invented the 6-pack.
Although the idea of the 6-pack is common place these days, it was Coca Cola who introduced it for the first time in 1923. This novel pack allowed a person to take home six bottles of Coca Cola at a time; it was indeed a big break-through and as such a revolutionary idea. The 6-pack also became a standard practice all over the beverage industry.
The carrier also encouraged people to carry home several bottles of Coca Cola as also drink the beverage more often at home. Just think of taking individual glass bottles of Coca Cola home! None would do it, or wouldn’t get so many bottles!
1. Birth of the Coca Cola contour bottle
The Coca Cola contour bottle has the highest place at the top of interesting facts about Coca Cola. Bottlers were worried that a bottle that was evidently straight-sided was not distinctive enough. Also, people were always confusing Coca Cola with the many “copycat” brands. Thus Coca Cola approached glass manufacturers to design and produce a unique bottle exclusively for Coca Cola. Accordingly The Root Glass Company situated in Terre Haute, Ind. designed the well known contour shape, that won wholehearted approval from Coca Cola and it was duly introduced back in 1916. Apart from these, the Coca Cola bottle has become a design classic among those who appreciate good design.
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