On May 8, 1886, Coca-Cola was invented. That is, it had been invented a few days earlier by an Atlanta pharmacist, John Stith Pembertonwho, in the laboratories of his Pemberton Chemical Company, had made a syrup which, when mixed with carbon dioxide, was supposed to have a tonic effect on the mind.
It certainly tasted great and had a cooling effect: at least this was said in the advertisement with which the drink was put up for sale in a pharmacy in downtown Atlanta, by Jacobs. It was not yet sold by the bottle, the bottles will arrive many years later: it was sold by the glass, tapped from those machines that go by the name of soda fountain. The price was 5 cents a glass, and the first glass was sold on 8 May.
By a curious but recurring fate, the inventor of Coca-Cola was not the man who made it a global success nor the one who became rich. He went like this: the pharmacist Pemperton’s accountant, whose name was Frank Robinson and he had a certain talent for communication, invented the name and was also the author of the famous logo. According to some versions, the name derives from the fact that the syrup initially combined an extract of coca leaves, which at the time was not prohibited in the United States; and caffeine made from a nut called cola: The first proposed name, Kola, was rejected in front of Robinson’s consideration that two words starting with “c” fit well in a name.
The drink, despite advertising in Atlanta newspapers inviting thirsty people to try it, it was not a success: about 9 glasses were sold a day and at the end of that first year the proceeds were about 50 dollars compared to 70 dollars in expenses. Pemberton was disappointed, and above all he never realized the true potential of Coca-Cola. And then he sold the famous (and top secret) formula to several partners, until when Atlanta contractor Asa Candler took over the entire property for $ 2,300founding the Coca-Cola Company.
Pemberton died the following year not knowing that the gassed syrup would soon become the most popular drink in the world.