Today is the birthday of John Pemberton, American pharmacist and inventor of the Coca-Cola secret recipe.

Pemberton was born and raised in Georgia, outside of Atlanta. He finished up a medical degree at age 19 in 1850. He tried practicing medicine and surgery but was ultimately drawn toward the chemistry side.  He opened up a drug store in a town outside of Atlanta. He got married, had a son, and life moved along at a jaunty pace.

But the Civil War changed all that. Pemberton received sword blow to the abdomen during a battle.  Even after the injury healed outwardly, Pemberton would be struck with bouts of intense pain. He would be so overcome with the pain that he would be bedridden for days at a time. To manage the severe pain, he used morphine, and soon became an addict

Hoping to find an alternative to his costly morphine habit, Pemberton began experimenting to make a cure-all elixir. Plenty of wellness elixirs were already on the market. Most elixirs were not effective in the slightest, but the kola nut and the coca leaf were two popular ingredients that appeared to have some promise.

[Kola nut was from Africa and had a variety of established benefits. Coca leaf from the Andes in South America was notable as a general mood booster and could increase focus. When distilled down into cocaine however, it is dangerously potent and highly addictive.]

Coca wines, which were more or less wine with cocaine, were quite popular at the time. Pemberton named his cure-all elixir Pemberton’s French Wine Coca. His recipe included coca leaf, kola nut, wine, and damiana.  

He focused on marketing his French Wine Coca to Atlanta’s intellectual elites and in an advertisement claimed the drink was best for "scientists, scholars, poets, divines, lawyers, physicians, and others devoted to extreme mental exertion.”

Pemberton saw decent sales of his French Wine Coca, but as the temperance movement began to sweep the nation in the 1880s, he had to rethink his product and its formula.

Inspired by the soda fountains in malt shops and ice cream parlors, Pemberton set out to create a soda syrup, rather than an elixir. 

He spent days, then weeks slaving away to create a base syrup, but emerged with the formula that would later become the most popular and well-known soda brands in the world. Once he had a tasty product, he was able to get it into an ice cream parlor and received regular orders. 

One day a man named Frank Robinson walked into an ice cream parlor and ordered Pemberton’s Kola. He loved it. He immediately went into business with Pemberton, taking over the marketing and budget of the soda syrup.

It was Robinson who coined the “Coca-Cola” name for Pemberton’s drink and used it to promotion the soda at ice cream parlors and malt shops city wide.

Pemberton meanwhile had a hard time keeping up. His addiction and stomach pains had not gone away and he seemed to be spending more and more time in bed because of it. 

Increasingly sick, behind on orders, and running out of money due to his addiction, Pemberton began selling the rights to his formula to business partners in Atlanta. He held onto a few final shares for his son. 

Poor and in severe pain from what Pemberton now knew was stomach cancer, he was approached by Asa Griggs Candler on his deathbed. Candler offered to buy the rest of Pemberton’s Coca Cola shares. Pemberton’s son advised his father to take the money so the family would not be left with nothing after Pemberton’s death. Pemberton sold the rest of his Coca-Cola shares for $1,750 in 1888. The stomach cancer took Pemberton within the year, releasing him from his life-long pain and addiction. 

 

Emily Dickinson

 

If I can stop one heart from breaking,

I shall not live in vain;

If I can ease one life the aching,

Or cool one pain,

Or help one fainting robin

Unto his nest again,

I shall not live in vain