That Time Coca-Cola Started as a Wine Cocaine Cocktail

Heyo! Happy Monday! This week's subject is the origin of my favorite soda. I sold my soul to the Coca-Cola company in 2009 and I haven't looked back since.

An advertisement for Pemberton's French Wine Coca

First, we have to start at the beginning and talk about Coca Wine, which is a wine and cocaine cocktail that was VERY popular. The cocktail was developed in 1863 by Angelo Mariani, who made his Vin Mariani branded coca wine from Peruvian coca leaves and Bordeaux wine. It was all the rage to the point that Pope Leo XIII endorsed it, was sort of a spokesperson for Vin Mariani, and even gave it the Vatican gold medal. I had no idea the Vatigan gold medal was even a thing until I started researching for this post. They had Popes endorsing cocaine wine and we have a Pope saying slurs.

NOW that you've got some basic background about the cocaine wine cocktail, let's talk about how it relates to Coca-Cola. In the 1880s, John Pemberton created Pemberton's French Wine Coca, inspired by Vin Mariani. Pemberton was a pharmacist in Georgia. He created Wine Coca not just because he wanted to capitalize off of the success of Vin Mariani, but also because he was in search of his own remedy. Pemberton was injured in the Civil War and it led to him becoming a morphine addict.

John Pemberton

An 1885 interview with the Atlanta Journal quotes Pemberton as claiming that his French Wine Coca would benefit those "devoted to extreme mental exertion. He marked it as a cure-all. The list of things it could cure was morphine addiction, physical exhaustion, constipation, headache, impotence, and many more. With the 1885 passing of the temperance legislation - a precursor to prohibition - Pemberton developed a non-alcoholic version by replacing the wine with syrup and adding carbonation. That is the drink that would become our beloved Coca-Cola. However, the production of Pemberton's French Wine Coca continued until his death in 1888. Reportedly, in the last year of production, 720 bottles of Pemberton's French Wine Coca were sold daily.

Today, Coca-Cola no longer has alcohol nor cocaine in it and is one of the most popular drinks in the world.

If you enjoyed learning about this weird time in history, please check out my other That Time... posts! And if you have any other weird moments in history that interest you, drop them in the comments! I'm always looking for new things to learn and write about. Have a great week!

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