The shaped bottle

This is the bottle... I mean, this is the bottle. Yes, I know this bottle. I've seen different types of this bottle. I've held different bottles shaped like this. I really know this bottle. I've looked inside the bottle. I've spilled some of the contents of a bottle like this. I've tried different flavours from these bottles. I know the taste difference between a bottled and canned drink.

The (original) drink inside the (original standard shaped) bottle was (originally) invented by a Dr. John Stith Pemberton in 1886. It was the doctors second drink with coca leaves and the kola nut as a basis. The doctors first coca leaf drink, Pemberton's French Wine Coca, was actually an immitation of Vin Mariani, a coca-wine drink invented by Angelo Mariani in 1883. Although there were several immitators of the French Coca-Wine, Pemberton's formula was superior. He was actually quoted saying "I believe that I am now producing a better preparation than that of Mariani."

Pemberton was not very good health, not to mention he was a morphine adict. So in 1887 he begain to sell parts of the company off. On July 8th he sold a third of the company to Willis Venable and another third to George Lowndes. Neither man had the time to market, make or sell Coke so they sold their portion of the company to Woolfolk Walker and his younger sister Margaret Dozier. Dozier owned two-ninths and Walker four-ninths of the formula rights. Now here is where it gets interesting. Venable somehow disposed of his portion of Coca-cola twice. During some time in 1887, he gave his share of Coca-cola to Joseph Jacobs, owner of Jacobs' Pharmacy. In early October, 1887 Pemberton ran a blind ad looking for additional investors.

He was able to get three investors with this ad. He took $2,000 from each of them. Their names were J.C. Mayfield, A.O. Murphey and E.H. Bloodworth. In late December the three new partners moved to Atlanta, ready to produce all of Pemberton's wonderful medicines.

At this point the formula of Coca-cola was officially owned by Pemberton, Walker and Dozier, but several others had interest in it. Enter Asa Candler, an ambitious Atlanta druggist. Candler some how acquired control of the company later in the month of December although he probably didn't own any part of the company until 1888. He acquired the drink in return for debts owed hime by certain "gentlemen." Things got a little sticky for a while with Charley Pemberton (John's son) claiming his right to the drink. This kicked off two coke clones by the names of: Yum Yum and Koke.

Pemberton grew even more ill, but continued with his work. He was developing a new drink, a modified cola with celery extract. The drink was never finished. Pemberton died on August 16, 1888. Candler serveda as a pallbearer at Pemberton's funeral and spoke very highly of him. In later years he was quoted saying "Why, I suppose Dr. Pemberton felt I was one of his best friends in town."



Exactly two weeks after Pemberton died Candler bought the remaining interest of Walker and Dozier for $1,000. With the exeception of the Walker, Candler & Company ownership, Asa Candler had legal rights to Coca-Cola. He was calling himself the drink's sole proprietor by May 1, 1889. By the turn of the century Candler would become one of the wealthiest men in Atlanta and Coca-Cola would become the most popular soft drink in America.

And the Coca-Cola beverage, whose unit sales totaled a mere 3,200 servings in 1886 ("nine drinks per day" based on the twenty-five gallons of syrup sold to drugstores by Pemberton Chemical Co.), is today called the world's most popular soft drink--accounting for billions of servings at restaurants in 195 countries.

Such is the commercial legacy of a onetime Confederate lieutenant colonel who earned his medical degree at the age of nineteen, who served on the first Georgia pharmacy licensing board, who set up a top-rated laboratory for chemical analysis and manufacturing, and who, in his dozen-and-a-half years in Atlanta, established eighteen business ventures - including one, the Coca-Cola Co., which now can boast 1995 sales in excess of $15 billion.

Notwithstanding Pemberton's numerous professional and entrepreneurial accomplishments, however, Coca-Cola historians characterize him as "a local pharmacist" who concocted the world's most craved soft-drink syrup in a three-legged brass pot in his backyard.

"Coca-Cola was not the creation of an inept, small-time corner druggist," said archivist Monroe Martin King, who has spent twenty-one years researching the life of John Pemberton--from his childhood in Rome, Ga., to his college days in Macon to his enterprising years in Atlanta. "He's occasionally portrayed as a wandering medicine man," King added. "But Dr. Pemberton worked in a fully outfitted laboratory and claimed to manufacture every chemical and pharmaceutical preparation used in the arts and sciences."

According to King, Pemberton's analytical laboratory became the first state-run facility to conduct tests of soil and crop chemicals. It continues to be operated by the Georgia Department of Agriculture. King further noted that Pemberton, who practiced medicine and surgery as a young man and later became a trustee of the former Emory University School of Medicine, earned a solid reputation for his skill in chemistry and his work in medical reform.