"Coca Cola - the Drink of the Confederates!"



In 1886, the druggist John Stith Pemberton lives in Atlanta (US state Georgia) ...:



He had been Lieutenant-Colonel and Commander of the 3rd Battalion of the 12th Georgia Cavalry during the Civil War ...



... and had started taking morphine to reduce stress.

Now he is a severe morphinist and is looking for ways to cure himself of the addiction.

He soon began to be interested in the coca plant ...



... and is quickly convinced that he can successfully fight his morphine addiction with the active ingredient cocaine (at that time a recognized remedy and by no means prohibited!).

In addition, he is experimenting with making a mixed drink in which, in addition to small amounts of extracts from the coca bush, mainly the juice from the cola nut from today's Nigeria ...



... the raw material to be extracted contains caffeine, which has an invigorating effect and - this is what he finds out in a self-experiment - relieves his nagging headaches.

In addition, sparkling soda water - and lots of sugar to give the bitter drink a pleasant taste!

His pre-war training at the nearby Southern Botanico Medical College of Georgia comes in very handy in his experiments.

On May 8, 1886, Pemberton begins selling his drink, which he called "Coca Cola", to customers in his drugstore for only 8 cents a glass - as "suitable for fatigue and headaches" ...:









The brown drink is in the world!

Until 1887, Pemberton changed the recipe for "Coca Cola" again and again until it seemed perfect to him.

On June 6, 1887, he had his drink protected by patent!

But he did not remain a monopoly for long: just two days later he sells two thirds of his rights on "Coca Cola" to the company of the wealthy businessman Asa Griggs Candler ...



Not entirely voluntarily, by the way, because he urgently needs money to finance his addiction, which he could not cure with coca extracts.

At that time, Pemberton already knows that he did not have much longer to live - he died of stomach cancer on August 16, 1888 at the age of 57.

He bequeathed the third of the rights to "Coca Cola" that he still had to his son Charly, who, like himself, had become addicted to morphine.

The drugstore in the Atlanta Museum is recreated here: Behind the counter there is a wax figure of his son Charly and a picture of the inventor's dad hangs on the wall ...:



And so this last third soon follows the path of the other two: Charly also sells Candler to Asa Griggs to make money for morphine!

He only outlives his father by six years - an overdose will kill him!

The big money with the sweet shower made Asa Griggs Candler ...!

However, "Coca Cola" was advertised in the south until our time with the inventor's confederate past ...:







At least until the US civil rights movement took up this in its anti-advertising in the 1970s, especially in the former northern states ...:

Everything is racist. LOL.

The South is avenged

wasn´t aware that Coke is a confederate weapon of mass destruction designed to supersize the carpet-baggers

Love those first few posters! And, how in the name of common sense can a drink be racist???? WTF??

Phil