Vintage American Cocktails

A Short History Of Coca-Cola.

John Pemberton invented Coca-Cola in 1886. Pemberton studied medicine at the Reform Medical College of Georgia and was a former Confederate States Army lieutenant colonel. After the end of the civil war, Pemberton moved to Atlanta, Georgia, where he opened a pharmacy and sold many of his recipes. Coca-Cola was intended to be a replacement for one of his previous panacea tonic drinks, “Pemberton’s French Wine Coca,” due to the prohibition of alcohol in 1885 in Atlanta, Georgia. Thirty-five years before the sale and consumption of alcohol was prohibited at the federal level; it was banned in Atlanta, forcing John Pemberton to reformulate some of his recipes.

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When comparing the Coca-Cola recipe and Pemberton’s French Wine Coca recipe, it’s clear that he was trying to make coke appeal to a larger market by removing most of the medical qualities from his coca wine. His coca wine had medicine with anti-diarrhea, cough suppressants, sedatives, quinine, pain relief, anti-inflammatory, sexual stimulants, and cocaine and caffeine. All while being around 26% alcohol. All of that was removed from Coca-Cola except for the caffeine and cocaine. Since the wine was illegal, he needed something to mask the bitter taste of the stimulants and give the drink flavor. Thus Coca-Cola was invented.

John Wouldn’t live to see the success of his invention, though. He died two years later from stomach cancer at age 57 in August 1888. Around his death, he sold around nine cokes a day. Coca-Cola sells about 2 billion cokes a day now. John Pemberton sold the coke recipe to another Atlanta pharmacist Asa Candler in 1887 for $2,300. Asa Candler is listed as the Founder of the Coca-Cola company and, through aggressive marketing, made Coca-Cola one of the most popular fountain drinks by the mid-1890s. The last significant change to Coke was the removal of cocaine in 1903.

History Of Pepsi

Pepsi-Cola was invented in 1893 by Caleb Davis Bradham in New Bern, North Carolina, and was originally named “Brad’s Drink.” By 1893, Coca-Cola was emerging as one of the most popular sodas in the United States, and many pharmacies were developing their own cola recipes to compete. In 1898, Bradham changed the name to Pepsi-Cola to market it as a healthier cola choice. The name change was based on Pepsi being marketed as a remedy for dyspepsia/upset stomach.

The business grew for Bradham, and by 1910, they even held a Pepsi bottlers convention in New Bern, NC. WWI changed Bradham’s good fortune and made procuring ingredients difficult. Immediately after WWI, sugar prices soared from 3 cents to 28 per pound. After years of shrinking sales due to a lack of supplies and the sudden surge in sugar prices, the Pepsi-cola company filed for bankruptcy on April 17, 1923. Bradham sold the company’s assets to Craven Holding for $30,000 and was forced to disclose the Pepsi recipe as part of the bankruptcy process. Soon after buying Pepsi, Craven Holdings sold the entire Pepsi business to Wall Street broker Roy C. Megargel. Who relaunched it as the Pepsi-Cola Corporation. Eight years later, in 1931, the Pepsi-Cola Corporation filed for bankruptcy again, and Megargel sold the company to the Loft Candy Company. On February 19th, 1934, Caleb Bradham, the creator of Pepsi, died at age 66.

The original recipe from the 1923 bankruptcy made a massive amount of syrup, so I scaled it down to produce 1 liter of syrup. Keep in mind that this is not the present-day recipe. Soon after being acquired by Loft Candy, the recipe was modified, and it has been slightly changed several times throughout the drink’s history, with the most recent change happening in 2023 when the amount of sweetener was reduced.