Dwight was a truck driver for Coca-Cola, and he was in a hurry. He pressed on the gas; it was seven in the morning, and it was his job to supply all the stores in south Atlanta with the famous bottles modelled on the shape of a Kola nut. This year, the company was celebrating 50 years in business, and in its home city of Atlanta the anniversary was being celebrated like a public holiday. Dwight crossed the city to rapturous waves from the locals. Banners fluttered across the avenues, and children waited on the sidewalks to cheer the company’s name. He pulled up at the general store on 7th Avenue. Dwight knew the store well; he delivered ten cases of the famous soda to it each week. “This guy sells nearly a whole truckload on his own!” murmured Dwight as he climbed down from the cab.
Have you heard of Coca-Cola? Of course you have – everyone has, these days. It’s the most iconic brand of the twentieth century, after all. The original patent for the beverage was filed in Atlanta by John Pemberton, a former colonel in the Confederate army. From colonel to pharmacist – a strange career path, to say the least. The short version of the story goes like this: John Pemberton was a Confederate who fought in the name of slavery, and was born in Knoxville, Georgia in 1831. He graduated as a doctor aged 19. He was a talented man with a passion for chemistry. He decided to open a pharmacy so he could be his own boss. But when the War of Secession broke out between North and South, John Pemberton was grievously injured by a sabre blow to the chest. The treatment did not cure his pain, and he could not sleep at night. His pain kept him in a constant state of discomfort, and he soon became dependent on morphine. Despite working round the clock at the pharmacy, he struggled to get his hands on enough. Morphine was a costly commodity. Then the idea came to him to invent a substitute: he got to work, testing thousands of recipes and mixtures. He spent sleepless nights filling test tubes at his lab bench in the back of the drugstore. He ground up Kola nuts and crushed coca leaves, transforming, mixing, seasoning and distilling them. Finally, after months of frenzied research, he created the famous beverage and rushed to the patent office. Unfortunately the pharmacist was terribly sick and in debt, and sold his secret formula to a businessman who would go on to found Coca-Cola. John Pemberton died in obscurity, just two years after filing his patent.
When prohibition was passed in the USA, Coca-Cola (then an alcoholic drink) had to change its recipe. The businessman used and exploited the secret formula to make a soft drink. Through his aggressive and pioneering marketing techniques, he made the beverage the phenomenon it is today, and became incredibly rich as a result. He quickly decided to lock the secret formula in a safe. There it remains to this day, and the only two individuals who know the secret Coca Cola recipe are closely monitored by the Secret Service. They never travel together, lest they should both be killed and the empire’s secret lost forever. Coca-Cola is sold on every street, and the treacle-dark drink is delivered by the truckload to every corner of the globe.
Alan Alfredo Geday
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