May 8 1886: John Pemberton Sells Coca Cola in Atlanta, Georgia

...and everyone gets a lot smarter

In the 1880s, American was undergoing yet another metamorphosis. This time in its cities, which were growing at a dramatic rate due to industrial expansion and immigration. Over 15 million people would move to one between 1880-1900. With them came over-crowding, poor sanitation, increased pollution, and the plot to The Godfather. And with all that came bad health. People were suffering from ailments brought on by living in cities, working in new conditions, and stress.

It created more mental health issues too. Anxiety, depression, and addiction erupted among Americans. A nervous condition called neurasthenia ravaged just about everyone and was brought on by just about everything. It was caused by the new fast pace of life, life in cities, the pressures of competitive business, sedentary lifestyles, and reading long lists of illness causes. Everyone had the symptoms too: headaches or muscle pain, weight loss or weight gain, irritability or lethargy, a lack of ambition, and insomnia. Men suffered from anxiety and impotence, but which came first we’ll leave to the chicken and egg people. With all these conditions, the lack of ambition speaks for itself.

People needed treatment. But what and how? Most Americans knew little about the physiology of the human body. The treatments that were still in use was archaic and downright creepy, bloodletting and blistering among them. Americans had long been treating illness with herbal remedies that had been passed down for generations. Still, the recent swath of medical issues couldn’t be fixed by a honeysuckle poultice. Americans needed affordable medical attention. And even though medical know-how was heading towards germ theory and away from attaching bloodsucking animals to one’s genitals, there was a broad avenue open for hucksters and charlatans.

Enter the patent medicines boom. Cure-all liniments, elixirs, and tonics were pitched by snake oil (an actual thing) salesman. They were claimed to fix everything from hemorrhoids to erectile dysfunction to depression. Of course, by curing either one of those first two, you’re likely to cure the third. Patent medicines boasted ingredients that were herbal, exotic, and hard to pronounce. The camphor and catechu in Dr Bateman's Pectoral Drops would cure your chest or lungs, the sassafras and cloves in Magician John Hamlin's Wizard Oil would heal any sore and subdue any pain. And the elecampane and jalap in Daffy’s Elixir would cure you of your loose bowels, flatulency, and, probably, loneliness. But the real ingredients were alcohol and drugs. Dr. Bateman’s Pectoral Drops wouldn’t fix your chest, but it was mostly opium, so you didn’t give a shit. No wonder Hamlin’s Wizard Oil subdued any pain, it was made up of 70% alcohol including ammonia and chloroform. They weren’t lying: if you’re blacked out on your bathroom floor you probably can’t feel any pain.

In 1860s Europe, a patent medicine called Vin Mariani exploded onto the scene. It was a coca wine created by Angelo Mariani, a French chemist and genius who saw the enormous economic potential from adding cocaine to booze and selling it as medicine. Advertisements for Vin Mariani claimed that it would restore health, strength, energy and vitality. Well, no shit. It’s popularity was enormous and included people across all spectrums of society. Arthur Conan Doyle, Jules Verne, and Alexandre Dumas adored it; Pope Leo XIII appeared on a poster endorsing it and awarded a Vatican gold medal to Mariani, probably while twitching. Ulysses S. Grant drank it. Thomas Edison drank it and then invented the lightbulb so he could work at night. Coincidence? I think not. If there was one thing that people everywhere could agree on, it was that adding cocaine to booze was just awesome.

They weren’t wrong either. Physiologically, that is. The ethanol in the wine acts as a solvent and extracts the cocaine from the coca leaves. This combination of cocaine and alcohol in a human system leads to the formation of cocaethylene, a compound which decreases feelings of drunkenness while increasing euphoric sensations. For a while, Europe was the happiest place on Earth.  

Also a fan of Vin Mariani was American chemist and Civil War veteran John Pemberton. Gravely wounded in the last battle of the war in 1865, he had not been expected to survive. So attending doctors tried to ease his last moments on earth with big doses of morphine. He survived, but with an addiction to morphine that would hound him for years, as it did countless other veterans. In 1866, he had begun his search for a morphine-free cure for pain. Inspired by Mariani, Colonel Pemberton came up with Pemberton’s French Wine Coca nerve tonic. It used roughly the same ingredients (alcohol and cocaine) to create roughly the same result (absolute euphoria and probably itchy teeth).

However, in 1886 America’s latest cause got in the way. The growing temperance movement had been gaining steam since the Civil War, when men tried to escape the horrors of war by getting blotto. In 1886, Fulton County – where Pemberton’s shop was located – went dry. This didn’t stop him, it just changed his plans a little. So, on May 8 1886 when he first sold Coca Cola out of Jacob’s Pharmacy in Atlanta, the recipe was slightly altered. He took out the alcohol, but kept the cocaine, which was fine because it was evil alcohol that everyone had a problem with. In order to appeal to the non-drinking movement, Pemberton marketed it as Coca Cola: The Temperance Drink.

Pemberton advertised Coca Cola as a cure for morphine addiction, indigestion, nerve disorders, headaches, and impotence. It was pitched to ‘ladies, and all those whose sedentary employment causes nervous prostration’. Among upper class white people, Coca Cola became known as an intellectual beverage, what with the cocaine, the caffeine, and the sugar propelling good ideas through their heads as if a turbo engine had been attached to their cranium. But what’s a story about 19th century America without abject racism? In 1899 when Coca Cola began being bottled a terrible thing happened – black people could get it. Before then, Coca Cola was only available in segregated soda fountains. So black people had no access to it. After it was bottled, they could drink it too. However, instead of making them intellectuals as it did rich white people, it turned black people into sex-starved rapists of white women. ‘Negro cocaine fiends’ were reported to be wreaking havoc all over the south. In 1903, Coca Cola’s manager (not Pemberton, who had died), took out the cocaine and added more sugar and caffeine. Because nobody does anything bad when they’re high on sugar.

Today we celebrate Coca Cola: The Temperance Drink in a most intemperate way. The temperance part of Coca Cola only lasted until people realized how awesome it was when you added booze to it. I’m guessing about a week, but I don’t have proof. So I’m going with the testimony of Fausto Rodriguez, who said that in 1900, while with the U.S. Army Signal Corps in Cuba during the Spanish American War, he went to a Havana bar and ordered a Bacardi and Coca-Cola. Today’s drink.

Rum and Coke

Ingredients

1 ½ shot rum (your choice, I’m going with Bacardi)

4-6 ounces of Coca Cola (to taste, up to you)

A lime (if you choose to use it, cut it into wedges and despite all instincts, don’t lick the lime)

A general dislike of all temperance movements (non-negotiable)

Indigestion, nerve disorder, headache, or impotence (optional, not recommended)

Recipe

If you’re American, fill a glass with ice. If you’re not, observe the glass and spend a moment considering the American fascination with ice. Add 1 ½ shots of rum to the glass. Then add more, because you know you want to and this isn’t Fulton County in 1886. Add as much Coca Cola as you want, this is your drink after all. Squeeze the lime into the glass or just let it sit on the rim as a garnish. Raise your glass to John Pemberton, to America in 1886, to Vin Mariani, and drink until your sedentary employment no longer causes nervous prostration. Or until you’re shitfaced enough not to care if it does.