A company that makes the special extract for flavor in Coca-Cola has reported that in 2003 they had enough coca on hand to make more than $200 million worth of cocaine that ended up in America’s favorite soft drink instead. Actually, it turns out they transport hundreds of thousands of kilograms of coca leaves each year. This is interesting because this means that today the Coca-Cola company has to be getting their coca from somewhere, and it also has to be processed. So, today Coca-Cola actually still features flavors from coca leaves. In 1929, there was a discovery of a new extraction method that allowed the soft drink super company to remove the cocaine-esque chemical (ecgonine alkaloid) from the drink. The removal of coca from Coca-Cola was not long-lived. The company tried to address its role in this by removing the coca from Coca-Cola in 1903, 11 years before the United States moved to make cocaine an illegal substance. This mass accessibility led to a public health crisis as more and more community members ended up addicted to cocaine from their Coca-Cola habits. The jump to producing the soda in bottles was massive because it made the drink available to people of color who were not allowed to drink at the local soda fountains due to racism and segregation. By 1899 you could find a Coca-Cola bottle in the hands of every southern intellectual. The changing legality of alcohol led Pemberton to make the very first version of Coca-Cola featuring sugar water instead of wine. It simply wasn’t considered a dangerous substance at the time. This meant Pemberton’s first version of Coke was illegal because of the alcohol! At that time in history, coca was still slipping under the radar of most regulatory agencies and governments around the world. The Georgia county where Pemberton lived and sold his products had a prohibition introduced in the 1880s. Prohibition was enacted during the roaring 20s and 30s for the United States at large, but it turned out Georgia was a few steps ahead of the rest of the country. The drink began to gain traction in the U.S., but there were some major changes looming on the horizon. His first iteration of the drink was called Pemberton’s French Wine and Coca. Rumor has it even the Pope at the time always kept some Vin Mariani on his person! Pemberton took this as his cue to make something better. This revelation was shared with the public when famous figures like author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and the Grand Rabbi of France, Zadoc Kahn, lauded the drink. It makes a special type of chemical that is touted to give off more euphoric effects than when either substance is used alone. Biologically, the body does some interesting things when trying to process coca and alcohol. Vin Mariani was not your average Maid Marian of a drink itself. Pemberton was a doctor who served in the Civil War, and he saw the effects of Vin Mariani - and the sales. Not that his goal was altogether altruistic. It turns out Pemberton was struggling with an addiction to morphine at the time, and he was also trying to find an alternative. Pemberton made the original recipe of Coke it is said to have been made in an attempt to compete with a drink known as Vin Mariani. Making A Morphine Alternative For The Times Coca leaves are filled with all sorts of unique compounds and oils, one of which is cocaine, an alkaloid with addictive properties. If you are doing a double take on the ingredients and “coca extract” catches your eye, it is with good reason. But, one of these things is not like the others. His recipe included ingredients like coca extract, coco, caffeine, sugar water, lime juice, vanilla, caramel, and more. Pemberton made the original recipe of Coca-Cola. The saga started all the way back in 1886 when John S. The two soda powerhouses have been battling it out for market share for over a century now. What isn’t to love about Coca-Cola®? It sure beats Pepsi® - it is the classic after all. Coca-Cola Great Britain, Oct.Carbonation.Mark Pendergrast, May 2013, "For God, Country, and Coca-Cola".9, 2020, Did Coca-Cola Ever Contain Cocaine? National Institute on Drug Abuse, Nov.While Coca-Cola did once contain some cocaine, it’s very unlikely the drink contained that much. We rate the claim that the first bottle of Coca-Cola contained 3.5 grams of cocaine as MISSING CONTEXT because without additional information it could be misleading. Fact check: Blue Java bananas are real, but this image exaggerates their colorĪccording to Snopes, which examined the claim in 1999, there was just 1/400 of a grain of cocaine per ounce of syrup by 1902 and the drink was cocaine-free by 1929, when the de-cocainization process was perfected.
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