Coca-Cola

Coca-Cola is the trademarked name (registered 1893) for a popular soft drink sold in stores, restaurants and vending machines around the world. It also popularly known as "Coke", which the company also claims as a trademark. Coca-Cola also registered a trademark on the distinctive bottle shape in 1960. Cans of Coke first appeared in 1955.

The name derived from the coca leaves and kola nuts used as flavoring. The exact formula for Coca-Cola is a legendary trade secret. Reportedly a copy of the formula is held in a safe in Atlanta, Georgia with only two corporate officers having access. However, the ingredients can be deduced and are as follows: carbonated water; high fructose corn syrup and/or sucrose; caramel color; phosphoric acid; natural flavors; caffeine; kola nuts; processed extract of coca leaves. In the original formula, the natural cocaine content of the coca leaves, and caffeine from kola nuts, provided the drink's stimulant effect. Shortly after the turn of the century, cocaine was removed from the coca leaves by processing (leaving a physiologically insignificant trace), and extra caffeine was added.

Coca-Cola was formulated by John S. Pemberton, and originally sold as a patent medicine for five cents a glass at soda fountains, which were popular in America due to a contemporary view that soda water was good for your health. The first sales were at Jacob's Pharmacy in Atlanta, Georgia, on May 8th, 1886, and for the first eight months, only thirteen drinks per day were sold.

The drink and its advertising campaigns have had significant impact on American culture. The current American image of Santa Claus, for example, as a fat jolly bearded old man in a red and white suit comes from a Coca-Cola advertisement. In the 1970s, a song from a Coca-Cola commercial called "I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing" became a popular hit single.

In the 1980s, Coca-Cola attempted to change the formula of the drink with a highly publicized effort. This new Coca-Cola formula caused a public backlash and the company was forced to return to the old formula under the name Coca-Cola Classic. The company was later suspected of playing this move as an elaborate charade to both introduce a new product and revive interest in the original. The company president responded to the accusation with "We are not that stupid, or that smart". However, the company did take the opportunity to switch Coca-Cola Classic from using cane sugar sweetener to the less-expensive corn syrup sweetener.

Today the drink is manufactured as a syrup and then supplied to various franchises that reconstitute, bottle and distribute it. The company produces many other soft drinks, including other varieties of Coca-Cola such as Diet Coke (which uses aspartame, a synthetic phenylalanine-containing sweetener, in order to reduce the sugar content of the drink).

The Coca-Cola Corporation also produces a number of other soft drinks including Sprite and Mr. Pibb, and the bottled water Dasani.

Coca-Cola's greatest rival is Pepsi-Cola.

Bibliography

Pendergrast, Mark: For God, Country, and Coca Cola: The Definitive History of the Great American Soft Drink and the Company That Makes It. New York: Basic Books, 2000 (second edition; ISBN 0465054684).

See also: Junk food, List of major flops ("New Coke")