Although few people in the world remember John Stith Pemberton, everyone knows his "creation" Coca Cola. Even fewer know that this soft drink has its roots in the American Civil War.
Pemberton was born in Knoxville, Georgia in 1831. He was a chemist and druggist and in 1853 opened his own store. But soon the American Civil War broke out and Pemberton was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the 3rd Georgia Cavalry.
He fought well, rising to the rank of lieutenant colonel, but was severely wounded by a saber wound to the chest during a horse fight at the Battle of Columbus in 1865. Due to his excruciating pain, Pemberton was given morphine to which he gradually became addicted.
His addiction was the generative cause of the creation of Coca Cola. As a chemist, wanting to escape from morphine, he decided to create something that could help him. So he created a drink that he believed could cure him.
The drink was called 'Pemberton's French Wine Coca' and was advertised as the elixir for all sickness and disease , or as he used to say, for the treatment of addiction, depression, alcoholism, as well as sexual impotence.
The first Coca Cola contained alcohol and was based on a Franco-Italian "healing" wine called Vin Mariani. One of the elements that Pemberton added to the recipe were coca leaves from which morphine is also produced, kola nuts and leaves of the damiana plant, considered an aphrodisiac. Also added caffeine. In 1866, however, the alcohol was removed and sugar and citric acid were added instead.
Soda water was added to Pimperton's syrup, and this is how today's, approximately, Coca Cola was born. This name was given by Frank Robison and that is how the product became known. Unfortunately for Pemberton his discovery did not save him from morphine.
Pemberton also sold shares in the company he had set up so that by the late 1880s there were many companies stocking the product. Eventually the trademark was won, gradually, by Isa Candler as Pemberton and his opium-addicted son sold him most of their stake in the company.
Pemberton died in 1888. His son followed in 1894. However, if Pemberton had not fought, perhaps the most famous soft drink in the world might not exist.
John Pemberton.