As Pepsi was struggling to market its Yoo-hoo competitor, Devil Shake, Coca-Cola was looking to shake things up with Saci. Launched in Brazil around 1968, Saci was an attempt to market a chocolate-flavored nutrition drink. The company hoped to convince locals to adopt its offering while also addressing protein malnutrition in developing regions. Coca-Cola Failed … Read more
t’s easy to look back at the original Coca-Cola formula and see it as a historical anomaly—a one-time lapse in judgment by a caffeine-crazed pharmacist. In reality, Coca-Cola wasn’t the outlier; it was just the most successful survivor of an era where the line between a refreshment and a pharmaceutical was almost non-existent. While Coke … Read more
By 1891, when Asa G. Candler bought the rights to Coca-Cola, the drink was already a runaway success. But that success invited a massive wave of Coca-Cola rip-offs looking to cash in on the “coca” craze. From blatant name-swaps like Koke and Coke-Ola to literal “clones” like Afri-Kola, the soda market was flooded with imitators. … Read more
Did Coca-Cola really contain cocaine? The short answer is yes. Far from being an urban legend or an accidental contamination, cocaine was a foundational ingredient in John Pemberton’s original 1886 formula. At a time when coca-leaf extracts were touted as a medicinal marvel, the drink wasn’t just a soda, it was a sophisticated delivery system … Read more
If you read the article about who invented Dr. Pepper, you may notice that I neglected to put a period in Dr. throughout the article. I wrote, Dr Pepper, not Dr. Pepper. I did so while realizing that some people may think I was making a grammatical error. But as you may have noticed, and wondered … Read more
While most people associate the spicy, 23-flavor profile of Dr Pepper with a secret laboratory, its true origin was much more atmospheric. In 1885, at Morrison’s Old Corner Drug Store in Waco, Texas, the goal wasn’t just to create a beverage, it was an attempt by a pharmacist to bottle the very scent of the … Read more