Pemberton's French Wine Coca advertisement

Pemberton's French Wine Coca was a coca wine created by the druggist

John Pemberton John Stith Pemberton (July 8, 1831 – August 16, 1888) was an American pharmacist and Confederate States Army veteran who is best known as the inventor of Coca-Cola. In May 1886, he developed an early version of a beverage that would later bec ...

, the inventor of Coca-Cola. It was an alcoholic beverage, mixed with coca,

kola nut The term kola nut usually refers to the seeds of certain species of plant of the genus ''Cola'', placed formerly in the cocoa family Sterculiaceae and now usually subsumed in the mallow family Malvaceae (as subfamily Sterculioideae). These cola ...

, and

damiana ''Turnera diffusa'', known as damiana, is a shrub native to southern Texas in the United States, Central America, Mexico, South America, and the Caribbean. It belongs to the family Passifloraceae. Damiana is a relatively small, woody shrub tha ...

. The original recipe contained the ingredient cocaethylene (cocaine mixed with alcohol), which was removed, just like the alcohol had before it, in 1899 because of a social stigma surrounding the rampant use of cocaine at the time.

History

French wine coca is a combination of cocaethylene (a unique drug made by mixing cocaine and alcohol) and French wine. In 1863, a Parisian chemist Angelo Mariani combined coca and wine and started selling it under the name "

Vin Mariani Vin Mariani ( French: ''Mariani wine'') was a coca wine and patent medicine created in the 1860s by Angelo Mariani, a French chemist from the island of Corsica. Mariani became intrigued with coca and its medical and economic potential after read ...

". This became extremely popular. Jules Verne, Alexander Dumas, and Arthur Conan Doyle were among literary figures said to have used it, and the chief rabbi of France is quoted to have said, "Praise be to Mariani's wine!" Pope Leo XIII reportedly carried a flask of it regularly and gave Mariani a medal. Seeing this commercial success, Dr. John Stith Pemberton in Columbus, Georgia – himself a morphine addict following an injury in the Civil War – set out to make his own version. He called it Pemberton's French Wine Coca and marketed it as a panacea. Among many fantastic claims, he called it "a most wonderful invigorator of the sexual organs". In the 1880s, when former US President

Ulysses S. Grant Ulysses S. Grant (born Hiram Ulysses Grant ; April 27, 1822July 23, 1885) was an American military officer and politician who served as the 18th president of the United States from 1869 to 1877. As Commanding General, he led the Union Ar ...

was writing his memoirs, he drank Pemberton's French Wine Coca to fight a painful throat cancer. In an 1885 interview with the '' Atlanta Journal'', Pemberton claimed the drink would benefit "scientists, scholars, poets, divines, lawyers, physicians, and others devoted to extreme mental exertion." In 1885, when Atlanta and Fulton County enacted temperance legislation, Pemberton scrambled to develop a non-alcoholic version of his popular product. The result was an early version of Coca-Cola. The temperance legislation did not affect the inclusion of coca, which remained in the formula until early into the 20th century, when it was removed under the orders of then- The Coca-Cola Company president Asa Candler; coca leaf extract with the cocaine removed remains one of the flavors in Coca-Cola. Despite Atlanta's Temperance legislation, production of French Wine Coca continued until Pemberton's death in 1888; in 1887, French Wine Coca sold 720 bottles a day. The Coca-Cola recipe was eventually sold to Candler.

Uses

Pemberton claimed astounding medicinal properties for his French Wine Coca, which was marketed as a patent medicine. French Wine Coca was marketed mostly to upper class intellectuals, afflicted with diseases believed to have been brought on by urbanization and Atlanta's increasingly competitive business environment. The beverage was advertised as a cure for nerve trouble, dyspepsia, gastroparesis, mental and physical exhaustion, gastric irritability, wasting diseases, constipation,

headache Headache is the symptom of pain in the face, head, or neck. It can occur as a migraine, tension-type headache, or cluster headache. There is an increased risk of depression in those with severe headaches. Headaches can occur as a result ...

neurasthenia Neurasthenia (from the Ancient Greek νεῦρον ''neuron'' "nerve" and ἀσθενής ''asthenés'' "weak") is a term that was first used at least as early as 1829 for a mechanical weakness of the nerves and became a major diagnosis in North A ...

and impotence. It was also suggested as a cure for morphine addiction, which was increasingly common after the Civil War.

References

External links

* {{cite web , url=http://www.collectorsweekly.com/stories/37305-pembertons-french-wine-coca-cola-prec , title=Pemberton's French Wine (Coca- Cola precurser ic Bottle , publisher=Collectors Weekly Cocaine Patent medicines Wineries in Georgia (U.S. state) Coca-Cola brands