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In the year of 1990, over one hundred years after the soft drink was invented, the Coca-Cola Company opened up a museum-like building which was designed to be a tribute to its famous soft drink product. It is also said to be a tribute to the countless numbers of consumers who drink Coca Cola. The World of Coca Cola, as it is called, is located in Atlanta, Georgia, right amidst the tourist district. And, its tribute to the soft drink is because it is so popular that it is now served daily in nearly two hundred countries.
Having the museum located in Atlanta is fitting because long before anyone had ever heard of Coca Cola, a doctor by the name of John Stythe Pemberton, who was a druggist in Atlanta, mixed up his own concoction of medicinal syrup in May in the year of 1886. Dr. Pemberton used Africa
Kola Nut extract and coca leaves, which are both strong stimulants, in his potion. The result was a thick, caramel-colored syrup. The purpose of the potion was to be an effective tonic which would help a person's brain and nerves function better.
Dr. Pemberton's partner, a bookkeeper by the name of Frank M. Robinson, came up with the name of Coca Cola for the syrup from the names of its two basic ingredients. Dr. Pemberton poured some of the Coca Cola syrup into a jug and took it to Jacobs Pharmacy in town. The pharmacy made a fountain drink which mixed some of the Coca Cola syrup with plain water. The drink was sold to customers for a nickel a glass.
True or not, it has been said that a customer came into the pharmacy one day complaining of a headache. He asked for a glass of Coca Cola to be made with carbonated water instead of plain water, and the carbonated version of the soft drink was then born.
The first year, in 1886, Dr. Pemberton sold twenty-five gallons of his syrup which earned him a total revenue of just fifty dollars. By the next year, because of his poor health condition, he began to sell off his company. Five years later, a man by the name of Asa G. Candler, had acquired total control of the Coca Cola Company. And, two years later, in 1893, Coca Cola became a patented product in the United States.
Its popularity would not stay within the United States for long, though, because in the year of 1906, Coca Cola was bottled in Cuba and in Panama. Bottling operations were soon started in Hawaii the next year, then in the Phillipines, France, Belgium, Bermuda, Colombia, the Honduras, Italy, Mexico, Haiti, and Burma in later years. By the year of 1940, the famous soft drink was bottled in forty countries.
Advertising for the cola has included many product slogans including, "The Pause That Refreshes", which was used in 1929, "Have A Coke And A Smile," which was used in 1979, and "Always Coca Cola" which was used in 1993 when sales from this soft drink exceeded ten billion cases worldwide.
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