John Stith Pemberton was born on July 8, 1831 in Knoxville, Georgia. He matriculated at the Reform Medical College of Georgia in Macon, and had earned his medical degree by 19. Pemberton’s main talent was chemistry, and he opened a drug store in Columbus, Georgia.
During the Civil War, Pemberton served in the Third Cavalry Battalion of the Georgia State Guard. He achieved the rank of Lieutenant Colonel.
In April 1865, he sustained a sabre wound to the chest during the Battle of Columbus. Pemberton soon became addicted to the morphine used to ease his pain.
In 1866, Pemberton began to experiment with morphine-free painkillers in an attempt to overcome his addition.
His first recipe was “Dr. Tuggle’s Compound Syrup of Globe Flower,” in which the active ingredient was derived from the buttonbush, a toxic plant.
Pemberton then began experimenting with coca and coca wines, and eventually crafted a recipe including extracts of kola nut and damiana. He called the recipe “Pemberton’s French Wine Coca.” Pemberton’s soda was carried to Atlanta, where there was public concern about drug addiction, depression, and alcoholism among war veterans.
In 1886, Atlanta and Fulton County enacted temperance legislation, and Pemberton was forced to produce a non-alcoholic alternative to his French Wine Coca. He relied on Atlanta drugstore owner-proprietor Willis E. Venable to test, and help Pemberton perfect, the recipe for the non-alcoholic beverage. Through trial and error, and with Venable’s assistance, Pemberton worked out a set of directions for preparation of the non-alcohol version.
Accidentally, when trying to make another glassful of the beverage, Pemberton blended the base syrup with carbonated water. He then decided to sell the accidentally discovered drink as a fountain drink rather than a medicine.
Frank Mason Robinson, a partner and bookkeeper of Pemberton’s came up with the name “Coca-Cola” due to its alliteration, which was common to many of the names of wine medicines at the time. While the name referred to the original two ingredients, controversy later over the cocaine content of the original recipe would lead The Coca-Cola Company to argue that the name was “meaningless but fanciful.” Robinson originally hand-wrote the script of Coca-Cola on the bottles and advertisements.
Pemberton made many health claims for Coca-Cola, such as calling it “a valuable brain tonic” that would cure headaches, relieve exhaustion, and calm nerves.
Soon after Coca-Cola hit the market, Pemberton became ill and nearly bankrupt. He was sick and desperate, and suffered from an expensive continuing morphine addition. Pemberton began selling rights to his formula to his business partners in Atlanta. He thought that his formula “someday will be a national drink,” so he tried to retain a share of the ownership to leave to his son. However, Charles Nay Pemberton wanted the money, and in 1888, Pemberton and his son sold the remaining portion of the business to an Atlanta pharmacist, Asa Griggs Candler, for $300.
Pemberton died from stomach cancer in August 1888, impoverished and still addicted to morphine.
Though Coca-Cola has shed the cocaine from its recipe, the company has smartly and famously kept the formula a closely guarded trade secret for over 100 years rather than pursuing patent protection. A patent on the formula would have resulted in the formula being dedicated to the public after 20 years.
Today Coke products are sold in over 200 countries and more than 1.8 billion Coke branded beverage servings are consumed daily. Coca-Cola was the world’s 6th most valuable brand, according to Interbrand’s “best global brand” study of 2023, and ranked No. 94 in the 2024 Fortune 500 list of the largest U.S. corporations by revenue. Only few individuals have had more of an impact on the modern world than John Stith Pemberton.