Portal:Drink/Selected person/1
John Stith Pemberton
B. January 8, 1831 – d. August 16, 1888
John Stith Pemberton was an American druggist and the inventor of Coca-Cola. When Pemberton was a druggist and chemist in Atlanta, Georgia, he began work on a coca wine, an alcoholic beverage mixed with coca, kola nut and damiana called Pemberton's French Wine Coca. It was intended to stop headaches and calm nervousness, but others insist he was attempting to create a pain reliever for himself and other wounded Confederate veterans.
In 1885, when Atlanta and Fulton County enacted temperance legislation, Pemberton produced a nonalcoholic alternative to his French Wine Coca. Frank Mason Robinson came up with the name "Coca-Cola" for the alliterative sound, which was popular among other wine medicines of the time. Although the name quite clearly refers to the two main ingredients, the controversy over cocaine content would later prompt The Coca-Cola Company to state that it is "meaningless but fanciful." Robinson also hand wrote the Spencerian script on the bottles and ads. Pemberton also made many health claims for his product and marketed it as 'delicious, refreshing, exhilarating, invigorating' and touted as a 'valuable brain tonic' that would cure headaches, relieve exhaustion and calm nerves. (Full article...)