coca cola

Coca-Cola is a cola (a type of carbonated soft drink) sold in stores, restaurants and vending machines in more than 200 countries. It is produced by The Coca-Cola Company (NYSE: KO), which is often referred to as simply Coca-Cola or Coke. more...

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Coke is the world's most recognizable brand, according to BusinessWeek.

Originally intended as a patent medicine when it was invented in the late 19th century by John Pemberton, Coca-Cola was bought out by businessman Asa Griggs Candler, whose marketing tactics led Coke to its dominance of the world soft drink market throughout the 20th century. Although faced with critiques of its health effects and various allegations of wrongdoing by the company, Coca-Cola has remained a popular soft drink to the present day. The company actually produces concentrate for Coca-Cola, which is then sold to various Coca-Cola bottlers throughout the world. The bottlers, who hold territorially-exclusive contracts with the company, produce finished product in cans and bottles from the concentrate in combination with filtered water and sweeteners. The bottlers then sell, distribute and merchandise Coca-Cola in cans and bottles to retail stores and vending machines. Such bottlers include Coca-Cola Enterprises, which is the single largest Coca-Cola bottler in North America, Australasia and Europe. The Coca-Cola Company also sells concentrate for fountain sales to major restaurants and food service distributors.

The Coca-Cola Company has, on occasion, introduced other cola drinks under the Coke brand name. The most common of these is Diet Coke, which has become a major diet cola but others exist, including Caffeine Free Coke, Cherry Coke, Coke ZERO, Vanilla Coke and special editions with lemon and with lime, and even with coffee. The Coca-Cola Company owns and markets other soft drinks that do not carry the large Coca-Cola brand marking, such as Sprite, Fanta, Pibb, and others, but the Coca-Cola Company's trademark name can usually be found somewhere on the bottle.

History

See also: The Coca-Cola Company, History section

Early years

The first Coca-Cola recipe was invented in Covington, Georgia, by John Stith Pemberton, originally as a cocawine called Pemberton's French Wine Coca in 1885. He may have been inspired by the formidable success of European Angelo Mariani's cocawine, Vin Mariani.

In 1885, when Atlanta and Fulton County passed Prohibition legislation, Pemberton responded by developing Coca-Cola, essentially a carbonated, non-alcoholic version of French Wine Cola. The beverage was named Coca-Cola because, originally, the stimulant mixed in the beverage was coca leaves from South America. In addition, the drink was flavored using kola nuts, also acting as the beverage's source of caffeine. The first serving in 1886 cost US$0.05. Pemberton called for five ounces of coca leaf per gallon of syrup, a significant dose, whereas, in 1891, Candler claimed his formula (altered extensively from Pemberton's original) contained only a tenth of this amount. Coca-Cola did once contain an estimated nine milligrams of cocaine per glass, but in 1903 it was removed. After 1904, Coca-Cola started using, instead of fresh leaves, \"spent\" leaves - the leftovers of the cocaine-extraction process with cocaine trace levels left over at a molecular level. To this day, Coca-Cola uses as an ingredient a non-narcotic coca leaf extract prepared at a Stepan Company plant in Maywood, New Jersey. In the United States, Stepan Company is the only manufacturing plant authorized by the Federal Government to import and process the coca plant.

Read more at Wikipedia.org