![]() ![]() ![]() This model continued under Pemberton’s successor, Atlanta pharmacist Asa Candler, who signed the first bottling franchise contracts for Coca-Cola in 1899. All sorts of luminaries testified to its restorative properties, including U.S. Pemberton patterned his drink after a French patent medicine called Vin Mariani, a Bordeaux wine mixed with coca leaves, which had become quite popular in international markets by the end of the 1870s, and why not? Here was a drink that was essentially cocaine-laced wine, inducing quite a buzz for the habitual consumer. That was the year Pemberton introduced Atlanta to Coca-Cola. In 1886, he had finally clawed his way out of debt but was still strapped for cash. In 1872, Pemberton filed for bankruptcy and a few years later watched helplessly when two fires ravaged his Atlanta business. By the 1880s, Pemberton was not well, and he was also hurting financially. The brand’s founder, Atlanta pharmacist John Stith Pemberton, was addicted to morphine, a narcotic many suspected Pemberton began using after suffering a series of debilitating wounds while defending the city of Columbus, Georgia, during the Civil War. From the very beginning, Coca-Cola had a drug problem. ![]()
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