Coca-Cola began in 1886 as a pharmacist's cure-all - minus the wine

Coca-Cola was invented in 1886 by John Stith Pemberton, an Atlanta pharmacist. He had been selling an alcoholic coca wine, but when prohibition reached Atlanta he reformulated it into a non-alcoholic syrup to be mixed with soda water at the fountain - a medicinal tonic he claimed could treat common ailments.

Its name and famous flowing script came not from Pemberton but from his bookkeeper, Frank Robinson. The recipe drew its two stimulants from its name: cocaine from the coca leaf and caffeine from the kola nut. The cocaine was eliminated around 1903.

John Pemberton created the drink as a non-alcoholic alternative to his wine coca, after prohibition was adopted in Atlanta in 1886.

Pemberton died in 1888, before the drink took off. By 1892 another Atlanta pharmacist, Asa Griggs Candler, had bought the business for about $2,300 plus some rights and incorporated the Coca-Cola Company.