Coca-Cola is first sold at an Atlanta pharmacy
On this day · 8 May 1886
A pharmacist's headache syrup, mixed with soda water, debuted at a nickel a glass and quietly launched a global brand.
On May 8, 1886, the first glass of Coca-Cola went on sale at Jacobs’ Pharmacy in Atlanta, Georgia. The drink was the work of pharmacist John Stith Pemberton, who had concocted a caramel-colored syrup in a backyard kettle and intended it as a tonic for everyday ailments.
At the soda fountain the syrup was combined with carbonated water, judged tasty, and priced at five cents a glass. Pemberton’s bookkeeper, Frank M. Robinson, suggested the name and penned the flowing trademark script still recognizable today.
It sold about nine glasses a day that first year.
That sluggish start gave little hint of what was coming. Pemberton, in poor health and short of money, sold off his stake before his death in 1888, and never saw the brand’s rise. Control eventually passed to businessman Asa Candler, whose aggressive marketing turned a local fountain curiosity into one of the most widely sold products on Earth.
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