Coca-Cola
It’s not surprising that Coca-Cola, probably the world’s most recognized product (and certainly its most popular soft drink) has spawned a wide variety of popular stories about its origin, effects and the ingredients used in Coke’s famous “secret formula.” Most of these tales, such as the ones about Coca-Cola dissolving teeth, its supposed contraceptive powers, or the assertion that 1985’s “New Coke” debacle was a Machiavellian gambit to divert attention from a change from the original formula, are baseless. But the most frequently-heard story, that Coca-Cola originally contained cocaine, is, technically speaking, true.
Coca-Cola was invented in 1886 by John Pemberton, an Atlanta, GA pharmacist. Pemberton was actually trying to concoct a headache remedy, but once he mixed his syrup with carbonated water and a few customers tasted the result, he realized that he had the makings of a popular soda fountain beverage. The name “Coca-Cola” was coined by Pemberton’s bookkeeper, Frank Robinson, who also wrote out the new name in the expressive script that has become Coca-Cola’s signature logo.
Though The Coca-Cola Company apparently would rather not talk about the origin of its name in detail, it’s clear that Robinson derived “Coca-Cola” from two of the drink’s ingredients: cola from the cola nut, and extract of coca leaf, also the source of cocaine.
Cocaine was a common ingredient of 19th century patent medicines, and by the standards of the day Coca-Cola contained a minuscule amount that probably had no effect on its consumers. Still, by the early 1890s there was a rising tide of anti-cocaine sentiment, and Atlanta businessman Asa Candler, who acquired the Coca-Cola Company in 1891, steadily decreased even the tiny amount of the drug in the recipe. There is some evidence that the only reason Candler kept putting even minute amounts of coca extract in the drink was the belief that to omit it entirely might cause Coca-Cola, by then besieged by imitators, to lose its trademark. In any event, Coca-Cola was completely cocaine-free by 1929.
The name “Coke” appeared in popular usage as a short form of “Coca-Cola” just before World War I, but was often applied as a generic term to any cola drink (and used by Coca-Cola’s competitors, including the now long-defunct Koke Company) until 1940, when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the name “Coke” rightfully belongs to the Coca-Cola Company.
Budweiser
It’s always Lawyer Time in this little corner of beerland. Budweiser, the flagship beer of Anheuser-Busch and the best-selling brew in America, has been scrapping over the rights to its name for decades, and there’s no sign of a letup anytime soon.
The Budweiser saga began in 1876, when the E. Anheuser Brewing Association. of St. Louis, MO, introduced Budweiser Lager Beer. (Founded in 1860 by Eberhard Anheuser, the company was renamed the Anheuser-Busch Brewing Association in 1879, recognizing the contribution and leadership of then-president Aldolphus Busch.)
Bud was a hit. The decades flew by and Americans guzzled Budweiser by the barrelful (three million barrels per year by 1941, in fact). Americans continued to down Bud in mass quantities, and Budweiser became an American icon.
Meanwhile, in Czechoslovakia, trouble was brewing. It seems that when Eberhard Anheuser named his beer “Budweiser,” he was paying homage to the beer makers of a Czech town called Ceske Budejovice, known in Anheuser’s native Germany as “Budweis.” According to the folks in Budweis, their local beer has been known as “Budweiser” for several hundred years.
In 1895 the Czech brewery Budejovicky Pivovar (mercifully known as Budvar) began producing its own brew, marketing it under the name “Budweiser Budvar,” and the legal fireworks soon began.
In 1939, Anheuser-Busch and Budvar supposedly buried the trademark hatchet in the U.S., giving A-B the American rights to the name in exchange for Budvar’s ownership of “Budweiser” in much of Europe. But as Anheuser-Busch expanded into and began to dominate international markets, skirmishing flared again. The Czechs even took offense at Budweiser’s slogan “The King of Beers,” noting that Budweis brewers had called their product “The Beer of Kings” since the 16th century. And Budvar partisans pointed out that A-B’s Budweiser wasn’t even legally considered beer in Germany, where the “Reinheitsgebot” (Beer Purity Regulations) dating back to 1516 strictly forbid the use of rice in brewing beer.
In recent years plucky Budvar has again won the right to use “Budweiser” and “Bud” in the European Union countries, but court cases continue to rage from Sweden to Hong Kong. Budvar’s current tactic is to sell its beer in the U.S. as “Czechvar,” hoping that word of mouth about what they call (in a whisper, of course) “the real Budweiser” will win them the fame in bars that they have lost, at least for the moment, in the U.S. courts.
Dr Pepper
“Doctor Pepper, so misunderstood…” ran the old advertising jingle for one of America’s most popular soft drinks, and no wonder. The folks who make the stuff won’t even reveal exactly what’s in it, although they do deny the presence of either pepper or prunes.
Dr (there is no period) Pepper was invented in 1885 by a pharmacist named Charles Alderton at Morrison’s Old Corner Drug Store in Waco, Texas. Alderton, who was just fooling around at the soda fountain, gave the recipe to his boss, Wade Morrison, and there seems no doubt that Morrison came up with the “Dr Pepper” name. But even the Dr Pepper Company doesn’t know who, if anyone, “Dr Pepper” was. One popular theory traces the name to an actual Doctor Pepper, on whose daughter (presumably the original “Pepper Upper”) Morrison had an ardent crush.
Incidentally, the “10-2-4″ inscription on Dr Pepper cans and bottles refers to 10 am, 2 pm and 4 pm, the times the Dr Pepper folks once thought consumers might be slumping during their work day and most in need of a shot of sugar and caffeine.