How 'Bout A Coke

How ’Bout A Coke

Southerners sure love their Soft Drinks. Heck, we practically invented them. Coke, Pepsi and RC Cola were all invented in Dixie. In 1810, the first U.S. patent was issued for the "means of mass manufacture of imitation mineral waters" to Simons and Rundell of Charleston, South Carolina. This firmly established a Southern pedigree to the Soda Fountain and the mass marketing phenomena that followed.

Soda fountains, which sold combinations of ice-cream and drinks composed of fruit syrups, sugar and soda water, were fixtures all across the nation by the 1890's. In 1876 soda vendors popularized soft drinks at the Philadelphia. Centennial Exposition. It had been a hot summer and alcoholic beverages had been banned at the exposition. Fair goers liked what they drank and demanded soda drinks when they returned home.

On May 8, 1886. Dr. John Pemberton, an Atlanta pharmacist, concocted a syrup for a new drink and carried a jug of it down the street to Jacobs’ Pharmacy, where it was sampled, pronounced “excellent” and placed on sale for five cents a glass as a soda fountain drink. Dr. Pemberton’s partner and bookkeeper, Frank M. Robinson, suggested a name and penned the now famous trademark “Coca-Cola” in his unique script. During the first year, sales averaged a modest nine drinks per day.

By 1891 Atlanta businessman Asa Candler had acquired the Coca-Cola business for $2,300. He patented the formula in 1893 and opened the first syrup manufacturing plant in 1884. Candler set the standard for mass marketing and aggressively advertised Coca-Cola in newspapers and on billboards. The Coca-Cola script logo, usually accompanied by the word “drink”, began popping up on the sides of buildings and barns walls all over Georgia.. So much so, that by 1908, 2.5 million squarefeet of America's walls were covered in reminders to “drink Coca-Cola”. In 1915, The Root Glass Company made the distinctive contour bottle for the company. Today Coca–Cola is best known trademark in the world sold in about one hundred and forty countries to 5.8 billion people.

Pepsi-Cola began as “Brad’s Drink“ in the summer of 1893. It was invented by New Bern, NC pharmacist Caleb Bradham. The drink was renamed Pepsi Cola in 1898 after the pepsin and cola nuts used in the recipe and trademarked in 1903. From the back room of his pharmacy, Caleb mixed and sold over 8,000 gallons of syrup his first year. Having an appreciation of the value of advertising, he invested $1,900 of his early profits in promotion of his new drink.

The Pepsi-Cola Company hit hard times and was bankrupt in 1931 when owner Charles Guth offered to sell his assets to Coco-Cola who declined to even offer a bid. With no potential buyers, Guth went back to his customers with the newly-created 12 ounce bottle, but only charged the standard five cent price, and soda drinkers found the first good reason to make a massive shift to Pepsi. In 1940 the Pepsi-Cola Company makes advertising history with “Nickel, Nickel“, the first advertising jingle ever broadcast nationwide on radio. Today Pepsico is an international behemoth with revenues of about $27 billion.

In 1905 a young pharmacist named Claud A. Hatcher decided to supply his family's Columbus, Ga grocery store with drinks that he produced and bottled. Hatcher called his first line of beverages “Royal Crown”, which was affectionately dubbed “RC Cola” by southern devotees. RC continued to grow and produced innovation after innovation. In 1954 the company became the first to nationally distribute soft drinks in cans. RC produced the first low-calorie diet cola (Diet Rite), the first caffeine-free diet cola (RC 100) and the first diet cherry cola (Diet Cherry RC).

RC is half the Southern Classic poor man's snack “An RC Cola and a Moon Pie”. The Moon Pie, a marshmallow and cookie sandwich invented in Chattanooga, TN in 1917, was offered with an RC for 10 cents in the 1950's. Popularized by the recording hit “Gimm’e an RC Cola and a Moon pie“ from Big Bill Liston and celebrated at the ‘Annual RC and Moon Pie Festival’ in Bell Buckle, TN each June this treat is uniquely southern.