Pemberton's French Wine Coca
Pemberton's French Wine Coca was a coca wine created by the druggist John Pemberton, the inventor of Coca-Cola.
It was an alcoholic beverage, mixed with coca, kola nut, and damiana. The original recipe contained the ingredient cocaethylene, which was removed, just like the alcohol had before it, in 1899 because of a social stigma surrounding the rampant use of cocaine at the time.
1885 advertisement
John Stith Pemberton was an American pharmacist and Confederate States Army veteran who is best known as the inventor of Coca-Cola. In May 1886, he developed an early version of a beverage that would later become Coca-Cola, but sold its rights to the drink shortly before his death in 1888.
Pemberton, before 1888
Standing in the open doorway to the pharmacy, atop the stoop, is John Pemberton in April 1888 at 47 Peachtree Street, Atlanta.
A sign in Knoxville, Georgia, commemorating John Pemberton
The grave of John Pemberton in Columbus, Georgia