Coca-Cola was the conception of John Pemberton, an Atlanta maker of patent medicines, whose revelation was to mix the formulation for Vin Mariani—an exceedingly popular French wine (among its fans were Thomas Edison, H. G. Wells, President William McKinley, and six French presidents), infused with the powdered leaves of the coca plant (cocaine)—with kola nuts, another popular ingredient in patent medicines, and the carbonated water being dispensed in soda fountains. Pemberton removed the wine from his formula in 1885, when local counties in Georgia voted to ban the sale of alcohol. That’s when
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