On This Date In History

On March 12, 1894, Coke was sold in bottles for the first time. Though today there is almost nothing as ubiquitous as a bottle of Coca-Cola, this was not always the case. For the first several years of its existence, Coke was only available as a fountain drink, and its producer saw no reason for that to change.
Originally developed as a non-addictive substitute for morphine, then marketed as a non-alcoholic "temperance drink," Coca-Cola was invented by John Pemberton, a druggist in Columbus, Georgia, in 1886. It was soon popular throughout the region, and the rights to the brand passed to Asa Griggs Candler. Candler's nephew had advised him that selling the drink in bottles could greatly increase sales, but Griggs apparently wasn't interested. The first person to bottle Coke was Joseph A. Biedenharn, owner of a candy store in Vicksburg, Mississippi. Correctly determining that bottles could boost sales, Biedenharn put the drink into Hutchinson bottles, a common and reusable glass bottle that bore no resemblance to the modern Coke bottle. He sent Candler a case, but Candler continued to stick with fountain sales.
Five years later, Candler finally sold the national bottling rights to Coke, excluding the right to bottle it in Vicksburg, to two brothers from Chattanooga. Still convinced that bottling would not be a major source of revenue, Candler sold the bottling rights for a dollar and reportedly never collected even that. The contract stipulated that a bottle of Coke would cost 5 cents and had no end date, a legal oversight that resulted in the price remaining the same until 1959. In 1915, the bottlers put out a call for a new design, one so distinctive that one could recognize it if it were in pieces on the ground or by feeling it in the dark. The winning design, produced by the Root Glass Company of Terre Haute, Indiana, gave the world the iconic contoured bottle we know today.
Coca-Cola was initially only sold by the glass from soda fountains because of a belief in the health properties of carbonated water. The first person to bottle Coca-Cola was Joseph A. Biedenharn from his wholesale candy company in Vicksburg, Mississippi, in 1894. Biedenharn used a Hutchinson bottle with its patented stopper.

 

 

 

 

 

 The Gods Must Be Crazy

The Evolution of the Coca-Cola Bottle
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0ygHKSOMTI&t=253s

On March 29 1886 Dr John Pemberton brewed the first batch of Coca Cola. Pemberton was a pharmacist who served as lieutenant colonel of the Confederate Army's 12th Cavalry Regiment. In 1866, in Columbus, Georgia, he started working on painkillers that would serve as opium-free alternatives to morphine. He next began experimenting with coca and coca wines, eventually creating his own version of Vin Mariani, containing kola nut and damiana, which he called Pemberton's French Wine Coca. According to Coca-Cola historian, Phil Mooney, Pemberton's world-famous soda was "created in Columbus, Georgia and carried to Atlanta." Pemberton relied on Atlanta druggist Willis Venable to test and help him perfect the recipe for the beverage, which he formulated by trial and error. With Venable's assistance, Pemberton worked out a set of directions for its preparation that eventually included blending the base syrup with carbonated water by accident when trying to make another glass. Pemberton decided then to sell it as a fountain drink rather than a medicine. Soon after Coca-Cola hit the market, Pemberton fell ill and nearly bankrupt. Sick and desperate, he began selling rights to his formula to his business partners in Atlanta. Pemberton had a hunch that his formula "some day will be a national drink," so he attempted to retain a share of the ownership to leave to his son. But Pemberton's son wanted the money. So in 1888 Pemberton and his son sold the remaining portion of the patent to Asa Candler.