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Two-page spread including a certificate of registration and a diagram of the bottle shape that Coca Cola patented.
New Zealand patent for the Coca Cola bottle design (1938). (Photo: Archives New Zealand)

American chemist serves a new tonic called "Coca-Cola" at Jacobs' Pharmacy in Atlanta, Georgia.

1886

DRUG
MED
New Zealand patent for the Coca Cola bottle design (1938). (Photo: Archives New Zealand)

After creating the alcoholic beverage, French Wine Coca, a year earlier, John Pemberton creates Coca-Cola as a non-alcoholic tonic following the introduction of prohibition in in Atlanta. Coca-Cola is marketed as helping with nerves and headaches and is a mixture of coca leaves and kola nuts. The coca leaf (from the plant Erythroxylum coca) is used by healers in the Andean region of South America for a variety of ailments. The kola nut is a sweet medicinal plant from West Africa. Coca will be removed from the drink around 1903 following concerns about addiction to the stimulant.