Mind-Bending Facts present you: bizarre Coca-Cola facts!

I don’t think I exaggerate when I say that Coca-Cola is easily one of the most popular brands that have ever existed. It only takes a few seconds to recognize the logo and the iconic bottle, and probably everyone has drank at least a cup of this tasty soda once in their lives.

The brand has billions of fans around the world, and many are those who can’t go a day without having their beloved dose of Coke or Diet Coke if they don’t want any sugar in their diets.

Lots of people consume their fuzzy drink every morning, but there are many Coca-Cola facts people have no idea about. The brand’s story went through different stages throughout the years, such as the cola war between Coke and Pepsi, and I gathered some bizarre facts for your delight.

If you want to discover what happened behind the curtains, you have to read this article to see all these Coca-Cola facts. So, before we begin, pour yourself a nice drink, and let’s raise a glass of our favorite sweet, fizzy, and brown drink and embark on the strange journey Coke’s been on. You’ll like it!

1. Origins

Okay, we couldn’t start talking about these weird Coca-Cola facts without talking about the origins of the brand first. The beverage was invented by a pharmacist named John Pemberton, and he created it as a patent medicine. At one time, it contained drugs, aka cocaine.

Some people might not know this information, but their knowledge stops at the fact that the inventor died less than 2 years after he came up with the idea for his new drink. But shortly before his passing, he decided to sell the rights to the formula to a popular businessman named Asa Candler due to the fact that his health wasn’t okay and he was already in debt.

After a while, Candle founded the Coca-Cola Company and turned the sweet and fuzzy drink into something popular thanks to his impressive advertising and marketing techniques, and he managed to get very wealthy with the help of his knowledge.

2. Ingredients

Have you ever wondered why this drunk is actually called the way it is? It seems like the name Coca-Cola actually comes from the 2 main ingredients of the beverage: the kola nut and the coca leaf.

One of the Coca-Cola facts not many people know about is that the extract of the coca leaf was pretty much cocaine, and the energizing effect also came from the caffeine that was provided by the kola nut.

Did you know about this? If yes, leave a comment down below and say “I did”.

3. Alcohol

Let’s continue with these Coca-Cola facts because things start to get more and more interesting. We discussed the main ingredients that gave the beverage such an interesting flavor, but Pemberton’s original recipe, which was registered in 1885, had a third ingredient, and that was alcohol.

First, the Coca-Cola drink was created as a coca wine, and it was developed in France many centuries ago, in the 1860s. The brand that came up with the idea for that special wine was Vin Mariani, which used a mixture of wine and cocaine to achieve this beverage, and some of the people who were big fans of it were Ulysses S. Grant, Queen Victoria, and Thomas Edison.

3. Cocaine

If you read the original formula that Pemberton developed, you’ll notice that he mentioned that each gallon of syrup needed 5 ounces of coca leaf, and that wasn’t exactly healthy. After a while, the wine was removed from the recipe in 1886, after the state of Atlanta passed prohibition legislation, and the main ingredients left were the kola and coca.

However, at the beginning of 1903, cocaine was phased out, but researchers estimated that around that time, each glass of the tasty fuzzy drink actually contained roughly 9 milligrams of cocaine.

If you want to know some real numbers, a normal line of the unhealthy white substance contains approximately 50 milligrams, so you understand how intoxicating the initial beverage was.

Of course, drinking a glass of the sweet Coke didn’t necessarily turn you into one of Pablo Escobar’s customers, but you’d have certainly felt a bit different from normal. So, what do you think about these Coca-Cola facts? Do you find them weird? I know I do.

5. Formula

If you like eating KFC, you already know about Colonel Sanders’ 11 spices and herbs that make his chicken so good, and while that secret mixture was finally discovered, the Coke formula is kept secret.

Sources say that the modern recipe for the drink is locked away in a vault, which you can visit at Atlanta’s World of Coca-Cola. However, these Coca-Cola facts can seem a bit extreme, considering that only 2 employees were told the actual formula and the company doesn’t allow them to travel together.

Do you find that extreme too, or do you think that is just normal protocol?

6. Bottle

In 1915, the giant company wanted to have a special glass that would make their beverage recognizable all over the world, so they talked to the employees of Indiana’s Root Glass Company and asked them for a product.

The team thought about basing the design on the shape of the kola nut or the coca leaf, but what’s interesting is that they didn’t know how either of those things looked. They also couldn’t find any illustrations of photos at the library, so they took some inspiration from the cocoa pod.

It seemed that the Coke company loved the design the team came up with because the bottle has a similar shape to the cocoa pod, which is known as the contour bottle, and it became the real deal and the standard in 1920.

7. Sponsorship

I don’t know about you, but these Coca-Cola facts keep amazing me! Did you know that the brand was the first to ever sponsor the Olympic Games in 1928?

The brand was actually one of the first drink and food companies to really take a step further with their marketing and advertising, and they didn’t disappoint because the corporate sponsorships and the marketing relationships that they’ve built are exactly what their strategy is all about.

But let’s go back to the Olympic Games because here we have a unique relationship: Coca-Cola has kept sponsoring the Olympics since they did it the first time in 1928, so we can say that this is a real collaboration here.

8. Logo

We’re almost at the end of our Coca-Cola facts journey, but don’t go anywhere because we still have something to talk about. Back in the late 1880s, when the writing machine was developed, the Spencerian script was the writing style that was considered the standard for business correspondence, invitations, and formal letters.

So the first Coke logo was written in the Spencerian script style, which was very popular from 1850 to 1925. Another huge brand that has its logo written in this style is Ford Motor Company, and I think it looks pretty good and is classic.

Did you know about any of these Coca-Cola facts? Which one of them do you think was the most bizarre of them all? I’ll have to go with the cocaine because I find it very disturbing that a glass of this delish drink used to require so many grams.

If I made you feel thirsty while reading this article about these weird Coca-Cola facts, I bet that a bottle of Coke is going to make you feel better. If you don’t have a shop nearby, here‘s an Amazon offer that is going to deliver your favorite beverage straight to your door. Enjoy and happy Coca-Cola facts reading!

There are many other bizarre Coca-Cola facts you might not know about, so if you want to discover more, leave a comment down below, and I’ll do part. II of this article. But if you want to check out something else from us, here’s a good article for you: Have you ever heard these shocking heart failure facts?