The Real Thing

                          I'd like to teach the world to sing...

Allow me to make this perfectly clear before we even get started. Coca-Cola is the BEST soft drink that there is, bar none. I'm not even all that crazy about soda pop, truth be told, but this one is different. It dances across the taste buds with an intensity equal to that of a good strong beer, but without the alcohol content, of course. Yeah, I know all about Pepsi. Joan Crawford used to have something to do with that, I think (put that coat hanger DOWN, lady!), but on it's best day Pepsi poses no challenge whatsoever to its number one competitor. In fact, there's probably scores of other name-brand  pop products we could run through, and not one of them can compare to the delight of an ice-cold bubbly glass of COKE. 

The confection millions of people the world over recognize today as Coca-Cola was invented by a struggling pharmacist named John Pemberton at a drugstore in Atlanta, Georgia in 1886. Incredulously, the mixture was initially conceived not as the tasty thirst-quencher we know and love today, but as a sort of "cure-all" elixir, of the type that consumers in those days would have been well-acquainted with. The marketplace of the day was flooded with these bogus concoctions targeted towards a largely gullible public, and Pemberton wanted a piece of that market. This early Coke prototype promised to cure all kinds of ailments, including morphine addiction (!), dyspepsia, neurasthenia, headache, and impotence. That's right, impotence. Shortly thereafter, by way of a series of underhanded maneuvers too exhausting to go into in great detail here, Pemberton screwed around and had legal ownership of the unique syrup he created wrested from his control by a man named Asa Griggs Candler in 1888. In 1892, Candler founded The Coca-Cola Company, which continues to produce the beverage (or rather, its modern variant) and other assorted spin-offs to the present day. 

According to public radio host Ira Glass, the formula for Coke is "one of the most famously guarded trade secrets on the planet", and that is not mere hyperbole. As it turns out, though, a lot of what you hear about the extreme and patently ludicrous lengths the company will supposedly resort to in order to protect the legitimate recipe of the soft drink is mostly hype, exploited to great effect by the company to enhance the product's cachet. This is most likely no different from the way any manufacturer handles its own trade secrets, but it simply adds to the overall mystique of the product, maintaining its grip on the popular imagination. But of course that never stopped a guy from trying. On a recent broadcast of Glass' popular program This American Life, he recited the recipe that a writer named Mark Pendergrast claimed in 1993 to be John Pemberton's genuine formula for production of the base syrup and of the drink itself. Glass and company even went so far as to whip up a batch of something or other, which, alas, was not The Real Thing or anything that resembles it. The issue is moot anyway, as the company doesn't actually produce the original formula anymore for original Coke, modifying either the recipe or the process by which it is made to a considerable extent over the decades.

There is also one KEY reason you or I will never have the wherewithal to accurately duplicate this item. Yep, you guessed it. It's the thing that gives the drink its kooky brand name: the coca leaf. And yes, the stories you have heard are probably true; the original version of Coke the public would have enjoyed back in the 1880s did in fact contain processed cocaine. Quite a healthy dose from what I understand, which may go a long way to explain why the beverage caught on in the manner that it did. But by the 1920s, the company had since replaced actual coca leaves in the formula with a cocaine-free coca leaf extract, still in use today. 

Now critics of the brand will argue, among other things, that Coke is mostly a triumph of shrewd and aggressive marketing campaigns over actual taste or aesthetic value, and they might have a point there. Anybody born prior to about 1980 can probably remember when the company tried to radically alter the formula for the popular drink in the mid-80s, and the public simply went apeshit. It was actually a matter of controversy for awhile, so much so that the company had to go so far as to reintroduce the "original" drink (yet another variant, naturally), and remove the "impostor" from the American market. It's also true that the soft drink has a high (I mean, UNGODLY high) content of artificial sweetener. The original formula called for thirty pounds    of real sugar; the modern version features a pretty high dosage of high fructose corn syrup and other chemical sweetening agents, so moderation is probably not a bad idea. 

Me, I was born prior to 1970, so my fondness for this product may be directly traceable to one of their most memorable television ad campaigns. The "I'd Like To Teach" commercial spot from 1971 left such a positive impression on the public consciousness that the jingle was re-recorded and released as a successful pop record by two different vocal groups in the U.S. and the U.K. The company would revive and recycle this spot any number of times over the years.

Love it or hate it, it is easily the most recognizable brand name in North America, if not the world, and stands alone as perhaps the most formidable symbol of American pop culture. Coke adds life, indeed.

                                  ...in perfect harmony.