Coca-Cola Trivia | 50 facts about the soft drink

Coca-Cola is a carbonated soft drink whose current formula inspired the creation of the whole classification of soft drinks: colas.

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1. Coca-Cola, or Coke, is a carbonated soft drink manufactured by The Coca-Cola Company.
2. It was originally marketed as a temperance drink and intended as a patent medicine.
3. It was invented in the late 19th century by John Stith Pemberton.
4. Then it was bought out by businessman Asa Griggs Candler.
5. Candler’s marketing tactics led Coca-Cola to its dominance of the world soft-drink market throughout the 20th century.
6. The drink’s name refers to two of its original ingredients: coca leaves, and kola nuts (a source of caffeine).
7. The current formula of Coca-Cola remains a trade secret.
8. However, a variety of reported recipes and experimental recreations have been published.
9. The drink has inspired imitators and created a whole classification of soft drink: colas.
10. The Coca-Cola Company has on occasion introduced other cola drinks under the Coke name.
11. The most common of these is Diet Coke.
12. Some others are Caffeine-Free Coca-Cola, Diet Coke Caffeine-Free, Coca-Cola Zero Sugar, Coca-Cola Cherry, Coca-Cola Vanilla, and special versions with lemon, lime, and coffee.
13. Coca-Cola was called Coca-Cola Classic from July 1985 to 2009, to distinguish it from “New Coke”.
14. Based on Interbrand’s “best global brand” study of 2020, Coca-Cola was the world’s sixth most valuable brand.
15. In 2013, Coke products were sold in over 200 countries worldwide, with consumers drinking more than 1.8 billion company beverage servings each day
16. Coca-Cola ranked No. 87 in the 2018 Fortune 500 list of the largest United States corporations by total revenue.
17. The logo is red because of old tax laws.
18. The iconic bottle design was created to help Coke stand out from its competitors.
19. Coke really did contain cocaine at one point.
20. Coca-Cola invented the six-pack.
21. The company helped popularize open-top coolers.
22. The first Coke was red wine mixed with cocaine
23. You can’t see the recipe itself, but you can see where it’s kept. At the World of Coca-Cola museum in Atlanta, you can visit The Vault of the Secret Formula exhibit, where the recipe is held.
24. Before it (well, the vault) was on display at the museum, the recipe was in a vault in an Atlanta bank.
25. Coke was the first product featured on a Time magazine cover
26. When the famous Coca-Cola bottle was first introduced, it was a landmark moment for the brand because it was originally only available from soda fountains.
27. The place pictured is Jacobs’ Pharmacy in Atlanta where Coca-Cola was first sold.
28. In 1899, three businessmen – Benjamin Thomas, Joseph Whitehead and John Lupton – bought the rights to bottle Coca-Cola for just $1 (77p).
29. Stranger Things fans were excited to try New Coke when the company re-released it last summer in partnership with the ’80s-set Netflix series.
30. When New Coke hit the scene in 1985, consumers weren’t happy with the new soda formula. In fact, it had only been on sale for 79 days before the company brought back “Coca-Cola Classic” to appease fans.
31. In 1915, owner Candler set up a competition to create a bottle design that would distinguish Coca-Cola from its competitors.
32. The winner was The Root Glass Company based in Terre Haute, Indiana.
33. The bottle’s bulbous design was modelled on a cocoa bean – an ingredient incorrectly believed to be in Coca-Cola.
34. It’s hard to think of Coke without its holiday advertising and special-edition polar bear cans. But the bears didn’t become synonymous with the brand until 1993 when the Coca-Cola Company released its “Northern Lights” commercial. The polar bears have been a part of Coke’s holiday campaigns ever since.
35. As part of its marketing strategy to make Coca-Cola seem better than its competitors, the company declared there was a perfect temperature at which the drink should be served: between 1°C and 3.3°C (34°F–38°F).
36. In 1919, it even sent salesmen to new retailers to enforce these standards.
37. Not only was Coca-Cola one of the first brands to devise a modern way of bottling its product, it was also an early adopter of multi-packs. Noticing a trend in shoppers buying more than one bottle at a time, in 1923 it introduced six-packs so consumers could carry multiple glass bottles home without them smashing.
38. This advert was published in The Ladies Home Journal in 1948.
39. Coca-Cola was the first-ever Olympic sponsor, beginning its sponsorship at the Summer Games hosted in Amsterdam in 1928.
40. In 1985, astronauts drank Coke on the Challenger space shuttle. That marked the first soft drink consumption in space, according to the company.
41. During the Second World War, one of the Coca-Cola leaders Robert Woodruff declared servicemen and women should be able to get a bottle of Coca-Cola for 5 cents wherever they were in the world, no matter what it cost the company.
42. More than five billion bottles of Coke were distributed to US troops. Portable soda fountains were even flown into remote areas in the South Pacific.
43. In the late 1980s, the company’s “Coke in the Morning” campaign urged people to replace their morning coffee with a Coke, The New York Times reported in 1988.
44. Citing figures from the Coca-Cola Company, the Times reported that 12% of soft drink sales included “morning consumption.” The ad campaign may not have led coffee fans to give up their morning java entirely, but it did put a new spin on drinking soda.
45. A Coke employee once got a prison sentence for trying to sell secrets to Pepsi
46. As the story goes, Russian general Georgy Zhukov, who fought in World War I and World War II, had a weakness for Coke. Not wanting his fellow Russians to see him drinking American Coke, he personally asked the company for a discreet version, Atlas Obscura explained.
47. Coca-Cola went along with the plan, creating a “White Coke” in clear bottles for Zhukov to enjoy.
48. Mexico is the world’s top consumer of Coke products
49. You may have heard that the first Coke servings were given away for free, but did you know there was a science behind it? As Wired reported, Coke became popular in the late 19th century in part thanks to “tickets” that could be redeemed for free servings. They weren’t much different from the coupons shoppers use today.
50. You won’t see other logos with the Coca-Cola font, and that’s not an accident. In 1893, the company registered the trademark for “Spencerian script” with the U.S. Patent Office.