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The history of the soft drink industry is filled with visionary entrepreneurs who revolutionized the beverage market through their innovative creations.
From pharmacists experimenting with unique flavor combinations to savvy businessmen who transformed local concoctions into global brands, these pioneers shaped the landscape of the soft drink industry as we know it today.
John Pemberton, a pharmacist and Confederate States Army veteran, invented Coca-Cola in 1886 as a non-alcoholic alternative to his French Wine Coca.
He had originally created French Wine Coca while seeking a cure for his morphine addiction that stemmed from a battle injury.
Pemberton's original Coca-Cola recipe contained cocaine and kola nuts. He marketed it as a "brain tonic" that would cure headaches, relieve exhaustion, and calm nerves.
Despite Coca-Cola's success, Pemberton's morphine addiction and failing health led him to sell the rights to his formula to Asa Candler shortly before his death in 1888 at the age of 57.
Asa Candler, a druggist from Atlanta, purchased the Coca-Cola recipe from John Pemberton for $2,300 in 1888 and founded The Coca-Cola Company in 1892, developing it into a major enterprise.
Candler removed the cocaine from the original Coca-Cola recipe in 1903, selling the extracted cocaine to pharmaceutical companies, and under his leadership, the company reached an annual advertising budget of $1 million by 1911.
Charles AldertonIn addition to his role as a business tycoon, Candler served as the mayor of Atlanta from 1916 to 1919, during which time he balanced the city budget and coordinated rebuilding efforts after the Great Atlanta fire of 1917 destroyed 1,500 homes.
Charles Alderton, a pharmacist in Waco, Texas, invented Dr Pepper in 1885 when experimenting with new flavor combinations to revive soda fountain sales at Morrison's Old Corner Drug Store.
He created a unique 23-ingredient mix combined with phosphoric acid, which was first sold by asking the soda attendant to "shoot a Waco."
Alderton gave the formula to Wade Morrison, the store owner, who named it Dr Pepper.
The drink was introduced to millions at the 1904 World's Fair Exposition in St. Louis, just one year after the introduction of Coca-Cola.
Caleb Bradham, a pharmacist from New Bern, North Carolina, invented Pepsi-Cola in 1893 when he blended kola nut extract, vanilla, and "rare oils" to create a drink he initially called "Brad's Drink."
He renamed it Pepsi-Cola on August 28, 1898, believing that the drink aided digestion like the pepsin enzyme, even though pepsin was not actually an ingredient.
At the peak of success, Bradham had authorized Pepsi-Cola franchises in over 24 states.
However, he went bankrupt in 1923 largely due to rising sugar prices after World War I, and the assets of his company were sold to the Craven Holding Company for $30,000.
Charles Leiper Grigg, the inventor of 7 Up, launched his creation in 1929 under the name "Bib-Label Lithiated Lemon-Lime Soda," which contained the mood-stabilizing drug lithium citrate until 1948.
Originally created as a patent medicine, the lemon-lime soft drink was a product of Grigg's expertise in the carbonated beverage industry, having previously invented an orange-flavored drink called "Whistle" for a soda company.
The original name for 7 Up was rather cumbersome, so Grigg shortened it to just "7 Up" by 1936, though the origins of the new name remain unclear—with theories ranging from the drink's seven ingredients to the 7-ounce bottles in which it was sold.
Charles Elmer Hires, a pharmacist from Philadelphia, was an early promoter of commercially prepared root beer and founded the Charles E. Hires Co., which manufactured and distributed Hires Root Beer.
Hires reportedly learned about root beer on his honeymoon in New Jersey, where he was served an herbal tea made from roots, and his friend Russell Conwell suggested that "root beer" would be a more appealing name to the working class.
As a teetotaler, Hires marketed root beer as an alternative to alcohol, and despite a boycott by the Woman's Christian Temperance Union due to claims of alcohol content—Hires' business flourished after he presented his product at the 1876 U.S. Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia.
James Vernor Sr., a pharmacist from Detroit, Michigan, began selling Vernors brand ginger ale in 1880 after experimenting with the recipe while working at Higby and Sterns' Drug Store.
Although a popular company legend claimed that Vernor developed the formula before serving in the American Civil War and returned to find it had been transformed by the aging process in an oak cask, his son and a former company president later confirmed that Vernor did not create the ginger ale until after the war, with the drink entering commerce in 1880.
In addition to his success with Vernors Ginger Ale, Vernor was one of the original members of the Michigan Board of Pharmacy and served on the Detroit City Council for 25 years.
Claud Adkins Hatcher, a pharmacist and businessman from Columbus, Georgia, created RC Cola and other soft drinks after a disagreement with a Coca-Cola representative over wholesale pricing.
In 1905, Hatcher developed Royal Crown Ginger Ale as an alternative to Coca-Cola, and shortly after, he created Chero-Cola, a cherry cola designed to compete directly with Coca-Cola, which was later reformulated and renamed Royal Crown Cola (RC Cola) in 1934.
Hatcher formed the Union Bottling Works in 1905 to bottle his products, which was later renamed the Chero-Cola Company in 1912, and in 1924, the company introduced the popular Nehi line of fruit-flavored sodas.
Dietrich Mateschitz, an Austrian businessman, co-founded Red Bull GmbH in 1984 after discovering the energy drink Krating Daeng in Thailand, adapting it into the world-famous Red Bull brand and launching it in Austria in 1987.
Mateschitz owned 49% of Red Bull GmbH and used the brand's success to acquire and found numerous sports teams, including the Formula One teams Red Bull Racing and AlphaTauri, as well as football clubs like FC Red Bull Salzburg and RB Leipzig.
Known for his reclusive nature and love for extreme sports, Mateschitz's net worth was estimated at $27.4 billion in April 2022, and he owned a Fijian island, several castles in the Austrian Alps, and a collection of airplanes, including the last Douglas DC-6B ever produced, which once belonged to Yugoslav leader Josip Broz Tito.
Russell Weiner, the son of conservative radio host Michael Savage, founded Rockstar Energy Drink in 2001 by taking out a $50,000 mortgage on his condo after his idea for a larger, 16-ounce energy drink can was rejected by his former employer, Skyy Vodka.
Weiner's innovative marketing strategies, such as sponsoring extreme sports athletes and deploying models in gold and black bikinis, helped Rockstar gain popularity and generate over $100 million in revenue by the late 2000s, eventually leading to PepsiCo acquiring the company for $3.85 billion in 2020.
Known for his extravagant lifestyle, Weiner owns several mansions and a 161-foot yacht named "Rockstar," which gained notoriety in 2014 when it passed under a collapsing Florida drawbridge, damaging one side of the vessel.
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