Quick history of soft drinks

While soft drinks today have a reputation for being unhealthy, there's no denying that they’re a huge part of North American culture. Here are the interesting origins of fizzy drinks.

People were already drinking soda water mixed with fruit syrups before the manufacture of prepared flavoured drinks began in the early 1800s.
Ginger, popular since the late 18th century as the essential ingredient of ginger beer, was the first flavouring, added in 1820.

Lemon followed in the 1830s. In the 1800s American apothecary and surgeon Thomas Cantrell claims to have created a dark-coloured ginger ale, which apparently tasted almost identical to ginger beer.
Another Cantrell, a doctor and manufacturer of bottled aerated water in Ireland, is said to have created ginger beer in 1852.

But it was definitely Canadian-born and raised John J. McLaughlin, a chemist and pharmacist who practiced in Brooklyn, New York, who made the lighter-coloured, "dry" ginger ale in 1904 that remains popular today.

Despite the different flavourings and added sugar, carbonated drinks persisted in retaining their medicinal connotations.
Pharmacist John Pemberton, based in Atlanta, Georgia, had had little success with such previous creations as Triplex Liver Pills and Globe of Flower Cough Syrup when he came up with a liquid cure for headaches and hangovers.

The ingredients of his concoction included dried leaves from the coca shrub, from which cocaine is made (this was removed from the formula in 1905), extract of kola nuts and fruit syrup.
Advertised as an "esteemed Brain Tonic and Intellectual Beverage," the syrup, now diluted with carbonated water, went on sale on a trial basis at Jacob's Pharmacy in 1886.
One of Pemberton's partners, Frank Robinson, suggested the name Coca-Cola Syrup and Extract, while his flowing script provided the drink's trademark.

Pemberton sold 94 litres of syrup but spent more on advertising. In 1887, he sold two-thirds of his ownership to an Atlanta pharmacist named Asa Candler for $1,200.

After buying out Pemberton in 1891, Candler began his successful marketing of Coca-Cola as a drink for the young.

Two years later he registered the Coca-Cola trademark, although the battle to register "Coke" was not won until 1945.

Coke's success inspired hundreds of other cola drinks, most famously Pepsi-Cola, first called Brad's Drink after Caleb Bradham, the pharmacist from North Carolina who created it in 1898 as a cure for dyspepsia, or indigestion.

It’s hard to believe that many soft drinks have their origins in the business of medicinal relief but there you have it. Remember this easy brief history of pop next time you reach for some fizzy refreshment!