- Historically intended for: Sore throat, morphine addiction, hangover, hiccups, headache, fatigue and impotence
- Original key ingredients: Coca leaves and kola nuts
- Modern application: Cocaine gave rise to local anaesthetics such as lidocaine and bupivacaine that are often used in nasal cavity surgery.
The popular fizzy drink that we love originated as a wine infused with coca leaves, said Associate Professor Gavin Dawe, the head of Department of Pharmacology at National University of Singapore’s Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine. It was called Vin Mariani and was invented in 1863 by French chemist Angelo Mariani as a sore throat medicine.
Now, here’s where it gets interesting: Coca leaves are the raw ingredients from which you get cocaine (it was legal then because people didn’t know better). Naturally, they are highly addictive but they also have “local anaesthetic actions”, according to Assoc Prof Dawe.
“Coca wine was said to be popular among opera singers because of cocaine’s stimulating and local anaesthetic effects in soothing the throat,” said Assoc Prof Dawe.
Then, in 1886, US confederate veteran and morphine-addicted pharmacist John Pemberton patented his version of the coca wine by adding kola nuts to the concoction and calling it Pemberton’s French Wine Coca. It was sold as a syrup to pharmacists, who mixed it with carbonated water (carbonation techniques were already invented in England in 1767) to create a bubbly “brain tonic”.
Pemberton claimed the drink cured him of his morphine addiction, along with a list of “wonders” such as treating hangovers, hiccups, headaches, fatigue and impotence.
We don’t know about those health promises but the French Wine Coca must have been rather addictive and lucrative; some websites noted that each glass could have 9mg of cocaine.
As for the kola nuts, they are a source of caffeine and consuming them could indeed enhance alertness, said Professor William Chen, the director of Nanyang Technological University’s Food Science & Technology programme. The nuts also have antioxidants known as polyphenols, he said.
Today, Coca-Cola no longer contains coca leaves or kola nuts. But they still have caffeine – about 33mg per 330ml can, according to The Coca-Cola Company. Their competitor Pepsi has reportedly never used coca leaves or kola nuts in theirs.
