Coca-Cola is a cola (a type of carbonated soft drink) sold in stores, restaurants and vending machines in more than 200 countries. It is produced by The Coca-Cola Company (NYSE: KO), which is often referred to as simply Coca-Cola or Coke. Coke is the world's most recognizable brand, according to BusinessWeek.

Originally intended as a patent medicine when it was invented in the late 19th century by John Pemberton, Coca-Cola was bought out by businessman Asa Griggs Candler, whose marketing tactics led Coke to its dominance of the world soft drink market throughout the 20th century. Although faced with criticisms of its health effects and various allegations of wrongdoing by the company, Coca-Cola has remained a popular soft drink to the present day.

The company actually produces concentrate for Coca-Cola, which is then sold to various Coca-Cola bottlers throughout the world. The bottlers, who hold territorially exclusive contracts with the company, produce finished product in cans and bottles from the concentrate in combination with filtered water and sweeteners. The bottlers then sell, distribute and merchandise Coca-Cola in cans and bottles to retail stores and vending machines. Such bottlers include Coca-Cola Enterprises, which is the single largest Coca-Cola bottler in North America, Australia, Asia and Europe. The Coca-Cola Company also sells concentrate for fountain sales to major restaurants and food service distributors.

The Coca-Cola Company has, on occasion, introduced other cola drinks under the Coke brand name. The most common of these is Diet Coke, which has become a major diet cola but others exist, including Diet Coke Caffeine-Free , Cherry Coke, Coca-Cola Zero, Vanilla Coke and special editions with lemon and with lime, and even with coffee. The Coca-Cola Company owns and markets other soft drinks that do not carry the large Coca-Cola brand marking, such as Sprite, Fanta, Pibb, and others, but the Coca-Cola Company's trademark name can usually be found somewhere on the bottle.

The first Coca-Cola recipe was invented in Covington, Georgia, by John Stith Pemberton, originally as a cocawine called Pemberton's French Wine Coca in 1885. He may have been inspired by the formidable success of European Angelo Mariani's cocawine, Vin Mariani.

In 1885, when Atlanta and Fulton County passed Prohibition legislation, Pemberton responded by developing Coca-Cola, essentially a carbonated, non-alcoholic version of French Wine Cola. The beverage was named Coca-Cola because, originally, the stimulant mixed in the beverage was coca leaves from South America. In addition, the drink was flavored using kola nuts, also acting as the beverage's source of caffeine. The first serving in 1886 cost US$0.05. Pemberton called for five ounces of coca leaf per gallon of syrup, a significant dose, whereas, in 1891, Candler claimed his formula (altered extensively from Pemberton's original) contained only a tenth of this amount. Coca-Cola did once contain an estimated nine milligrams of cocaine per glass, but in 1903 it was removed. After 1904, Coca-Cola started using, instead of fresh leaves, "spent" leaves - the leftovers of the cocaine-extraction process with cocaine trace levels left over at a molecular level. To this day, Coca-Cola uses as an ingredient a non-narcotic coca leaf extract prepared at a Stepan Company plant in Maywood, New Jersey. In the United States, Stepan Company is the only manufacturing plant authorized by the Federal Government to import and process the coca plant.

Coca-Cola was initially sold as a patent medicine for five cents a glass at soda fountains, which were popular in the United States at the time thanks to a belief that carbonated water was good for the health. Pemberton claimed Coca-Cola cured a myriad of diseases, including morphine addiction, dyspepsia, neurasthenia, headache, and impotence. The first sales were made at Jacob's Pharmacy in Atlanta, Georgia, on May 8, 1886, and for the first eight months only nine drinks were sold each day. Pemberton ran the first advertisement for the beverage on May 29 of the same year in the Atlanta Journal. However, the earliest advertisement image still available appears to be an April 26, 1887 ad from the Columbus Daily Enquirer in Ohio.
 
By 1888, three versions of Coca-Cola — sold by three separate businesses — were on the market. Asa Griggs Candler acquired a stake in Pemberton's company in 1887 and incorporated it as the Coca Cola Company in 1888. The same year, while suffering from an ongoing addiction to morphine, Pemberton sold the rights a second time to four more businessmen: J.C. Mayfield, A.O. Murphey, C.O. Mullahy and E.H. Bloodworth. Meanwhile, Pemberton's alcoholic son Charley Pemberton began selling his own version of the product.

In an attempt to clarify the situation, John Pemberton declared that the name Coca-Cola belonged to Charley, but the other two manufacturers could continue to use the formula. So, in the summer of 1888, Candler sold his beverage under the names Yum Yum and Koke. After both failed to catch on, Candler set out to establish a legal claim to Coca-Cola in late 1888, in order to force his two competitors out of the business. Candler purchased exclusive rights to the formula from John Pemberton, Margaret Dozier and Woolfolk Walker. However, in 1914, Dozier came forward to claim her signature on the bill of sale had been forged, and subsequent analysis has indicated John Pemberton's signature was most likely a forgery as well.

In 1892, Candler incorporated a second company, The Coca-Cola Company (the current corporation), and in 1910, Candler had the earliest records of the company burned, further obscuring its legal origins. Regardless, Candler began marketing the product, although the efficacy of his concerted advertising campaign would not be realized until much later. By the time of its 50th anniversary, the drink had reached the status of a national icon for the USA. In 1935, it was certified kosher by Rabbi Tobias Geffen, after the company made minor changes in the sourcing of some ingredients.

Coca-Cola was sold in bottles for the first time on March 12, 1894. Cans of Coke first appeared in 1955. The first bottling of Coca-Cola occurred in Vicksburg, Mississippi, at the Biedenharn Candy Company in 1891. Its proprietor was Joseph A. Biedenharn. The original bottles were Biedenharn bottles, very different from the much later hobble-skirt design that is now so familiar. Asa Candler was tentative about bottling the drink, but the two entrepreneurs who proposed the idea were so persuasive that Candler signed a contract giving them control of the procedure. However, the loosely termed contract proved to be problematic for the company for decades to come. Legal matters were not helped by the decision of the bottlers to subcontract to other companies — in effect, becoming parent bottlers.

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