"Cocawine was an alcoholic beverage that combined wine and cocaine. The most popular brand was Vin Mariani developed in 1863 by Corsican entrepreneur Angelo Mariani. It was a popular drink at the time.
In Atlanta, John Pemberton, a pharmacist, developed his own cocktail based on Vin Mariani and called it Pemberton's French Wine Coca. It proved popular among American consumers. But in 1886, when Georgia introduced Prohibition, he had to replace the wine in his recipe with non-alcoholic syrup. The new recipe was the origin of Coca-Cola.
At the end of the 19th century, the fear of drug abuse made coca-based drinks less popular. This eventually led to the outlawing of cocaine in the United States, and the removal of cocaine from Coca-Cola."
I have been aware of the fact that coke was an essential part of Coca Cola for its first few years of existence, but not until last night was I aware of how widespread coke use was among other things: wine, cough syrup, headache medicine, among dozens and dozens of other things. This particular History Channel special followed coke's progression from a miracle cure-all to the 'menace' that it is today.
(Side note: In a one hour special on cocaine they only spent about one minute talking about crack. I found that to be a bit off-putting, considering crack, in my narrow suburbanite opinion, has been responsible for more unique and destructive forces. Just a thought.)
The special was very informative and captivating, but I haven't been able to shake the thought of living in a time where everyone I know would be coked up. I also can't help to think what it would be like to be among those people that say, for example, have a toothache, and take a little of this miracle drug. There is certainly no arguing that coke is destructive, especially the coke that we know today, one of our nation's serious (pardon) fuck ups especially as it relates to policing and controlling.
The thing that scares me is the fact that it's hard for me to wrap my mind around and blindly believe that people's lives were ruined by marginal, sometimes negligible amount of cocaine in say, a beverage that they drank from time to time. The fact is, the proof of the ill-effects of this particular use of the drug doesn't exist. At about the time that scientists should have been studying the long-term effects of marginal use, the drug was stigmatized, being used as a scapegoat for black on white violence. Unfortunately, there are virtually no living souls left to give an objective viewpoint on what it was like to live in a world where you cured a cough with cocaine.
I am by no means advocating coke use, in fact, the drug itself scares the living shit out of me and I've been around it enough to see what it can do to a person's life and family. However, in my safe world, in the comfort of my own home, I can't help but ponder this:
Mark Twain was one of the world's most celebrated drinkers of Vin Mariani.
He also wrote The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.
Mark Twain, shirtless
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