LIST OF OVER 300 COCA COLA IMITATORS AS OF 1919

[SODAPOPBOB]

Some of the brands on the list weren't even soda pop. Here's two brands by the same maker from ... The Washington Post ~ Washington D.C. ~ April 21, 1907 Coca Wine & Kolafra

 

[SODAPOPBOB]

Here's a couple of bottles to look for. I wonder what the drink that "resembled" Coca Cola taste like? ( At least the lady didn't lie about what she did ) [8|] From ... The Cincinnati Enquirer ~ July 31, 1918 Afri Cola ~ Cola ~ And something "resembling" Coca Cola

 

[Ron13a]

Some of the names of these beverages crack me up! Koke Cola? Cola Coke? Geez, no wonder they got sued.However, the real winner is Afri Cola. Really? Afri Cola? Wow. I can't believe that a militant rapper hasn't thought of this product.

 

[SODAPOPBOB]

I discovered that the Coca Cola imitators list was also published as early as 1917. But I'm not sure if this was the first one. The 1917 and 1919 list, as well as the the article itself, appear to be identical and both were provided by the National Bottlers Gazette of New York. I do not know if the list was compiled by the National Bottlers Gazette originally or if it was provided to them by someone else such as the Coca Cola Company itself. I believe the National Bottlers Gazette was first published in 1882.

The following link will take you to a newspaper archives site where you can view the 1917 article that appeared in ...

The Statesville Landmark ~ Statesville, North Carolina ~ Tuesday, January 23, 1917

This is a different site than the one I am subscribed to. The one I am subscribed to does not have this particular publication. I was not able to save or print the article and believe you have to be a subscriber in order to do that. In any event, take a quick look at it and it will confirm that the article was in deed published as early as 1917.

[URL=http://newspaperarchive.com/us/north-carolina/statesville/statesville-landmark/1917/01-23/page-4]http://newspaperarchive.c...mark/1917/01-23/page-4

 

[SODAPOPBOB]

P.S. If you looked at the 1917 publication, you might have noticed that the title was slightly different than the 1919 issue. The 1917 title is in block lettering whereas the 1919 title has the Coca Cola script. I suspect by 1919 that the Coca Cola Company might have got involved with these ads and requested (demanded?) that bottlers use the script instead. Here's the 1919 title again for comparison to the 1917 title ...

 

[SODAPOPBOB]

I especially like articles such as this one that include information about origins. These are the toughest ads to find and I consider them a bonus when I do find them. Celery Cola From ... New Bern Weekly Journal ~ New Bern, North Carolina ~ June 23, 1905

 

[SODAPOPBOB]

I am currently searching to see if I can find the use of the word Cola that was not someone's name or a town but was used as a product of some type prior to about 1886 when Coca Cola made it's entry. The word Coca as a product is almost impossible to narrow down because it is so often used in connection with coca leaves and beans which are in many cases misspelled and should be cocoa and other spelling variations of the plant.

One thing I discovered as a result of my search, and never thought much about or realized before, is that the word ...

CHOCOLATE

... contains the word Cola.

( More about this topic later )

 

[SODAPOPBOB]

Kola Nut? Maybe. Maybe not. But it seems most likely this is where the word "Cola" in Coca Cola originated from.

But mainly I'm trying to determine if Coca Cola was the first to use the exact word "Cola" as a product or if it was used by someone else earlier.
http://www.mariettasodamuseum.com/COCA.htm

3. The cola in Coca-Cola comes from the kola nut, yet kola nuts are not mentioned in the above Coca-Cola formula. This was because the reason for using kola nuts was for their caffeine content, and Pemberton almost positively bought his "Citrate Caffein" from a company that derived their caffeine from kola nuts. (Pemberton had previously praised the German firm Merck of producing a superior form of the stimulant from kola nuts).

 

[M.C.Glass]

But mainly I'm trying to determine if Coca Cola was the first to use the exact word "Cola" as a product or if it was used by someone else earlier.

I was wondering the same thing as I perused this thread. The huge imitator list appears to include anyone who used the word "Cola". I seem to recall in a previous thread a discussion of Coca Cola suing everyone in sight, but only winning the most obvious cases. Of course, many were probably forced out of business by the threat of lawsuit.

 

[SODAPOPBOB]

I have not been able to find an actual product that used the word COLA, but it appears the word is a derivative of Kola / Kola Nut that originated in Africa and spread throughout the world from there. Apparently Kola Nut ingestion goes back thousands of years, mostly by chewing and/or in the form of a powder for dissolving and drinking.

The link below is to a book published in 1887 and apparently is the result of a lecture given at the time by it's author. On Page 5 there are two points of interest that I intend to do some more research on where it says ...

"The genus Cola belongs to the order Sterculiaceae ..."

And ...

"Produce of Cola acuminata, R.Br., and it's varieties."

(At the moment I'm not sure what either one of them mean or refer to).

~ * ~

The booklet is about 20 pages long, which I thumbed through and did a couple of searches in using the search box at the top. Even though the book was published in 1887, when I searched 'Coca Cola' it did not produce any results other than the words 'coca' and 'cola' listed separately.

Anyway, it is the most comprehensive study on African and Jamaican Kola nuts I could find that involves beverages and other products such as coffee. Once I am a little more familiar with the contents I will save and post some pictures of the pages that I feel might be of interest here. Check it out!

1887 Book/Lecture https://archive.org/details/onnewbeveragesub00neis