Tom World of Coca Cola was the next attraction that we visited at Pemberton Place after Georgia Aquarium. Before visiting World of Coca Cola, we had thought that it would be more like a “fun” attraction to visit, to taste the different versions of coke and soft drinks from around the world – World of Coca Cola was that and more. In fact, we learnt quite a few things during our visit as well. Here’s our review of World of Coca Cola…
World of Coca Cola – The Loft
After a quick scan of our QR code of the Atlanta CityPASS, we were immediately led to The Loft, the starting point where our journey through the World of Coca Cola begins…
The Loft is where the tour begins where a World of Coca-Cola Ambassador will share stories about some of the artefacts in this room. Here, you’ll find more than 200 Coke-related memorabilia from more than 30 countries. 2 most notable ones for us are definitely the white Coca-Cola syrup urn which was used to mix the Coca-Cola formula back in the initial days when Coke was first formulated. The other was the handwritten font of the Coca-Cola sign. Apparently, the handwriting was done by John Pemberton’s bookkeeper, Frank Mason Robinson, which to this day, still stays pretty much the same.
We also learnt that in those days, ice was a luxury at 1c a piece. If you had “iced cola”, you would have essentially doubled a glass of coke from 5c to 10c (due to a couple ice cubes needed to cool the drink).
World of Coca Cola – The Coca-Cola Theater
After exiting the Loft, we were led into the Coca-Cola Theater where we sat in for a 6 minutes video. The video was really smart. It started out with ordinary people preparing for the various milestones in their lives like scaling a mountain, revealing the gender of the first grand-child, birthday celebration etc. We guess that the good feelings, endorphins released “aided” viewers in relating good things with Coca-Cola. A really smart video.
World of Coca Cola – Milestones of Refreshment
After exiting the Coca-Cola Theater, we were led to the first floor where the rest of the tour would be self-guided through the different zones. We first headed to the Milestones of Refreshment to learn about the history of Coca-Cola…
The story of Coca-Cola started with Mr John S. Pemberton. As the story goes,
“John S. Pemberton, an Atlanta pharmacist, tinkered for years in his modest laboratory trying to create successful products for everyday use. In the spring of 1886, with a handful of products to his credit, he was working on a new soft drink recipe.
His experimentation paid off. Pemberton came up with a distinctive mix of ingredients that tasted like nothing else around. His creation represented not only a new soft drink flavour, but an entirely new category of beverage – a cola.
Coca-Cola quickly soared in popularity, but Pemberton did not live to enjoy its remarkable success. He sold the company in the spring of 1888 and died shortly after. Today, Pemberton’s recipe for one of the most successful products ever invented remains one of the most closely guarded secrets in the world.”
The story of Coca-Cola was indeed an interesting one. Asa Candler first drank the concoction and thought that it was delicious – so delicious that he would pay $2,300 to acquire the formula and exclusive rights to Coca-Cola. It was also during his tenure, incorporating the Coca-Cola company that Candler took the drink to the entire America.
One of the simplest approach that Candler took was to give out coupons to try out their formula. As he knew he had an excellent product, anyone who tried Coke, wanted to come back for more. The other approach he took to go national was to sell the bottling rights to Benjamin F. Thomas and Joseph B. Whitehead of Chattanooga, Tennessee. From there, the drink really went national. However, as the drink gained nation-wide recognition, people also started to imitate the taste of the drink – bottled using the same bottles.
Sometimes, when you place the bottles into the same ice water chiller, the labels would fall off and people would pick up one of the imitations by mistake. To counter this problem, a new unique contour bottle was designed by the Root Glass Company of Terre Haute, Indiana to stand out against the “straight-sided” bottles. It worked. The unique vessel reassured people that they were getting the real thing. The rest as they say was history…
During the war, over 5 billion bottles were sent to the front lines sold at a discount of a nickel to soldiers. They then sponsored events such as sports which brought people together and thus the brand name global.
The rest of the exhibit in this segment showed about its exponential growth, bringing the taste global where the word “Coke” became the second most well-known word in the world after “Ok”. Thereafter, offering many different drinks and beverages under its brand – some of which includes household names such as Fanta, Sprite, Fuze Tea, Aquarius and VitaminWater.
World of Coca Cola – The Vault of the Secret Formula
The Vault of the Secret Formula was probably the most interesting part of the World of Coca-Cola. I mean, wouldn’t you want to know the formula?
Apparently, Asa Candler was so secretive of the formula that there was no written versions of the Coca-Cola formula. When he eventually taught it to his son at the now infamous “Triangular Room”, he taught it only verbally. He would then observe how his son made the concoction, correcting him only if he had it done wrong. This was done over and over again till he got it right. He eventually sold Coca-Cola to a group of investors in 1919 for $25 million, making him, in our opinion, the biggest winner in the ownership of Coca-Cola. Making $25 million from his initial cost of $2,500 over a course of 30 years was exceptional. After acquiring the ownership, the young Robert Woodruff (Atlanta banker who led the acquisition), kept the coke formula in a bank for 89 years!
The other thing we thought about is what actually IS the secret formula of Coca-Cola? We think that the formula of Coke must be relatively simple and straight-forward. Think about the ingredients that Pemberton could have gotten his hands on in 1886? It couldn’t have been too difficult right? Probably the methods in distilling and processing the ingredients as well as the proportion, that must have made the difference.
World of Coca Cola – Beverage Lab
At the Beverage Lab, we learnt about the other elements of making a beverage such as its appearance, its taste and of course its texture – which we now know improved the taste of Coke via carbonation. There are machinese which allows you to play with the flavour profiles and if your drink has been created before, you can also try them at the Taste it! section at the end of the tour.
World of Coca Cola – 3D Theater
After creating our drink at the Beverage Lab, we headed over to the 3D theater to catch the 1230pm show “In Search of the Secret Formula” where you’re shown the distribution network of Coke around the world. We also created our own Coke Bottle Design at the Pop Culture Section before heading over to Scent Discovery…
World of Coca Cola – Scent Discovery
At scent discovery, you’ll learn that besides the taste, texture and appearance of a beverage, the scent is also just as important. There’s actually a small little game show where you’ll be led by the host to one of the booths. Each booth will allow you to smell the scents by pushing the buttons on the booth – which releases the scent for you to sniff. We normally “cheat” and push several times in a row for the scent to be more obvious. There will be 3 rounds of scents to be guessed, no prizes. But each round increases in difficulty. A fun game show to try!
World of Coca Cola – Taste It!
Finally, it was time to head to our favourite section of World of Coca-Cola, Taste it! As the name suggests, there are soft drinks from all over the world for us to taste. During our time here, there was a media coverage and we also saw the Coca-Cola Polar Bear make an appearance.
Then, it was on to the real work. Tasting of ALL the soft drinks at Taste it! of World of Coca-Cola!
After trying many flavours (we didn’t have the stomache to try ALL the flavours due to the gassi-ness), we enjoyed the Bangs Red Creme Soda (North America), the Fanta series of Pineapple (Greece), Sour Plum (China), Exotic (Uganda), Melon Frost (Thailand) and Joy Apple Lychee (Korea). Let us know which ones you enjoyed in the comments section below!
The last booths of this section is the freestyle machines where you can mix and choose your own concoctions. You can even try the concoction that you did at the Beverage Lab here. Of course, there are fountains of the Original Coke where you can end off the entire taste taste on a good note.
World of Coca Cola – Coca-Cola Store
To round up the visit, in true commercialism fashion, it was shopping time! Here you’ll be able to get souvenirs, clothings and apparels for friends and families back home. Of course you’ll be able to find beautifully designed Coke bottles, bottle openers, polar bears and clothes with “Coca-Cola” on its front. We wanted to buy a nice sweater with Korean imprints so “Coca-Cola” won’t be so obviously seen but, we thought that we wouldn’t need another sweater living in sunny Singapore – so we went against that idea. But still, there are loads of items to choose from and if you’re observant, you can find some great buys with “red labels” that have additional discount. Coke socks for us at discounted prices? Yes, please!
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All in all, the World of Coca-Cola really surprised us. It was not only fun, it was educational and there were hands-on activities with the scent and taste sections and of course, shopping at the end of the trip at Coca-Cola Store. The biggest takeaway for us was definitely the history and how Candler brought Coca-Cola to the fore through some ingenious marketing techniques such as free tasting coupons and selling of the bottling rights to bring the drink nation-wide. Today, the marketing genius of Coke continues through events such as the Olympics etc – events that brings people together to celebration joyous occasions? You’ll be sure that Coke will be there as well. World of Coca-Cola, definitely an entertaining and educational stop if you’re heading to Atlanta, Georgia!
