晨读英语美文 第3篇: The Birth of Coca-Cola
晨读英语美文听力原文第3篇:
The Birth of Coca-Cola
The image of Coke is youthful and modern. But Coke is not new. It is more than a century old.
It was invented in 1886 by a pharmacist called John Styth Pemberton. Pemberton had a drugstore in Atlanta， where he sold liver pills，hair restorer，cough mixtures and other medicines. He made these preparations to his own recipes, but people could buy similar products at any drugstore. They loved his Indian Queen hairdye， but there was nothing special about it. Pemberton wanted to make a product that people could buy only from him. He wanted them to have a reason to choose his shop rather than any other. Tonic is a drink that is supposed to do you good. In the old days，many chemists made and sold their own tonic wine.
In 1885 Pemberton came up with French Wine Cola. It must have tasted rather like Coke. At first Pemberton put a little alcohol in it, but later he left it out. He is said to have mixed his brew in the backyard, in a three-legged brass pot like a witch’s cauldron. Pemberton sold the new drink as a quick cure for headaches. But headaches or no headaches, his staff were soon watering down the syrup and drinking it to satisfy their thirst on hot days. Maybe he really had invented a new soft drink product.
On Saturday 8, May 1886, Pemberton took a jug of the drink down the street to another drugstore, Jacobs’ Pharmacy-to do a test. Jacobs’ pharmacy had a soda fountain. This machine adds carbon dioxide to water to make fizzy soda, and then mixes it with syrup to make a new refreshing drink. Stalls selling ice cream and fizzy drinks made by soda fountains became known simply as soda fountains. The staff and customers of Jacobs’ pharmacy tried Pemberton’s headache cure mixed with soda and loved its taste. It was excellent, but it did not have a name. One of Pemberton’s partners, his book-keeper Frank Robinson, suggested Coca-Cola Syrup and Extract-which became Coca-Cola for short. He thought the two Cs would go well in advertising. He wrote down the name in the simple flowing handwriting that he used in his account books. His script became the product’s trademark. Coca-Cola went on sale immediately at five cents a glass.