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An Italian friar has unearthed a document from the pharmacy archives of an ancient convent in Florence describing a medicinal potion made from Bolivian coca leaves and kola nuts, prompting suggestions it could have been a precursor to the famous US soft drink, Coca-Cola.
Father Manuel Russo, rector of the San Marco convent, said he stumbled across the yellowed document, a sort-of promotional flyer, while sorting out the archives.
The flyer details the recipe for an elixir vinoso ricostituente, or restorative wine elixir, made with 10g of Bolivian coca leaves and 30g of kola nut, blended with wine, which the friars who concocted it promoted as a tonic to be used to recuperate the body and mind from fatigue caused by illness and ageing.
The document was not dated, but it is believed to have been produced around the mid-19th century, when the friars plied a brisk trade in Bolivian coca leaves imported to Italy by missionaries, long before they were globally banned in 1961 for containing the natural alkaloid used to make cocaine.
The recipe was similar to the one used by the American pharmacist, John Pemberton, who in 1886 created a sweet syrup by mixing coca leaf extract and kola nuts. Local alcohol laws prevented him from using wine and so he combined the ingredients with carbonated water. Pemberton’s tonic eventually became Coca-Cola.
After learning of Russo’s discovery, some local news outlets pondered whether the soft drink’s origins were, in fact, in Florence and not the US.
But with no evidence demonstrating a link between the friars’ creation and the Coca-Cola recipe, Russo, who also found a couple of empty bottles that contained the potion, is erring on the side of caution.