The Cocaine Wine That Was Endorsed By The Pope And Inspired Coca-Cola
This product was nothing to wine about – each bottle could contain 6-7.2 milligrams of cocaine per ounce.
DR. BECCY CORKILL
Custom Content Manager
Published
March 22, 2023
Pope Leo XIII loved it so much he created a new award for it. Image credit: Di Gregorio Giulio / freeskyline / IFLScience creative team.
The Andean coca leaf had been used by Indigenous Aymara people for thousands of years. To isolate the substance, users had to chew the leaves, which of course limited the amount of cocaine that the user could extract.
Enter Angelo Mariani, a French Chemist who wanted to create an easier extraction process – and he did so with wine. He invented a potent tonic that was a mixture of Bordeaux wine spiked with six milligrams of coca leaf per ounce, along with a splash of brandy and sugar to make it even more tempting to the consumer. Two glasses of this drink would have contained less than 50 milligrams of cocaine.
Mariani marketed this beverage as a general cure-all, energy booster, aperitif, digestif, and safe for children as long as the daily recommended adult dosage was halved. He called this beverage Vin Mariani.
Back in the mid-1800s, a chemist called Angelo Mariani created Vin Mariani, a cocaine-infused wine – and it was loved by Presidents and Popes alike.
More:
https://www.iflscience.com/the-cocaine-wine-that-was-endorsed-by-the-pope-and-inspired-coca-cola-68097
