Have you ever heard the expression: "If we could put that in a bottle and sell it, we could make a fortune"? Well, in 1894 here in Vicksburg, Mississippi, Joseph Biedenharn, owner of a candy company and soda fountain, got the brilliant and novel idea to put his soda fountain Coca-Colas into bottles and distribute them by the case to stores and small towns throughout this region so that folks could buy them already mixed and ready made to take home. (In early days people craving a soft drink had to go to a soda fountain where they were mixed with syrup and carbonated water at the counter and served in glasses.) His bottled Coca-Colas became wildly popular, and as they say, the rest is history. Cokes and other bottled soft drinks are now sold all over the world. Canned soft drinks came much later. Click on the word IDEA in the title of this post above and also on my righthand sidebar link to visit the web site of the Coca-Cola Museum here in Vicksburg.
