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When Donald Trump announced on Wednesday that Coca-Cola had agreed to use cane sugar in its American beverages as part of his ‘Make America Healthy Again’ initiative, he likely had no idea he was stirring up one of the most tantalising origin stories in beverage history.
While Trump champions American sugar, the world's most famous cola may have first bubbled to life not in an Atlanta pharmacy, but in the bustling bazaars of British-era Calcutta.
The irony is almost too perfect. Trump's patriotic sugar campaign inadvertently resurrects claims that America's most iconic drink was actually invented by an Indian businessman named Mansukh Nath, who allegedly unveiled his cola formula at the 1883 Calcutta International Exhibition, three years before pharmacist John Stith Pemberton concocted his ‘brain tonic and intellectual beverage’ in Georgia.
The official story
Before diving into colonial conspiracy theories, let's establish the canonical creation myth. The official story goes that on May 8, 1886, pharmacist John Stith Pemberton mixed his first batch of Coca-Cola syrup in a brass kettle in his backyard in Atlanta, Georgia.
Originally marketed as a patented medicine and ‘brain tonic’, the drink was supposed to cure headaches and relieve exhaustion. Pemberton's bookkeeper, Frank Robinson, coined the name "Coca-Cola" and designed the now-famous Spencerian script logo.
The early formula did indeed contain extracts from coca leaves (hence the persistent cocaine rumors) and kola nuts, mixed with sugar syrup and carbonated water.
Pemberton sold nine glasses a day in his first year, hardly giving a hint of the commercial triumph that would follow. When he died in 1888, businessman Asa Griggs Candler acquired the rights for $2,300 and transformed the medicinal curiosity into a marketing phenomenon that would conquer the world.
The Calcutta conspiracy
The tale reads like something from a Victorian adventure novel. According to claims made by Mansukh Nath's grandson, Raj Gopal Bhandari, the formula was crafted by a business operating under the banner of ‘Rose & Thistle’, a legitimate beverage enterprise in colonial Calcutta.
The story goes that Nath partnered with W.J. Bush & Company, a British firm that published beverage recipes, and that his handwritten formula bore striking similarities to recipes found in their ‘Practical Recipes’guide.
Most tantalisingly, Bhandari claimed his family possessed the original papers in Urdu, dating to the 1880s, and that he had recreated the formula to produce a drink “virtually identical to modern Coca-Cola.”
When confronted with these claims in 1997, Coca-Cola's senior counsel W. Dexter Brooks responded with the corporate equivalent of a weary sigh: "For over 90 years we have been contacted or approached by various parties that claim they either know, have knowledge of, or have seen the original formula for Coca-Cola. We have never found any evidence or substance in such claims."
A museum’s mischievous acknowledgment
Here's where it gets deliciously meta: The World of Coca-Cola Museum in Atlanta, the beverage giant's own temple of corporate mythology, actually acknowledges these whispers.
Buried among its exhibits is a display that mentions its “whispered that the formula originated in India” and was “created by a businessman who introduced the drink to wide acclaim at the 1883 Calcutta International Exposition.”
The museum's careful framing of these as ‘whispers’ rather than facts is a masterclass in corporate diplomacy, acknowledging the persistence of alternative narratives while maintaining plausible deniability. It’s the equivalent of a wink and a nudge in museum form.
The perfect storm of plausibility
What makes the Calcutta story so compelling isn't just its exotic appeal, but its foundation in verifiable history. The 1883 Calcutta International Exhibition was indeed a grand affair, running from December 4, 1883, to March 10, 1884.
Rose & Thistle was a real business. Legal records from the 1980s show it challenging J.N. Nichols over trademark disputes. W.J. Bush & Company genuinely published beverage recipes, including their 1909 guide to ‘Aerated Beverages, Cordials, Non-Alcoholic Brewed Beers’.
Even The Friend of India newspaper, where Bhandari claimed his grandfather's formula was mentioned on December 4, 1883, was a legitimate Calcutta publication.
The ingredients for a perfect origin myth were all there. They just happened to be missing the crucial element of independent verification.
The cane sugar connection
Trump’s cane sugar initiative adds another layer to this colonial cocktail. While high-fructose corn syrup became the American standard, cane sugar was the sweetener of choice in the 1880s — both in Atlanta and Calcutta.
If Mansukh Nath did indeed create his cola formula in British India, it would have been sweetened with the very ingredient Trump now champions as healthier and more American.
The US president's ‘Make America Healthy Again’ campaign thus inadvertently circles back to a potentially more authentic version of Coca-Cola — one that predates the corporate creation myth and uses ingredients that would have been available in both colonial Calcutta and Victorian Atlanta.
The verdict
While the Calcutta origin story remains unproven, it serves as a reminder that corporate histories are often more complex and contested than their sanitised museum displays suggest.
Whether Coca-Cola bubbled to life in a Calcutta laboratory or an Atlanta pharmacy, Trump’s cane sugar push connects American consumers to a sweeter, more traditional version of their favourite fizzy drink.
In the end, perhaps it doesn't matter whether the formula originated in Georgia or Bengal. What matters is that Trump's health initiative has inadvertently resurrected one of the most delicious conspiracy theories in beverage history — a tale that's far more interesting than any corporate origin story, and certainly more colourful than most presidential policy announcements.
Now that’s what you call a refreshing twist on American exceptionalism.
