Confession up front: I’m not a Coke drinker, I’m here for the nostalgia.
Of which there is plenty at Atlanta’s World of Coca Cola. The name says it all: it is a trip though all the ways in which the soft drink, its name and its logo have become so embedded in so many cultures it’s almost impossible to escape it.
And if it seems, every now and then, that it’s taking itself and its history a little too seriously, as with “The Vault of the Secret Formula,” why you can just turn the corner into another exhibit and dive right back into the good feeling and the nostalgia. Who ever designed this, they were worth every penny they got.
At the entrance, which shares an open square with the Center for Civil and Human Rights and the Georgia Aquarium, it starts with an opener and a cap.
And then a walkway into the interior, lined with variations on Coke’s iconic bottle…
…followed by a holding area full of Coca Cola signs of various sorts and languages, an area that holds groups until the auditorium is ready for a new group to watch a well-produced video that (are you surprised?) shows how deeply embedded Coke and its images are burnt-in to the American and some overseas minds.
And then, we pass on into the atrium, the center for the different exhibit areas of this temple of beverages. I was particularly struck by the quotation at the top of the stairs, giving the specifications to be followed by the designer of what became likely the most recognizable piece of glass in the world.
The first and biggest exhibit, Milestones of Refreshment, was my favorite; it’s a walk through the history and images of Coca-Cola over its nearly 140 years, starting with 1880s soda fountain equipment.
The Coca-Cola image and message has seemingly been consistent enough through all its changes that products, equipment and ads I’d never seen still seemed familiar to me. I don’t know if it would have seemed that way to someone much younger, but other older folks I spoke to had the same impression.
Like many 19th-century beverages, powders and pills, Coke started out with some health claims that wouldn’t fly today. There were also a few unsuccessful attempts at extending the brand to other fields, including Coca-Cola-branded spearmint chewing gum. Past the gum, a variety of advertising give-aways.
Of course, the iconic bottle wasn’t original equipment; it was fun to see the many bottles that were used when Coke first became available away from the local soda fountain.
The bottle we know, introduced in 1916, was originally designed with a more bulging waistline, but had to undergo a bit of a diet to fit existing bottling machines. Here’s the next-to-last design proposal.
Coca-Cola advertising, both foreign and domestic, was always heavily-laden with people in family and group activities or connected with popular celebrities of the day. Below, some of the many collected displays; if I’d let myself, I could have lingered there for hours.
But moving on, as the Coca-Cola company has, there are many more things to drink under the Coke umbrella, falling into six broad categories: soft drinks, sports drinks, dairy, tea, water and, yes, alcohol. Coke owns the Taylor Wine company and has developed products in partnership with Jack Daniels.
In another exhibit, showing off various flavoring elements under glass domes, there are workstations to allow visitors to create flavor mixes of their own (although, to be honest, the choices of flavor to mix were so limited that it hardly seemed worth a turn at the keyboard).
But let’s take a detour to what is probably the hokiest bit of The World, the Vault of the Secret Formula, with its impressive entranceway, sizable lines and heavy-voiced blinking screens telling you that you are Cleared To Enter.
What you actually enter, of course, is not a vault, but an extensive display of the history of how the ‘Secret Formula’ has been handled, including a period of years when it left Atlanta for a New York bank vault, and of how the company has fought off imitators, both legally and with heavy-handed advertising.
But, just shy of the end, there IS a vault, with impressive lighting and more blinking ‘security area’ screens and a number of security guards (who didn’t really seem to be guarding anything, just keeping the line moving). I suppose it’s possible that the Secret Formula is really in there—but does it matter? For those who have Coke in their veins, just the possibility is likely enough.
After the Vault, one more critical area to explore: Tasting the company’s products from around the world, or at least a substantial portion of it. Coke’s reach is now far too wide and in far too many local flavors for all of them to be available, but there were enough to keep the crowd busy.
Past the international tasting, another chance to drink, one that must have been more exciting before ‘freestyle’ machines became standard in food joints like Five Guys. Here, visitors have the opportunity to blend different flavors together for real, and to taste the results. A good time was clearly had by all…
And, of course, like any museum or attraction worth its name, the path to the exit runs through the souvenir store stocked with far more varieties of Coca-Cola clothing, mugs, candies, lunch boxes, stuffed polar bears than you could imagine—and if you can imagine something else, they probably have that, too.
