RC Cola in a can, and later the first company to sell a soft drink in an aluminum can. In 1958, the company introduced the first diet cola, Diet Rite, and in 1980, a caffeine-free cola, RC 100. In the mid-1990s, RC released Royal Crown Draft Cola, billed as a "premium" cola using pure cane sugar as a sweetener, rather than high fructose corn syrup. Offered only in 12-ounce bottles, sales were disappointing, due largely to the inability of the RC bottling network to get distribution for the product in single-drink channels, and it was discontinued with the exceptions of Australia, New
Coca-Cola to Mallinckrodt, a St. Louis, Missouri, pharmaceutical manufacturer that is the only company in the United States licensed to purify cocaine for medicinal use. Long after the syrup had ceased to contain any significant amount of cocaine, in the southeastern U.S., "dope" remained a common colloquialism for Coca-Cola, and "dope-wagons" were trucks that transported it. The traditional shape of the bottle is said to resemble the seed-pod of the coca bush, memorializing the cocaine recipe. Kola nuts act as a flavoring and the source of caffeine in Coca-Cola. In Britain, for example, the ingredient label states "Flavourings (Including Caffeine)." Kola