I learned recently about “Vin Mariani” a wine from the 1860s that was fortified with coca leaves and contained 6mg per liquid ounce of the wine; except for the bottles sold in USA where it was 7.2mg per ounce, because there were other patent medicines that had cocaine in them and the manufacturer added a bit more to be competitive in the market.

The Pope of the time loved the stuff and awarded the company a Vatican medal for it.

While I love the Internet and all sorts of modern life fixtures (in a developed country), I feel a bit like I missed out by not being alive when all the crazy drinks were around.

And John Pemberton produced a clone of Vin Mariani but when alcohol prohibition was passed in Atlanta he produced a non-acoholic version... coca-cola.

never knew this was a thing. seems it's still available to buy! sounds like a more respectable version of Buckfast, the tonic wine made in an abbey in Devon that had/has a cult popularity with the youth of parts of Ireland and Scotland