We need a new bottle - a distinctive package that will help us fight substitutions...we need a bottle which a person will recognize as a Coca-Cola bottle even when he feels it in the dark. The Coca-Cola bottle should be so shaped that, even if broken, a person could tell what it was..." wrote the company's legal counsel in 1915, urging management to develop packaging that could be protected by trademark and patent laws.

In response, the now globally celebrated contoured glass Coke bottle was born. Created by the Root Glass Co. of Terre Haute, Indiana, in 1915, the bottle with its distinctive fluted sides and bulging middle was inspired by the shape of an African kola nut - which along with the South American coca leaf contributes to the soft drink's unique flavor. The beverage itself was invented by John S. Pemberton, an Atlanta pharmacist, in 1886 and named by Pemberton's bookkeeper Frank Robinson who suggested that featuring the drink's two most exotic ingredients had a nice alliterative sound. A penmanship expert, Robinson drew the brand name in the flourished Spencerian style of the time -and that's how it has remained.

The curvaceous bottle came to symbolize the American spirit during World War II, when the company pledged that U.S. fighting forces could count on Coca-Cola wherever they were and set up 64 bottling plants overseas. The sight of the familiar Coke bottle served as a reassuring reminder of home and engendered good will toward the soft drink. Today Coca-Cola is sold in more than 200 countries, and recently the company introduced the soft drink in a new 20-ounce contoured plastic bottle, capitalizing on a shape known around the world.