Coca-Cola Trivia
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100 free Coca-Cola trivia questions with answers — food & drink quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
40 free Coca-Cola trivia questions with answers. Coca-Cola started as a five-cent pharmacy drink in 1886 and became the most recognised brand on Earth. This quiz covers the story: John Pemberton and Asa Candler, Frank Robinson's script logo, the cocaine years, the first bottlers, the contour bottle, Robert Woodruff's global expansion, Santa Claus and the polar bears, the Hilltop ad, New Coke's 79 days, Diet Coke, Fanta's wartime birth and the modern company with 500 brands in 200 countries. It starts with Coca Cola trivia anyone can answer and works up to the details of formula vaults and bottling contracts. Difficulty ratings are shown so you can pick your battles. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia's articles on the drink, the company, the formula and the campaigns, and each question carries its source.
30 of 100 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Who invented Coca-Cola in 1886?
John Stith Pemberton
John Stith Pemberton, a Confederate veteran and morphine addict, adapted his French Wine Coca into a non-alcoholic syrup when Atlanta went dry in 1886.
Q 02Where was Coca-Cola first sold, for five cents a glass, on May 8, 1886?
Jacobs' Pharmacy in Atlanta
Jacobs' Pharmacy in Atlanta served the first glass at its soda fountain on May 8, 1886, in the year Fulton County went dry.
Q 03Who created the Coca-Cola logo in its flowing Spencerian script?
Frank Robinson, the bookkeeper
Frank Robinson, the bookkeeper, both suggested the name Coca-Cola and penned its Spencerian script logo, which has changed little since the 1880s.
Q 04Which drink, launched in 1963, was The Coca-Cola Company's first diet soft drink?
Tab
Tab, launched in 1963 and sweetened first with cyclamate and later saccharin, was the company's first diet soft drink.
Q 05In which year were fresh coca leaves removed from the formula?
1903
In 1903 the company switched to 'spent' coca leaves stripped of cocaine; the Stepan Company in New Jersey later became the licensed supplier of cocaine-free coca extract.
Q 06Which businessman bought the rights to Coca-Cola from its inventor in 1888?
Asa Griggs Candler
Asa Griggs Candler acquired full control for a total of about $2,300 and incorporated The Coca-Cola Company in 1892.
Q 07Where was Coca-Cola first bottled, in March 1894?
Vicksburg, Mississippi
Joseph Biedenharn first bottled Coca-Cola at his candy company in Vicksburg, Mississippi, in 1894; Chattanooga got the first bottling franchise five years later.
Q 08For how much did the company sign away control of bottling in 1899?
One dollar
The company sold the bottling rights to Benjamin Thomas and Joseph Whitehead for one dollar, in a contract that fixed the syrup price with no end date.
Q 09What picture inspired the contour bottle designed by Earl R. Dean in 1915?
A cocoa pod in an encyclopaedia
Earl Dean modelled the bottle on a cocoa pod in an encyclopaedia illustration, after the Root Glass Company team failed to find the drink's real ingredients pictured.
Q 10What choice was Earl Dean offered as a reward for designing the bottle?
A $500 bonus or a job for life
Offered a $500 bonus or a job for life, Dean chose the lifetime post at the Root Glass Company; his contour bottle was the standard by 1920.
Q 11Who became president of The Coca-Cola Company in 1923 and took the drink worldwide?
Robert W. Woodruff
Robert W. Woodruff, president from 1923, pushed Coca-Cola overseas and introduced the six-pack carton so people would drink Coke at home as well as at the fountain.
Q 12In which year did Coca-Cola officially adopt the nickname 'Coke'?
1941
In 1941 the company first used 'Coke' in its own advertising, having long fought the nickname; the word was registered as a trademark in 1945.
Q 13In which year did Coca-Cola first appear in cans?
1955
Coca-Cola first appeared in cans in 1955, supplied to U.S. troops overseas; cans reached the general public in 1960.
Q 21Where has the written secret formula been kept on public display since December 2011?
A vault at Atlanta's World of Coca-Cola
The formula moved in December 2011 to a vault at Atlanta's World of Coca-Cola after 86 years in an Atlanta bank vault; company lore holds that only two executives know it in full.
Q 22What is the name given to the secret flavouring ingredient in the formula?
Merchandise 7X
Merchandise 7X is the code name for the formula's secret flavouring; the recipe published in 2011 listed oils of orange, lemon, nutmeg, coriander, neroli and cinnamon.
Q 23Which radio programme announced in 2011 that it had found what might be the original recipe?
Q 14On what date was New Coke introduced?
April 23, 1985
New Coke launched on April 23, 1985, after its sweeter formula beat both the old Coke and its main rival in taste tests.
Q 15How many days after New Coke's launch did the company announce the return of the original formula?
79
The original formula's return was announced 79 days later, after the hotline went from 400 calls a day to more than 1,500.
Q 16Under what name did the returning original formula go on sale in July 1985?
Coca-Cola Classic
The old formula returned as Coca-Cola Classic in July 1985, and kept that name until 'Classic' began to be dropped from the label in 2009.
Q 17Which Netflix series prompted a limited return of the New Coke formula in 2019?
Stranger Things
Stranger Things' third season is set in the summer of 1985, and Coca-Cola brought back New Coke for a limited run tied to its release.
Q 18Which rival's blind taste tests, launched in 1975, pushed Coca-Cola toward reformulating?
The Pepsi Challenge
The Pepsi Challenge, begun in 1975, had consumers preferring Pepsi in sips, which is not the same as preferring it by the can; Coke's answer was reformulation.
Q 19Diet Coke, launched in 1982, was notable as what?
The first new brand to use the Coca-Cola trademark since 1886
Diet Coke was the first new brand to use the Coca-Cola trademark since 1886; by 2010 it had become America's second-best-selling soda.
Q 20How much caffeine is in a standard 12-ounce can of Coca-Cola?
34 mg
A 12-ounce can of Coca-Cola contains 34 mg of caffeine, roughly a third of a typical cup of coffee, alongside 39 grams of sugar.
This American Life
This American Life aired the claim in February 2011, drawing on a 1979 Atlanta Journal-Constitution photograph of a handwritten recipe in a notebook passed down from the inventor's friend.
Q 24Which illustrator painted Coca-Cola's Santa Claus from 1931 onward?
Haddon Sundblom
Haddon Sundblom painted Coke's Santa from 1931 to 1964; he first modelled him on his friend Lou Prentice and later on himself, though he did not invent the red suit.
Q 25Which elfin mascot did Coca-Cola introduce in its advertising in 1942?
Sprite Boy
Sprite Boy, a pixie-like figure, appeared in Coke print ads for about two decades before the company reused the name for its lemon-lime drink.
Q 26Where was the 1971 'Hilltop' commercial, I'd Like to Buy the World a Coke, filmed?
On a hill outside Rome, Italy
Hilltop was shot on a hill outside Rome, Italy, near Manziana, after rain washed out a first attempt in England; at $250,000 it was then the costliest commercial ever.
Q 27Which group took the full-length version of the Coke jingle to number one in the UK?
The New Seekers
The Hillside Singers had a competing US hit; the New Seekers' version reached number seven in America.
Q 28Which television drama used the Hilltop commercial to end its final episode in 2015?
Mad Men
Mad Men's 2015 finale cut from a meditating Don Draper to the Hilltop ad, implying he went on to create it.
Q 29As of 2012, which two countries were the only ones with no official Coca-Cola sales?
Cuba and North Korea
Cuba and North Korea were the two holdouts once Myanmar came off the list in 2012; U.S. sanctions kept Coca-Cola from selling officially in either.
Q 30What does a yellow cap on a bottle of Coca-Cola indicate?
It is kosher for Passover
A yellow cap means it is kosher for Passover: the batch is made with sucrose instead of corn syrup; Atlanta's Rabbi Tobias Geffen first certified Coke kosher in 1935.