If you’ve ever been to Atlanta, you know it’s the birthplace of Coke® and you know this because downtown is a large and centrally located complex called the World of Coca-Cola® Museum. An Atlanta pharmacist named John Pemberton created it in his laboratory and the World of Coca-Cola® Museum includes a vault containing the secret formula, a theater, a gallery of the drink in pop culture, information on its creation, and a tasting room of Coke® products from around the world.
You would think that Pepsi® might have something similar, but you’d be wrong. Pepsi® was first known as “Brad’s Drink” as it was concocted by Caleb Bradham in his New Bern drug store as early as 1893. It was renamed Pepsi-Cola® and grew quickly in popularity. Sadly, in 1923, the company declared bankruptcy due to a drastic reduction in sugar prices (right after Bradham had procured a staggering amount of sugar at a much higher price). He sold the company to Craven Holding Company for just $35K. Today, Caleb Bradham’s drug store in New Bern includes a soda shop and Pepsi® merchandise but interestingly, is no where near the commercial venture that the World of Coca-Cola® Museum is in Atlanta. New Bern is, however, not the place to ask for a Coke® in any establishment.
We’d been camping, and Doug did a bike ride, at Goose Creek State Park in the days before arriving in Bern, which I thought gave us a pretty good idea of what the native landscape looked like in the area – large trees covered in Spanish moss, thickly packed smaller trees, low brush, and turtles perched on logs seeking sunshine. New Bern looked nothing like this.
While Bath is the oldest North Carolina town (post here), New Bern is second oldest and became the capitol city after Bath. Thus, New Bern has plenty of firsts and has several museums related to its firehouse, North Carolina, and Pepsi®. For some reason, the town was incredibly quiet that day, even though we’d heard it was a popular tourist stop and has a huge harbor to accommodate. We mostly just spent our afternoon strolling its walkable downtown.
Goose Creek 
New Bern 
