#1722 - Bartow Elmore

Joe Rogan (0:06)

Train by day, Joe Rogan Podcast by night, all day.

Bartow Elmore (0:14)

Tell me.

Joe Rogan (0:15)

Tell me about all this dirtiness. Tell me about these monsters and the money that they make.

Bartow Elmore (0:21)

Yeah.

Joe Rogan (0:22)

How'd you get involved in this, first of all?

Bartow Elmore (0:23)

Yeah, sure.

Joe Rogan (0:24)

Why'd this become your field of study?

Bartow Elmore (0:28)

Well, thanks, Jeff, for having me on.

Joe Rogan (0:29)

My pleasure. Thanks for being here. I'm excited to talk to you about this.

Bartow Elmore (0:31)

Yeah, so.

Joe Rogan (0:32)

Very important subject, right?

Bartow Elmore (0:33)

Yeah, for me, it was. It really started with the first project I worked on, the first book I wrote, which was The History of Coca-Cola and Its Environmental Impact Around the World.

Joe Rogan (0:44)

You were just telling us that Pepsi is actually older than Coke, which is surprising.

Bartow Elmore (0:47)

Dr. Pepper. Yeah, Dr. Pepper.

Joe Rogan (0:49)

Dr. Pepper's older?

Bartow Elmore (0:50)

Yeah, Dr. Pepper's older, weirdly. And you think of it as like the, you know.

Joe Rogan (0:54)

Yeah, I thought it was like the new kid on the block.

Bartow Elmore (0:56)

Yeah, exactly.

Joe Rogan (0:57)

That's the oldest?

Bartow Elmore (0:57)

1885 1885, not the oldest, but it's older than Coke.

Joe Rogan (1:00)

What's the oldest?

Bartow Elmore (1:01)

Coke was 1886 I don't really even know what the oldest one would be.

Joe Rogan (1:04)

So Dr. Pepper came on first, then Coca-Cola, and then Pepsi?

Bartow Elmore (1:07)

And then Pepsi later.

Joe Rogan (1:08)

So Pepsi is still bullshit.

Bartow Elmore (1:09)

Pepsi's, look, you're talking to a guy from Atlanta, so I agree with you there.

Joe Rogan (1:14)

What does that mean?

Bartow Elmore (1:16)

Yeah, Coke's from Atlanta. And, you know, when we were growing up, it was like in the water.

You had to drink Coca-Cola. In fact, when you want any soft drink, you just say, I want a Coke.

Joe Rogan (1:25)

Yeah, nobody says I'd like a Pep, but, well, maybe they do. But the thing about Pepsi is like it never had cocaine in it, did it?

Bartow Elmore (1:31)

No, actually, this is relevant. I mean, so this was the beginning of this book because I was doing that. I was looking at all the ingredients that go into Coca-Cola and saying, okay, what's in the drink, first of all? Because it's from my hometown, that's where it started. I said, okay, I want to find out all these natural resources in the product.

And, you know, is Coca in the drink?

And also caffeine, we'll get to that. That's how it connects to Monsanto. But Coca was the most interesting, actually, because I thought, you know, it's called Coca-Cola, so does it have cocaine in it? And so I went back to look at that, and turns out, yeah, you know, trace amounts. Back in the beginning. No, no, no.

Joe Rogan (2:10)

In the beginning.

Bartow Elmore (2:10)

Yeah, but this is what's interesting about the history of the drink. So this is 1886, back then, the Coca leaf was actually seen as something that was medicinal. Medicinal, absolutely, and everyone was using the Coca leaf. I mean, there was a drink called Vin Mariani. It was actually a wine, a red wine that was mixed with Coca leaves. So it kind of had a little kick to it. And like Queen Victoria of England drank this stuff. Ulysses S. Grant, our president, was like, whoo, you know, Coca wine, this is awesome.

And even the Pope, actually. I wonder if communion would have had Vin Mariani. We would all be Catholic or something.

But so it was really popular. And this guy, this guy who was down on his luck, John Pemberton, who started Coca Cola in Atlanta, he wanted to make a Coca drink himself. And so he made this, originally Coke was actually a wine. It was like a wine of Coca. It was a red wine mixed with Coca leaves. Exact knockoff of that drink that was really popular.

And then Prohibition hits Atlanta, because we're in the Protestant South in the 1880s. And so he has to take out the alcohol. And so he creates this non-alcoholic drink, Coca Cola, that has the Coca leaf in it. They weren't concerned about the Coca. They were concerned about alcohol.

And it remained in the drink throughout the 20th century.

Joe Rogan (3:33)

What kind of dose would it have in it?

Bartow Elmore (3:35)

Very small. You know, and this I think is important. You know, people equate the Coca leaf with, you know, cocaine because yes, you can make cocaine, like street cocaine, from, you know, processing all these Coca leaves. But if you go to Peru today or you go to certain parts of South America, people chew Coca leaves. It's a normal practice. It's been going back thousands of years to the Inca even.