Episode Details

Pepsi began in 1893 as Brad's Drink, a pharmacy remedy for indigestion created by Caleb Bradham in New Bern, North Carolina. This episode traces how the brand became a mirror of more than a century of economics, civil rights, and geopolitics, starting with Bradham's 1923 bankruptcy after a disastrous bet on sugar prices.

We cover Charles Guth's revival of the brand out of spite toward Coca-Cola, the 12-ounce nickel bottle of the Great Depression, and Edward F. Boyd's pioneering Black sales team of the 1940s. Then come the Pepsi Challenge, the syrup-for-Stolichnaya barter deal with the Soviet Union, the deadly 1992 Number Fever riots in the Philippines, and modern reformulations driven by sugar taxes.

• How panic-buying sugar at 22 cents a pound, just before it crashed to about three cents, bankrupted Pepsi's founder
• Why Coca-Cola turned down three chances to buy the bankrupt Pepsi brand
• Edward F. Boyd's 12-man sales team, its success in Chicago, and why the effort was shut down under pressure from bottlers
• The sip-test science behind the Pepsi Challenge and how it pushed Coca-Cola toward New Coke
• The bottle cap printing error that produced 800,000 winning 349 caps and set off deadly unrest