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Find this business under: Museums, Tourist Attractions, Amusement Places, Museums-History

It's odd to think of Coca-Cola having a beginning, an origin. That there was, in fact, a time without Coca-Cola. A simpler, less caffeinated, time.

Those days are gone now; they started to change back in Atlanta more than 100 years ago, when a local pharmacy first began pumping the fizzy substance from its soda fountain. Bow before the altar of the sugar gods at the World of Coca-Cola, a three-story pavilion in downtown Atlanta devoted entirely to the soft drink. Check out how that first Coca-Cola was prepared at the 1930s-style Barnes Soda Fountain, staffed by an old-fashioned soda jerk. Pass beneath a massive, 3-D Coca Cola globe suspended 18 feet above the ceiling, a looming reminder that despite years of dentists' lectures, warnings and desperate pleadings, resistance has proven futile. The effect is driven home by displays highlighting Coke statistics -- 7,000 bottles consumed per second, for instance. Other exhibits expose you to Coca-Cola advertising campaigns of the past and history from a soft-drink perspective. (In a stunning oversight, the amount of Coke that soldiers drank during World War II never makes it into the history books. This is now rectified; we can all rest easy.) Finish your journey with a visit to Tastes of the World, where you can sample beverages distributed internationally by the company, but not available for sale in the United States. -- Tracy Vogel