Angelo Mariani
Missing imageVin_mariani_publicite156.jpg Advertising bill for the wine Mariani, lithograph of Jules Cheret, 1894
or
Ange-François Mariani was a
French chemist born at Pero-Casevecchie in
Corsica in
1832. He's the inventor in
1863 of one of the first (if not the first)
cocawine: the famous
Vin Mariani, a
Bordeaux red wine mixed with extract of coca leaves. His labs were based in
Neuilly-sur-Seine. His drink becoming a popular success (coca leaves users prefer to drink coca wine rather than masticate the leaves or drink leaves infusions), a dozen imitations appears while he declines the concept in elixirs, pastilles, pastes and coca tea.
Coca plant was still at this time a new discovery, the plant essence being isolated around
1860 by Albert Niemann, and chemical formula established in
1863 by Wilhelm Lossen.
Angelo Mariani is sometimes referenced as the 1st cocaine millionaire.
The wine Mariani was prohibited only at the beginning of the First World War. Mariani died in 1914. He's buried at Père Lachaise in Paris.
See also: Angelo Mariani, 1832, 1860, 1863, 1914, Bordeaux, Chemist, Coca, Cocawine, Corsica
