By 1887, Pemberton had brought several investors into the Coca-Cola Company as partners, including Asa Candler, a move he would have certainly regretted if he’d lived long enough to see its consequences. After he died the next year, the rights to the name passed on to his widow and the formula to his son, Charley, who was also something of a wayward drug addict. According to legend, Candler bought the name at Pemberton’s funeral by offering his distraught widow $300 for it, and Charley Pemberton soon conveniently died of a drug overdose and a mysterious fire destroyed all evidence of the Pemberton family’s legal rights to the business. Basically, don’t mess with Asa Candler.