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Only a few people at The Coca-Cola Company know the current, authentic Coca-Cola Formula, but over the past century many have tried to concoct or reverse-engineer its ingrediants and production process. The mystery surrounding this secret formula are the subject of books, speculation and marketing lore. Recipes for other soft drinks and products--such as Pepsi, KFC Chicken and the Big Mac's special sauce--are also a trade secrets, but the Coke formula attacts the most attention. Alleged Coca-Cola syrup recipes vary greatly and the formula has changed over the decades; published accounts say it contains or once contained sugar, caramel, caffeine, phosphoric acid, coca leaf and cola nut extract, lime juice or oil, flavoring mixture, vanilla and originally glycerin (but not any more).
The following are some of the alleged recipes for the syrup:
Alleged Syrup Recipes
Purported Secret Recipe One
This recipe is attributed to a sheet of paper found in an old formulary book owned by Coca-Cola inventor, John S. Pemberton, just before his death:
"Mix Caffeine Acid and Lime Juice in 1 quart boiling water add vanilla and flavoring when cool. Let stand for 24 hours. Flavoring is likely a mixture orange oil, lemon, nutmeg oil, cinnamon oil, coriander oil, neroli oil and 1 quart of alcohol
This recipe does not specify when sugar, coca, caramel or the rest of the water are added.
Purported Secret Recipe Two
This recipe is attributed to pharmacist John Reed
- 30 pounds of sugar
- 2 gallons of water
- 2 pints of lime juice
- 4 ounces of citrate of caffeine
- 2 ounces of citric acid
- 1 ounce of extract of vanilla
- 6 drams (3/4 ounce) of fluid extract of cola
- 6 drams of fluid extract of coca
Purported Secret Recipe Three
This recipe is from Food Flavorings: Composition, Manufacture and Use (2nd Ed.) 1968 by Joseph Merory (AVI Publishing Company, Inc., Westport, CT)
Makes one gallon of syrup. "Mix 2,400 grams of sugar with just enough water to dissolve (high-fructose corn syrup may be substituted for half the sugar). Add 37 grams of caramel, 3.1 grams of caffeine, and 11 grams of phosphoric acid. Extract the cocaine from 1.1 grams of coca leaf (Truxillo growth of coca preferred) with toluol; discard the cocaine extract. Soak the coca leaves and kola nuts (both finely powdered; 0.37 gram of kola nuts) in 22 grams of 20 percent alcohol. California white wine fortified to 20 percent strength was used as the soaking solution circa 1909, but Coca-Cola may have switched to a simple water/alcohol mixture. After soaking, discard the coca and kola and add the liquid to the syrup. Add 30 grams of lime juice (a former ingredient, evidently, that Coca-Cola now denies) or a substitute such as a water solution of citric acid and sodium citrate at lime-juice strength. Mix together 0.88 gram of lemon oil, 0.47 gram of orange oil, 0.20 gram of cassia (Chinese cinnamon) oil. 0.07 gram of nutmeg oil, and, if desired, traces of coriander, lavender, and neroli oils, and add to 4.9 grams of 95 percent alcohol. Shake. Add 2.7 grams of water to the alcohol/oil mixture and let stand for twenty-four hours at about 60 degrees Fahrenheit [15.5 Celsius]. A cloudy layer will separate. Take off the clear part of the liquid only and add the syrup. Add 19 grams of glycerine (from vegetable source, not hog fat, so the drink can be sold to Orthodox Jews and Moslems) and 1.5 grams of vanilla extract. Add water (treated with chlorine) to make 1 gallon of syrup.
Yield (used to flavor carbonated water): 128 6.5-ounce bottles."
New Coke 1985
In what turned out to be a marketing blunder, Coca-Cola changed the formula of their drink to try and attract sales away from competitors. The drink was relaunched as New Coke on April 23, 1985, and met general rejection from the public and derisory reactions from competitors like Pepsi-Cola. Within a period of weeks, Coca-Cola Original was brought back onto the market.
The New Coke formula was a variant of the sweeter Diet Coke formula rather than the original Coca-Cola formula itself. Thus New Coke tasted much sweeter, perhaps more like Pepsi.
Formula history and background
William Poundstone in his 1983 book Big Secrets ISBN 0-688-04830-7 devotes chapter three (18 pages) to the Coca-Cola formula.
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