Ever wonder how to make the worlds favourite soda pop Coca Cola? Very few people know the ‘real’ secret recipe… but there are versions out there hand written by the inventor of Coke – John Pemberton.

Our diy Coca Cola recipe follows his 1886 version.

Glen got the idea to do this back in 2011 from an NPR radio show called ‘This American Life’, but getting the ingredients for Coca Cola wasn’t easy… and still isn’t.

Obviously Coca loaf extract is the biggie in the room – but even Neroli Oil Extract is hard to get; in that it’s so expensive!

So if you are going to set out and make Coca Cola at home, or any Cola recipe at home; there will be some comprises. In the end, even with compromises, the flavor profile of the Coke recipes is so complex that minor variations are hard to detect.

Ingredients:

• 7x Flavour [Use 2 oz flavour (below) to 5 gals syrup (I used 15mL per 19L, or 1.3mL / 1L)]
  • 236 mL (8 oz) high proof food grade alcohol
  • 20 drops (0.5g / 1 mL) Orange Oil
  • 30 drops (0.75g / 1.5 mL) Lemon Oil
  • 10 drops (0.25g / .5 mL) Nutmeg Oil
  • 5 drops (0.125g / .25 mL) Coriander Oil
  • 10 drops (0.25g / .5 mL) Neroli Oil (You can sub Bitter Orange Oil)
  • 10 drops (0.25g / .5 mL) Cinnamon (Cassia Or True Cinnamon) Oil

Original Sugar Syrup Recipe:

• FE Coca (Fluid Extract of Coca) 3 drams USP (10.5 mL)
• Citric Acid 3 oz (85g)
• Caffeine 1 oz (30 mL)
• Sugar 30 #
• Water 2.5 gal
• Lime Juice 2 pints (473 mL)
• Vanilla 1 oz (30 mL)
• Caramel 1.5 oz or more to color

I made 1/8 Original and re-ordered the ingredients to order of use: Water 1.18L Sugar 1.7 Kg Caramel 5.5 mL FE Coca 1.3 mL (not used) Vanilla 3.75 mL Caffeine 3.75 mL Lime Juice 59.12 mL Citric Acid 10.6g

Method: Mix together all of the ingredients of the 7X Flavor. Set this aside in a sealed bottle.

Heat the water sugar and caramel in a large pot.

Stirring continuously, just until sugar is dissolved.

Take off the heat and mix in vanilla, caffeine, lime juice and citric acid. Stir to fully combine.

Add a measured amount of 7X flavoring to the sugar syrup.

Mix with carbonated water at a ratio of one part syrup and 5 parts water.

Here are the links to the original This American Life story:
https://www.thisamericanlife.org/427/…
https://www.thisamericanlife.org/extr…
https://www.thisamericanlife.org/extr…
https://www.thisamericanlife.org/427/…
https://www.thisamericanlife.org/extr…

(Coca-Cola inventor John Pemberton )

While preparing for an episode of This American Life that aired Feb. 11, the radio show’s producers stumbled upon what appears to be the secret recipe for Coca-Cola, printed in a 1979 issue of the Atlanta-Journal Constitution. For 125 years, The Coca-Cola Company has tried its best to keep Coke’s formula shrouded in mystery, especially when it comes to the ingredients of what it calls the drink’s “secret 7X flavor.”

A company spokesperson told Life’s Little Mysteries that This American Life did not manage to concoct “the real thing”, and that the secret recipe is still safe. At least one Coke historian says, however, that yes, this is an authentic recipe for Coke just not the one you enjoy today.

[Click here to see the original 1979 document that leaked the recipe]

For one thing, The Coca-Cola Company has used high-fructose corn syrup rather than sugar in the American version of its soft drink since 1985. That was the year it scrapped the “New Coke” formula which spent only a few months on the market after the company was flooded by consumer protests and reverted to a recipe similar to the one it had used up until 1985 (except switching the sweetener to corn syrup).

According to Pendergrast, current Coca-Cola Classic is also made with phosphoric acid instead of citric acid another change not reflected in the leaked recipe. Small tweaks, yes, but they produce a drink that isn’t quite right by today’s standards.

The evolution of Coca-Cola

Pendergrast believes that this new find is real but also says it’s really no big deal. “I think it’s kind of funny that suddenly there’s this big flap over this when I found the formula in Coca-Cola inventor John Pemberton’s papers and published it in the first edition of my book in 1993,” Pendergrast told us. “This recipe is very similar to the one I found, so I do think it’s probably authentic.” But that doesn’t mean Coca-Cola’s current manufacturing secrets are out. “It’s not the recipe of the drink they’re selling now. The original formula has been changed.”

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