Ever since the creation of Coca-Cola in 1886, the precise recipe has been a closely guarded secret.
The only official written copy is supposedly held in a U.S. bank vault and only two company employees at any one time are said to know the whole formula that gives the fizzy drink its distinctive flavour.
But now, 125 years of near-total secrecy look to be over, as a website claims to have uncovered a list showing the ingredients and quantities used to make the drink.
The list, it claims, was actually published without fanfare in a 1979 local newspaper article in Coca-Cola’s U.S. home town of Atlanta, Georgia – but no one appeared to realise its significance.
The website, Thisamericanlife.org, said the 32-year-old article – buried on Page 28 of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution – shows a photograph of a recipe purported to be an exact replica of Coca-Cola creator John Pemberton’s.
The recipe had apparently been written by a friend of pharmacist Mr Pemberton’s then passed down through the generations. A can of Coca-Cola currently simply refers to its specialist ingredients as ‘Natural flavourings including caffeine’ alongside carbonated water, sugar, phosphoric acid and colour (Caramel E150d).
Thisamericanlife.org consulted historian Mark Pendergrast, who has written a history of the drink and believes the recipe could be, as Coca-Cola’s famous slogan goes, the real thing.
He said: ‘I think that it certainly is a version of the formula.’
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Asa Candler, one of the first presidents of the company, was so worried that the ‘Holy of Holies’ would fall into the wrong hands he made sure it was never written down.
He removed all the labels from the containers of the ingredients so they were identified only by the sight, smell and where they were put on the shelf.
A crucial part of the formula was also given the name ‘7X’ to add to the mystique.
Mr Candler even used to go through company mail himself and remove invoices for ingredients so no one in the accounts department could sell the recipe to a rival.
‘The company has always said, and as far as I know it’s true, that at any given time only two people know how to mix the 7X flavouring ingredient,’ said Mr Pendergrast.
‘Those two people never travel on the same plane in case it crashes; it’s this carefully passed-on secret ritual and the formula is kept in a bank vault.’
In more recent times Coca-Cola has defended a string of legal challenges to force it to reveal its formula.
In 1977 it pulled out of India rather than divulge it to the government.
The closest the company itself has come to divulging its recipe was the admission that it originally included cocaine, although the narcotic was removed in the early 1900s.
1906: Countries outside the US - Cuba, Canada ana Panama - began bottling the drink
1916: The iconic contour bottle - so distinctive it could be recognised in the dark - was introduced to distinguish Coca-Cola from competitors
1931: Artist Haddon Sundblom's Santa Claus first appeared in ads for Coca-Cola. This image of Santa - shown as a plump, jolly, friendly man - helped shape the modern-day image of St. Nick
1969: The Beatles name-checked Coca-Cola in their song Come Together
1982: Soft-drink history was made with the introduction of Diet Coke, the most successful new soft drink since Coca-Cola itself. Within two years, Diet Coke had become the top low-calorie soft drink in the world
1985: The drink became the first soft drink to be consumed in space when astronauts tested the Coca-Cola Space Can aboard Space Shuttle Challenger
2006: Cheryl Cole signed up to promote Coca-Cola's sugar free drink Coke Zero
Present: The world's top soft drinks maker reported a net income of £3.58bn for the fourth quarter of 2010
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