What would be even more interesting is to figure out how they manage to sell so much of the stuff. Especially after dumping sugar and replacing it with corn syrup. Who drinks that stuff on a regular basis? About the only time I drink it is when I’m traveling and trying to settle my stomach. The supposed recipe (not that many will whip up a batch) is inside the link.

Glass came across a recipe that he believes is the secret formula in a back issue of Pemberton’s local paper, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, while he was researching an entirely different story. Tucked away on an inside page of the 8 February 1979 edition, he stumbled on an article that claimed to have uncovered the closely guarded 7x formula.

The column was based on an old leather-bound notebook that belonged to Pemberton’s best friend and fellow Atlanta chemist, RR Evans. Glass was intrigued and, after some digging, found the notebook had been handed down the generations until it reached a chemist in Georgia called Everett Beal, whose widow still possesses it.

The rediscovered recipe includes extract of coca leaves, caffeine, plenty of sugar (it specifies 30 unidentified units thought to be pounds), lime juice, vanilla and caramel. Into that syrup, the all-important 7x flavourings are added: alcohol and six oils – orange, lemon, nutmeg, coriander, neroli and cinnamon.