The recipe for Coca-Cola is a closely guarded secret; in fact it is said that to stop it leaking (no pun intended) only 2 coke employees ever know the formula at one time. Unfortunately, after almost 130 years the cat is out the bag and the full formula is now available online. So how has it leaked and what exactly is in your coke?

The Leak

Well, here’s the first surprise. Apparently the recipe was actually first leaked way back in 1993 in a book titled ‘For God, Country & Coca-Cola’ by US author Mark Prendergast. The book went widely unnoticed however until it was recently released as a kindle ebook on amazon, which quickly brought the attention of the mainstream media.

Mark claims to have discovered the recipe in a formula book that was previously owned by Coca-Cola’s founder. When he realised the significance of what he had seen he quickly took a photocopy of the page containing the formula (yes, photocopy… this was 1993 remember!).

So that’s the source of the leak, but what is actually in your coke?

The Formula

Here is the recipe for making 24 pints of Coca-Cola. The ingredients at the top (the caramel etc are widely known), it’s the 7 ingredients at the bottom that make up the essence/’secret recipe’.



So we have: –

Alcohol: 8oz

Orange oil: 20 drops

Lemon oil: 30 drops

Nutmeg oil: 10 drops

Coriander: 5 drops

Neroli: 10 drops

Cinnamon: 10 drops

No cocaine as has sometimes been claimed, but I was pretty surprised to see that alcohol was actually one of the key ingredients in Coca-Cola. Granted the amount would be incredibly small once it finds its way into your can of coke, but nonetheless it is definitely there.

So technically, it could be said that every can of coke is an alcoholic drink! Who would have known?

I’m kind of thirsty now… think I’ll have a… Pepsi 😉