El sitio Thisamericanlife.org dice que encontró una foto de alguien sosteniendo un cuaderno en un artículo de 1979 del Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Pusieron en sus manos la receta original de Coca-Cola. La verosimilitud de su descubrimiento fue confirmada por Mark Pendergrast, especialista en la historia de la firma de Atlanta.
Entre los ingredientes, el “sabor 7X” es el que le daría a Coca-Cola su sabor especial. Solo dos empleados sabrían la composición exacta.
El concentrado (la "fórmula secreta") todavía es producido por Coca-Cola, que lo vende a empresas embotelladoras de todo el mundo. Cada día, se consumen 1.500 millones de bebidas Coca-Cola en casi 200 países. Los aspirantes a copiadores tienen un largo camino por recorrer antes de poder competir con el gigante.
La imagen muestra una lista de ingredientes escrita a mano en 1886 por un amigo del creador de la bebida, John Pemberton, en un libro de boticario pasado de generación en generación y que se encuentra ahora en manos de una mujer de Griffin (Georgia).
Coca Cola, que mantiene la versión oficial de su receta en una cámara de seguridad de Atlanta bajo una clave que sólo conocen dos empleados, no ha confirmado por el momento si la composición publicada es correcta.
De la lista publicada, la parte más reveladora es la que explica cómo mezclar el 7X, una sustancia que sólo representa el 1% de la bebida pero que es crucial para darle su característico sabor.
Para la mezcla del famoso ingrediente secreto, según la lista, son necesarias 22,4 centilitros de alcohol, 20 gotas de aceite de naranja, 30 gotas de aceite de limón, 10 de aceite de nuez moscada, 5 de aceite de cilantro, 10 de aceite de neroli -de las flores del naranjo amargo- y 10 de aceite de canela.
El resto de la bebida se elabora con 8,4 centilitros de ácido cítrico, 7 centilitros de agua, 2,8 de cafeína, 2,8 de vainilla, medio litro de jugo de lima, 4,2 de caramelo para dar color y una cantidad de azúcar que resulta ilegible en la lista.
Esa receta original también incluía tres vasos de extracto de fluido de coca, un ingrediente que la compañía retiró del compuesto a comienzos del siglo XX después de un torrente de críticas.
Queda por saber si, además de la eliminación de esta sustancia, los propietarios de Coca Cola han aplicado modificaciones sustanciales a la fórmula desde que Pemberton la ideara.
En una nota de prensa, The Coca Cola Company niega que, en la elaboración de la Coca Cola, se añada alcohol como ingrediente y asegura que no hay fermentación.
La compañía alega que las autoridades sanitarias reguladoras de más de 200 países reconocen que la popular bebida es un producto no alcohólico.
FE Coca
(Fluid Extract of Coca) | 3 drams USP | 4 oz FE Coco |
| Citric Acid | 3 oz | 3 oz |
| Caffeine | 1 oz | 1oz Citrate Caffein |
| Sugar | 30 # | 30 # |
| Water | 2.5 gal | 2.5 gal |
| Lime Juice | 2 pints (1 qrt) | 1 qrt |
| Vanilla | 1 oz | 1 oz |
| Caramel | 1.5 oz or more to color | Color sufficient |
| |
| | Use 2 oz flavor (below) to 5 gals syrup | 2.5 oz flavor |
| |
| 7X Flavor | | |
| Alcohol | 8 oz | 1 qrt |
| Orange Oil | 20 drops | 80 |
| Lemon Oil | 30 | 120 |
| Nutmeg Oil | 10 | 40 |
| Corriander Oil | 5 | 20 |
| Neroli Oil | 10 | 40 |
| Cinnamon Oil | 10 | 40 |
| (The Pemberton formula for 7X is the same as the Beal, just four times as much.) |
How to Make This Recipe
As we said in the radio story, this recipe includes two parts. The recipe for the syrup, and the recipe for the 7X flavoring formula. You can scale down the recipe for the syrup if you don't want to make gallons of the syrup. You will need one ounce of syrup mixed with 5 ounces of carbonated water to make a serving of soda.
When you buy your ingredients be careful that you buy FOOD GRADE. There are lots of things you can find on the Internet that can be used in this recipe that are not food grade and will make you sick.
1) Make the 7X flavor. To make this, you'll want food grade essential oils at 100 percent strength.
For a home recipe, you can get an eyedropper and count drops the old-fashioned way, but if you want to be more precise, Steve Warth at Sovereign Flavors says he estimated each drop was .025 grams, which means you want 0.5 grams of Orange Oil, 0.75 of Lemon Oil, 0.25 grams of Nutmeg Oil, 0.125 grams of Coriander Oil, 0.25 grams of Neroli Oil, 0.25 grams of Cinnamon Oil (historian Mark Pendergrast says the original Coke recipe was made with a kind of cinnamon called Cassia).
Combine those with 8 ounces of food grade alcohol. This ingredient, we'll be frank, will be kind of a pain in the ass to find. Important: Do NOT use Ethyl Rubbing Alcohol or Rubbing Alcohol or Denatured Ethyl Alcohol. These will make you sick. You need food grade ethyl alcohol. Sometimes people swap Everclear or other neutral grain spirits for this, and our beverage guys suggest this as an easy, cheap substitute.
2) Make your fluid extract of coca. Buy whole leaf coca tea. You don't need much. The recipe calls for 3 fluid drams, which is equivalent to 1/8 of a fluid ounce or – an easier measurement for a home kitchen – 3/4 of a tablespoon.
Extract Of Coca (*)
The fluid extract of the powdered coca-leaf is prepared as follows: Of coca-leaves powdered, one pound; diluted alcohol sufficient to make one pint of extract. Moisten the powder with six ounces of the diluted alcohol, pack into the percolator; then add enough diluted alcohol to saturate the powder and leave a stratum above it. When the liquid begins to drop from the percolator close the lower orifice, then cover the percolator tightly and macerate for forty-eight hours. Then allow the percolation to proceed, gradually adding diluted alcohol, until the coca is exhausted and sixteen fluid ounces of extract are obtained. This extract is of a deep-brown or olive-brown color, and has the astringent, bitter and slightly aromatic taste of the leaves, and is miscible with water. Its effectiveness is very modified. This extract and the commercial extracts of coca are more for pharmaceutical use, where a dose from one to four fluid drachms is dispensed. To impart to a carbonated beverage the desired effects of cocaine - and but for this reason it is employed and not for giving any aroma - it is much too weak, except when from one to four pints of the extract to one gallon of syrup are employed, which makes it more expensive and troublesome.
Formulas directing one or more ounces of extract to be added to one gallon of syrup are misleading, as this proportion would have no effect whatsoever. When not alone the name "coca" for new beverages, but principally the effects of the alkaline cocaine, axe desired, the tincture of-cocaine or essence of coca prepared after the appended formulas offer all that can be desired.
3) Make the syrup. Once you have your 7X flavor, and your fluid extract of coca, you are ready to mix them with your other ingredients to make the syrup. Mix your ingredients in this order: water, sugar, then coloring, then coca extract, then vanilla extract, then caffeine, then lime juice and citric acid.
Several Notes:
-- If you do not want to make several gallons of the syrup, you can adjust the recipe by reducing all ingredients by the same rate -- one half the original amount, one quarter, and so on.
-- Another important thing about this step, as we said in the radio story about the recipe, the Sovereign Flavors chemists concluded that in order to compensate for the intensity of contemporary essential oils (125 years of advances in food technology means it's possible that they're much stronger than the oils Pemberton used in his lab in 1886) the 7X flavoring addition should be reduced by 75 percent. That means, if you make the full size batch, you should only use 1/2 ounce of 7X formula instead of the 2 ounces specified in the original recipe.
-- You might want to cut down on the caffeine. We all got a strong buzz from the soda we made with the recipe, and then one of the beverage professionals pointed out that it was because it had five times the amount of caffeine of a modern soda.
-- Some ingredients are measured in fluid ounces, others are measured in ounces by weight. The team at Sovereign Flavors says if an ingredient is liquid -- coca extract or vanilla extract -- it should be measured in fluid ounces. If it's a dry ingredient, like citric acid, it should be measured by weight.
4) Make the soda. Once you have mixed the syrup, it should be combined with carbonated water at a ratio of 1-to-5 (one part syrup to five parts bubbly water) to make the soda.
Legal language we have to include here: If you're making this soda, it's entirely at your own risk. The soda companies and radio stations involved in this story make no claims about the safety of this old recipe.
La receta de Coca-Cola:
Para 11,3 litros de Coca-Cola, necesitará:
- Extracto de hoja de coca: 11 ml
- Ácido cítrico: 85 ml
- Cafeína: 28 ml
- Azúcar: 30 xx (unidad ilegible en el documento)
- Agua: 9,5 litros
- Zumo de limón: 0,95 litros
- Vainilla: 28 ml
- Caramelo: 44,4 ml
Y el "Aroma 7X" a base de aceites esenciales (ET): utiliza 59 ml para 18,9 litros de almíbar:
- Alcohol 236 ml
- EO naranja: 20 gotas
- Limón EO: 30 gotas
- Nuez moscada EO: 10 gotas
- Cilantro: 5 gotas
- Neroli: 10 gotas
- Canela: 10 gotas
Recetas Varias
La receta de Joe Jacobs proviene de los archivos de The Coca-Cola Company, que nos envió el archivero de Coke, Phil Mooney, después de nuestra entrevista. Mooney dice que a Coke se le han enviado docenas de estas recetas a lo largo de los años y nos dijo que cree que generalmente son obra de personas que intentan imitar a Coca-Cola, no versiones de la receta original real. Este vino originalmente de Joe Jacobs, dueño de la farmacia donde se sirvió Coca-Cola por primera vez. Muchos de los ingredientes son los mismos que los de la receta del periódico de 1979, pero hay algunas diferencias. Mooney dice que esto es típico. Este tiene jugo de ciruela y trébol y la cafeína proviene de la nuez de cola.
Otra receta de los archivos de The Coca-Cola Company, enviada por Phil Mooney. Esta es una carta de 1969 enviada a Coca-Cola por un hombre en Mississippi llamado John Whitten, quien creía haber encontrado la receta original de Coca-Cola.
La receta de Whitten, que se parece bastante a la del cuaderno que se muestra en la foto del periódico de Atlanta.
