Coca Cola’s Secret Recipe Cracked

Wednesday, 16 February 2011 | by Pat's Picks

Move over, WikiLeaks, says the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. According to the paper, a national secret of the utmost important has just been leaked to the public—the original recipe for Coca Cola. NPR’s “This American Life” claims to have stumbled upon the recipe in the Journal-Constitution’s archives.

Charles Salter, who wrote a column called the Georgia Rambler for the paper until 1998, published the secret recipe in a 1979 article. He says he got it from one of his fishing buddies, a pharmacist named Everett Beal. Beal apparently “found the recipe years earlier, written in a more than century-old hand-written ledger.”

The leaked recipe includes coca, coriander, caramel, neroli oil and cinnamon. Coca Cola denies that their secret’s been cracked but the Journal says it’s been fielding media inquiries from around the world since news broke that one of the world’s most closely guarded secrets has actually been hiding in plain sight for more than 30 years.

Click here to download Salter’s 1979 column. Click here to see the recipe or scroll down to listen to the “American Life” episode that started it all:

NOTE: The “This American Life” website seems to be bombarded with traffic this morning. As of 9:30 EST we couldn’t get the podcast to load or the text link to work. We’ll keep trying throughout the morning and update the site accordingly. If you want to check out the original recipe, download the original Journal-Constitution article.