[nu11ptr]

Exactly what I was thinking. I mean how can you produce something, esp. in bulk, when the exact ingredients and quantities aren't known? Assuming it is made in a typical factory, the machines would have to be programmed and that would typically mean someone has to know. I wonder if they split the knowledge over several different groups so a group only knows a single piece? Hmm....

[fabiensanglard]

This is how they do it. There was a documentary about coca-cola and they explained that they completely separated the supply pipeline. Operators manipulate unlabelled sources coming from separate parts of the company.

[atombender]

It's a myth that Coca-Cola is a closely held secret, though. Any food flavoring specialist can reconstruct the flavor of Coke almost exactly.

A few years ago I (not a specialist!) made lots of batches of OpenCola, which is based partly on the original Pemberton recipe, and it comes so close that nobody could realistically tell the difference. If anything, it tastes better, because I imagine Coke doesn't use fresh, expensive essential oils (like neroli) for everything.

The tricky piece that nobody else can do is the caffeine (edit: de-cocainized coca leaf extract) derived from coca leaves. Only Coke has the license to do this, and from what I gather, a tiny, tiny bit of the flavour does come from that.

[toast0]

> If anything, it tastes better, because I imagine Coke doesn't use fresh, expensive essential oils (like neroli) for everything.

I've not participated in Cola tasting, but assuming fresher tastes better isn't really a safe assumption. Lots of ingredients taste better or are better suited for recipies when they're aged. I've got pet chickens and their eggs are great, but you have to let them sit for many days if you want to hard boil them, and I'd guess baking with them may be tricky for sensitive recipies.

Anyway, even if it does taste better for whatever that means, that's not meeting the goal of tasting consistently the same as Coke, in whichever form. If you can't tell me if it's supposed to taste like Coke from a can, glass bottle, plastic bottle, or fountain, then you've told me all I need to know about how close you've replicated it.

[atombender]

I think my point flew past you: If I can make a 99% clone of Coke in my kitchen, any professional flavoring pro will do it 100%. The supposed secret recipe isn't why Coke is still around, it's the brand.

And by fresh I do mean: The OpenCola is full of natural essential oils (orange, neroli, cinnamon, lime, lavender, lemon, nutmeg), and real natural flavor oils have a certain potent freshness you don't get in a mass-produced product.

[pests]

> you don't get in a mass-produced product.

But you are trying to reproduce a mass-produced product.

[atombender]

I'm merely making the point that there's nothing magical about the recipe. Anyone wanting to truly replicate it for mass production can simply use commodity flavor compounds.

[addaon]

> caffeine derived from coca leaves

Coca leaves contain various alkaloids, but not caffeine. Coca Cola gets its caffeine from (traditionally) kola nuts, and (today, presumedly) the usual industrial sources.

[atombender]

Not sure what happens with my brain there. I did indeed mean de-cocainized coca leaves, not caffeine.

[wrboyce]

Um… might want to double check your brain there!

[linsomniac]

You had better luck than I did, I tried my hand at making Open Cola, put around $300 into it (between the carbonization rig and essential oils primarily), and while I'd say it was "leaning towards coke", I would also definitely say that nobody would mistake it for coke.

[atombender]

I noticed it was incredibly important to get the recipe mixture exactly right, because even a slight measurement error resulted in weirdly wrong flavors.

I did my OpenCola experiment in the company office together with a colleague, and we ended up hooking it up to a beer tap, with a canister of CO2. I'm proud to say the whole office really got into it.

[umvi]

Some YouTuber basically reverse engineered it, and he found that the main thing contributed by the coca leaves were tannins.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TDkH3EbWTYc&t=209s

[rmunn]

Previous HN discussion here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46543509

[sieep]

Ive heard from others that this is how defense software engineering goes.

You write code for a certain part/spec that could go on a number of things (missle, airplane, etc). You dont know if your code will be used in a missile or not.