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