Coca-Cola's secret formula: Can you make it at home? [nutmeg, vanilla, cinnamon, etc...]

How's this possible? It's supposed to be a closely-guarded secret. In fact the secret ingredients have been publicly available since 1993.

This was when Mark Pendergrast first published his history of the company in the book For God, Country & Coca-Cola. The book had a surprising Appendix - because Mark had somehow stumbled on the list of special ingredients the company kept secret. So secret in fact that only two employees at any one time were supposed to know what they were.

In 1977 the company even stopped producing the drink in India when the Indian government insisted on seeing the formula for themselves.

While rooting around in the Coca-Cola archives in Atlanta, Pendergrast found himself looking at the laminated remains of a formula book which had been owned by Doctor J S Pemberton, the man who invented the drink. The book was famous within the company and Pendergrast couldn't believe he was looking at it.

In the 1940s Turner's son showed the page containing the Coke formula to a board member from the company who exclaimed "My God!" before continuing "Where did you get that?!"

That board member, Harrison Jones, then persuaded Turner's son to hand over the book, whereupon it was never seen again.

That was until Mark Pendergrast photocopied the page.

These were the ingredients he saw:

Extracts:
.
.
.
.

Flavouring:
Oil Orange 80
Oil Lemon 120
Oil Nutmeg 40
Oil Cinnamon 40
Oil Coriander 20
Oil Neroli 40
Alcohol 1 quart

That flavouring section, combined with the Vanilla extract is what is collectively known at the company as 7X - the ultra secret 7 things which make the flavour - the alcohol is only used to extract the flavours and doesn't end up in the final drink.

There is just one stumbling point with making your own Coke. It's basically impossible unless you have an agreement with a pharmaceutical processing company for the 'patent' ingredient.

[Source]