00:00What if you could recreate the taste of Coca-Cola in your own kitchen, using nothing but chemistry
00:15and patience? The ingredients listed on a bottle tell only part of the story. A litre of Coke
00:21contains roughly 110 grams of sugar, caffeine, phosphoric acid, and caramel colouring. But
00:28the real mystery lies in the tiny 1% called natural flavours.
00:37For decades, that flavour formula has been one of the most closely guarded secrets in the world.
00:42The drink even uses a special coca leaf extract produced by a single licensed company in the United States.
00:49That extract is not available to the public, which makes copying Coke at home extremely difficult.
00:55One researcher, Mr. Armstrong, decided to crack the puzzle using mass spectrometry.
01:00This test breaks a substance into charged molecules and creates a chemical fingerprint.
01:05By comparing that fingerprint with different essential oils,
01:08he slowly built a recipe that mimicked the real drink without using any coca leaves.
01:13Step one, creating flavour solution.
01:27These oils are mixed in exact proportions.
01:30Just 20 millilitres of this blend is diluted into one litre of 95% ethanol and left to age for at least 24 hours.
01:37The mixture is incredibly concentrated.
01:40One batch can flavour nearly 5000 litres of cola.
01:44Step two, creating flavour.
01:46Solution B tannins turned out to be the missing piece.
02:00These are the same compounds that give tea and red wine their dry, slightly bitter finish.
02:05They do not appear in mass spectrometry, which is why early replicas tasted flat.
02:10Adding tannins finally delivered that cooling, authentic aftertaste.
02:15Step three, making one litre of cola.
02:19One, dissolve 104 grams of sugar in 100 to 200 millilitres of water.
02:25Two, add one milliliter of diluted solution A.
02:30Three, add 10 millilitres of solution B.
02:33Four, heat until almost boiling, then cool completely.
02:37Five, top up to one litre with cold sparkling water.
02:41The result, according to taste testers, is almost indistinguishable from the original drink.
02:47Once the initial ingredients are purchased, each litre costs only a few pennies to produce.
02:52Every ingredient in this recipe is legal and available online, but caution is essential.
02:57Many of the chemicals can be irritating when undiluted, so protective gloves and careful handling are a must.
03:04Science may not have unlocked Coca-Cola's official vault, but it has shown that with the right chemistry, the world's most famous flavour can be recreated drop by drop.
03:13The final part of the recipe is made up by drop.
03:23The end part of the recipe is made up by drop.
03:31The end part of the recipe is made up by drop.
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