Secret ingredient

I bet you've never heard this one, right? From WBEZ Chicago, This American Life, I'm Ira Glass.

Probably the best story about how protective Coca-Cola is of its secret formula comes in this book that was written by Charles Howard Candler.

Uh, his, uh, dad, Asa, did not invent Coca-Cola but founded the Coca-Cola Company back in 1892.

And, uh, Charles, the son, uh, wrote this, "One of the proudest moments of my life came when my father initiated me into the mysteries of the secret flavoring formula, inducting me into the holy of holies." Uh, Charles then says, "Incredibly, there was no written formula, and the labels had been removed from all the containers of the ingredients, so they were, quote, 'Identified only by sight, smell, and remembering where each was put on the shelf.' And I thereupon experienced the thrill of making up, with his guidance, a batch of Merchandise 7X." Merchandise 7X.

Merchandise 7X is the cartoonishly super secret cloak-and-dagger name they give the flavoring mixture in Coca-Cola.

Charles' dad, um, Asa, was so paranoid about anybody else getting hold of the secret formula for 7X that even though he was president of Coca-Cola, he's president of the company, he would go through the company mail himself and remove the invoices for any ingredients that had been purchased so that nobody in the accounting department could read what ingredients had been bought for the product.

I learned all this, uh, from A History of Coca-Cola, a book written by investigative journalist and historian Mark Pendergrast.

The company has always said, and as far as I know it's true, that only two people at any given time know how to actually mix the 7X flavoring ingredient, and that these people never travel on the same airplane in case it crashes.

So Kentucky Fried Chicken had campaigns focusing on their chicken being more of a family meal that was quick and that everyone could enjoy, along with their mashed potatoes and gravy, buttermilk biscuits, and coleslaw.

What made Kentucky Fried Chicken the best, according to them, was their original recipe, a special blend of 11 herbs and spices called the Colonel's Secret Formula, which they would brag about in every commercial.

And it was said to make their chicken their slogan, which was Finger Lickin' Good, I kid you not.

[laughs] I guess you gotta get that last drop.