Oct 12, 2026 · 1 hr 1 min · 13 segments
We discover what we believe might be the original recipe for Coca-Cola…and share it with you! When this episode first aired in 2011, it made international headlines. This, and another story about…
Ira GlassHost
John ReznikoffGuest
Mark PendergrastGuestPhil MooneyGuestJudy BealGuestSteve WarthGuestEric ChastainGuestMike SpearGuestDavid AmesGuest
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.
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.
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.
Uh, it's this carefully passed-on, you know, secret ritual, and that the formula is kept in a bank vault at SunTrust, which used to be the, uh, Georgia Trust Company.
It's just one of several commercials that, uh, have come out recently that poke fun at the myth of the super-secret formula while at the same time bolstering and selling that myth.
Coke even has this thrill ride at its museum in Atlanta, the World of Coca-Cola, where you follow two characters who are trying to unlock the secret formula for Coca-Cola.
And so, with all this money, all this energy, all these millions of dollars spent over the years to convince us of just how impossibly, importantly, iconically secret the formula to Coca-Cola is, it was a surprise when, uh, we stumbled across an article in Coke's hometown paper, the Atlanta Journal Constitution, February 18, 1979.
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.
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.
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.
Uh, it's this carefully passed-on, you know, secret ritual, and that the formula is kept in a bank vault at SunTrust, which used to be the, uh, Georgia Trust Company.
It's just one of several commercials that, uh, have come out recently that poke fun at the myth of the super-secret formula while at the same time bolstering and selling that myth.
Coke even has this thrill ride at its museum in Atlanta, the World of Coca-Cola, where you follow two characters who are trying to unlock the secret formula for Coca-Cola.
And so, with all this money, all this energy, all these millions of dollars spent over the years to convince us of just how impossibly, importantly, iconically secret the formula to Coca-Cola is, it was a surprise when, uh, we stumbled across an article in Coke's hometown paper, the Atlanta Journal Constitution, February 18, 1979.
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