The secret ingredients to Coke have been closely guarded for about 125 years. With the potent, sugary nectar as its cornerstone, the Atlanta-based soda company has crushed its competition and built a truly global empire. Myth says the Coke formula remains locked in a vault in Atlanta, with only two of the company's executives knowing its full contents at any given point in time.
Or maybe not.
Producers from This American Life (Who were you expecting, Wikileaks?) claim to have discovered the formula in a photograph of a handwritten copy of the original recipe. The photo appeared in a 1979 article in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, though no one realized the lineage of the recipe at the time.
Coca-Cola has since denied that their secrets have been spilled, but the producers tried their hand at making the pirated Coke and claim it's pretty damn close to the stuff you get in bottles.
The feds may come knocking eventually (we couldn't pull up the TAL website, but that could just be due to traffic...), but the secret's out and the Internet is forever. Check out the entire recipe reproduced below and do a taste test for yourself.
The Recipe:
