Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, April 27, 1993 TAG: 9304270345
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: ATLANTA LENGTH: Medium
"The company will tell you that's not true, it's not the original," said writer Mark Pendergrast. "I think they love the mystique.
"You can't know for sure unless you look in that bank vault . . . but this is as close as anyone's come," said the free-lance journalist and former librarian whose forthcoming book is called "For God, Country and Coca-Cola."
Coke's insistence on secrecy about the 107-year-old recipe flavors intrigue surround- ing the world's best-selling soft drink.
The Coca-Cola Co. did, in fact, deny Pendergrast's claim. The writer said he found the recipe on a yellowed piece of paper marked "X" during research for his book about the Atlanta-based company.
Pendergrast spoke about the book last week from his home in Stowe, Vt. A native of Atlanta, he spent four years researching and writing the book, to be published next Tuesday by Charles Scribner's Sons.
Pendergrast was denied access to the head of Coke's technical division, where chemists develop the many flavors of Coke, but the company otherwise was helpful while he was doing his research.
Company officials didn't know he had the recipe until he finished writing the book.
"I'd been told they were difficult to work with, paranoid. But I didn't find that to be the case," Pendergrast said of Coca-Cola management. "I found them to be gracious and open, once I convinced them I planned to write a fair, objective book."
A Coca-Cola spokesman did not return telephone calls seeking comment on the book, though the company issued a statement disputing Pendergrast's claim about the recipe.
"The list of ingredients presented as the formula for Coca-Cola in this book is not accurate and is the latest in a long line of previous, unsuccessful attempts to reveal a 107-year-old mystery," the statement said.
Pendergrast was in company archives when he came across the formula in a packet of papers once belonging to John Pemberton, the Atlanta pharmacist who invented Coca-Cola in 1886. Among the documents was a page Pendergrast later determined to be the first recipe.
It included fluid extract of coca, or cocaine.
Pendergrast said he confirmed the recipe's authenticity with a former company employee, Mladin Zarubica, who was sent overseas during World War II to mix Coke for U.S. troops and the Allies' soldiers.
Whether Coke ever contained cocaine remains in dispute and the company won't confirm or deny it. But Pendergrast said he found transcripts from a federal tax lawsuit in the early 1900s raising the issue of Coke's claim to have medicinal qualities in which then-Coke President Asa Candler testified to the drug's presence.
Pendergrast said cocaine was removed from the mixture in about 1903, when Coke bowed to social and legal pressure.
Consumers worldwide were in an uproar when the company changed its formula in 1985 and introduced New Coke. But for years many recipe changes were made, apparently undetected, Pendergrast said.
\ Reputed recipe for original Coke\ Citrate caffeine, 1 oz.
Extract of vanilla, 1 oz.
Flavoring (see below), 2 1/2 oz.
Fluid extract of coca, 4 oz.
Citric acid, 3 oz.
Lime juice, 1 qt.
Sugar, 30 lbs.
Water, 2 1/2 gal.
Caramel, sufficient.
Mix caffeine, acid and lime juice in one quart boiling water; add vanilla and flavoring when cool. Let stand 24 hours.
Flavoring: Orange oil, lemon oil, nutmeg oil, cinnamon oil, coriander oil, neroli oil and 1 quart of alcohol.
by CNB