Unearthing one of the world's most closely guarded recipes

We've all been there. Trying to stay healthy but being caught off guard by that one treat you just can't resist. 

Whether it’s spying your favourite sweet or crisps as you queue to pay your petrol or the picture of a Big Mac luring you in as you drive down the motorway.

But what if you knew the exact recipe to make your favourite treats at home?

Well that’s most company’s worst nightmare and one global drinks brand in particular has kept their formula a closely guarded secret for so many years.

Coca-Cola, claim the original recipe of the soft drink lies underneath its US headquarters, hidden away from all to see.

Or at least until now...one man claims to have a copy of the original recipe in a new book set to be published.

Historian Mark Pendergrast says the recipe was handed down through the family of Frank Robinson, the commercial partner of chemist John Pemberton who first produced the drink in the summer of 1886.

The recipe appears in the third and latest edition of Pendergrast’s book For God, Country and Coca-Cola: The Definitive History of the Great American Soft Drink and the Company That Makes It.

The route the recipe took in making its way to Pendergrast is equally as fascinating.

The historian first came across the recipe when researching for the first edition of the book, via Frank Robinson II, the great-grandson of the original Frank Robinson, but Robinson Jnr refused to show it to him.

The ownership of the formula entered a legal battle during his divorce and it went to his sister Laura Robinson-Vanwagner when he died, who passed a photocopy on to the historian.

A number of alterations have been made to the original recipe, none more so than in 1903, when traces of cocaine were removed.

In somewhat of a coincidence another American Cliff Kluge, an antiques dealer from Georgia, is selling his own copy of a later version of the recipe he claims to have found in an old box of letters he’d bought at an estate sale.

He tried to sell it for $5million on eBay or allowed users to buy it outright for $15 million.

Not surprisingly the auction ended recently with no bids.

Coca-Cola has denied both claims.

If you could get your hands on the recipe of your favourite food or drink what would it be?

It would take a lot of money for us to share the recipe for our white puddings...who’s going to open the bidding?

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