I was fascinated by a story which revealed the recipe for Coca Cola as one of my favorite pastimes as a child was literal Mom and Pop ice cream store run by two people I adored.
I can remember the hot summer 100 degree heat and their having air conditioning as you stood outside their little window waiting for a malt or ice cream cone.
One time they gave us an almost empty jar of banana flavored syrup and I thought that was the best of things in this world, and to this day I will still make homemade banana flavored ice cream as it made such an impression on me.
I have made all sorts of concoctions in my life from wines to sodas. There is just something American about putting things together like this and coming out with a potion that is an elixir of cullinary delights.
Root Beer is most interesting, to the natural foam which is carbonated by yeast like beer or sparkling wines, but the potion I have always wanted to know is not Coke, but Dr. Pepper, or more to the point, Mr. Pibb.
No self respecting Mr. Pibb drinker would ever descend to Dr. Pepper as they can taste the difference in Pepper has about one half the ingredients Dr. Pepper has in it. The problem is I have found the original recipe, but what is amusing in it, is if people understood that pepsin an original ingredient and it comes from animal stomachs in the purpose of breaking down protiens, all of a sudden drinking a beverage made from the stomach contents of a sheep or cow sort of makes one not that happy.
That is what a drug store was in the 1800's in a drug store that had soda's in carbonated waters to mix their concoctions with. One of my favorite old catalogues is a Sears Roebuck which has a host of narcotics in it in potions for women. The main ingredients are opium, codiene and alcohol. Strangely America seemed a great deal richer, a great deall happier and a great deal healthier when Sears Roebuck was your physician and a tablespoon of Dr. Quack to get you stoned made life a whole lot more less jail time or unhappy.
I had always been told the original Coke recipe which I post below, had coca leaf in it. Narcotics made a whole lot of broken down men and women going through the change soothed from the burdens of life.
Dr. Pepper was of that genre, but it was of the pepsin category for helping people with stomach problems, one again no doubt brought on by stress. That pepsin helped people digest food and that is what Pepsi is short for in pepsin.
My beloved Uncle years ago told me when he had the flu that Mello Yello was the best thing for stomach upset. I knew as a child of the horrors of 7 Up and Coke in making one feel like they wanted to puke more in drinking that with the flu, so when he said to try that orange based citric sour, I didn't exactly trust him.
I did though a few years later after a bad bout of influenza try it in desperation, and the old guy was right. Mixed with a great deal of ice, and sipped, that combination got me back on my feet more quickly than if I had just waited it out.
I have used weak vinegar and soda in water with success, but the sugars seem to give the body energy to recover.
So while I will keep this old dope recipe for Coke which is minus the dope, and still have that ancient Dr. Pepper recipe somewhere, I just still lust after Mr. Pibb in desiring to know what makes that potion so attractive to me.
The reality is though that some things in life are more desirable in being a mystery........so I never really did a chemical analysis of my favorite potion to create my own.
I do contemplate now though, what would Obama be if he was a soda?
Something thick and tasteless.........a sort of Islamosoda.
Coca Cola
The secret recipe
Fluid extract of Coca 3 drams USP
Citric acid 3 oz
Caffeine 1oz
Sugar 30 (it is unclear from the markings what quantity is required)
Water 2.5 gal
Lime juice 2 pints 1 qrt
Vanilla 1oz
Caramel 1.5oz or more to colour
7X flavour (use 2oz of flavour to 5 gals syrup):
Alcohol 8oz
Orange oil 20 drops
Lemon oil 30 drops
Nutmeg oil 10 drops
Coriander 5 drops
Neroli 10 drops
Cinnamon 10 drops
agtG
