First catch your Kola...

Unbeknowst to many people the original recipe for the Coca-cola company's eponymous best-selling carbonated sugar drink was first published in Mrs. Beaton's famous nineteenth century cookbook "Good Housekeeping."

(For convenience I have converted the proportions into grammes as it is difficult these days to find acurate scales that will measure in 32nds of an ounce, let alone 'grains'.)

The following original recipe will produce approximately 1 gallon of syrup that
is very similar to that of modern Coca-Cola.

=-===Ingredients=-===

=-===Instructions=-===

1. Mix sugar with just enough water to dissolve (high-fructose corn syrup may be substituted for half the sugar).
2. Add caramel, caffeine and phosphoric acid
3. Extract the toluol
4. Discard the cocaine extract
5. Soak finely powedered coca leaves and kola nuts in 20 percent alcohol
6. After soaking, Discard the coca and the kola then add the liquid to the syrup
7. Add lime juice (a former ingredient, evidently, that Coca-Cola now denies)
or a substitute such as a water solution of citric acid sodium citrate at lime-juice strength
8. Mix together lemon oil, orange oil, lime oil, cassia oil, nutmeg oil
If desired also mix coriander, lavender and neroli oils
9. Add to 95 percent alcohol
10. Shake
11. Add 2.7g of water to the alcohol/oil mixture and let stand for twenty-four hours at approx 60 degrees Fahrenheit
12. A cloudy layer will separate.
13. Take off the clear part of the liquid only and add to the syrup
14. Add glycerin (from vegetable sources, not hog fat, so the drink can be sold to Orthodox Jews and Moslems) and vanilla extract
15. Add water (treated with chlorine) to make 1 gallon of syrup.
16. Yield (used to flavor carbonated water): 128 6.5-ounce bottles.

Remember -
Mrs Beaton says "Clear as you go!"
The Coca-cola corporation says "See you in court!"